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SAT Subject Test: hysics

Subjects : sat, science, physics
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. The two shorter sides of a right triangle that meet at the right angle.






2. The ratio of the size of the image produced by a mirror or lens to the size of the original object. This number is negative if the image is upside-down.






3. The angle between a refracted ray and the line normal to the surface.






4. The substance that is displaced as a wave propagates through it. Air is the medium for sound waves - the string is the medium of transverse waves on a string - and water is the medium for ocean waves. Note that even if the waves in a given medium tra






5. The amount of heat necessary to transform a liquid at a given temperature into a gas of the same temperature - or the amount of heat needed to be taken away from a gas of a given temperature to transform it into a liquid of the same temperature.






6. The mass number - A - is the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in a nucleus. It is very close to the weight of that nucleus in atomic mass units.






7. A vector of magnitude 1 along one of the coordinate axes. Generally - we take the basis vectors to be and - the vectors of length 1 along the x- and y-axes - respectively.






8. Waves carried by variations in air pressure. The speed of sound waves in air at room temperature and pressure is roughly 343 m/s.






9. A pulley is a simple machine that consists of a rope that slides around a disk or block.






10. The force between two surfaces that are not moving relative to one another. The force of static friction is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and resists the force pushing or pulling on the object.






11. Relates the angle of incidence to the angle of refraction: .

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12. The name of an electron released from the surface of a metal due to the photoelectric effect.






13. The effect of force on rotational motion.






14. A small particle-like bundle of electromagnetic radiation.






15. In a right triangle - the sine of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.






16. An equation - PV = nRT - that relates the pressure - volume - temperature - and quantity of an ideal gas. An ideal gas is one that obeys the approximations laid out in the kinetic theory of gases.






17. The amount of heat of a material required to raise the temperature of either one kilogram or one gram of that material by one degree Celsius. Different units may be used depending on whether specific heat is measured in s of grams or kilograms - and






18. The lowest theoretical temperature a material can have - where the molecules that make up the material have no kinetic energy. Absolute zero is reached at 0 K or -273º C.






19. The property by which a charge moving in a magnetic field creates an electric field.






20. The model of the atom according to which negatively charged electrons orbit a positively charged nucleus. This model was developed by Ernest Rutherford in light of the results from his gold foil experiment.






21. A collision in which momentum is conserved but kinetic energy is not.






22. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






23. A principle derived by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 that tells us that we can never know both the position and the momentum of a particle at any given time.






24. A unit of measurement for energy on atomic levels. 1 eV = J.






25. Waves produced by a source that is moving with respect to the observer will seem to have a higher frequency and smaller wavelength if the motion is towards the observer - and a lower frequency and longer wavelength if the motion is away from the obse






26. The energy stored in a thermodynamic system.






27. The straight line that runs through the focal point and the vertex of a mirror or lens.






28. A quantity that possesses a magnitude but not a direction. Mass and length are common examples.






29. A property of a metal - the minimum frequency of electromagnetic radiation that is necessary to release photoelectrons from that metal.






30. A mirror that is curved such that its center is closer to the viewer than the edges - such as a doorknob. Convex mirrors reflect light away from a focal point.






31. The line that every particle in the rotating rigid body circles about.






32. Given the trajectory of an object or system - the center of mass is the point that has the same acceleration as the object or system as a whole would have if its mass were concentrated at that point. In terms of force - the center of mass is the poin






33. The amount of heat necessary for a material undergoing sublimation to make a phase change from gas to solid or solid to gas - without a change in temperature.






34. F = ma. The net force - F - acting on an object causes the object to accelerate - a. The magnitude of the acceleration is directly proportional to the net force on the object and inversely proportional to the mass - m - of the object.

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35. A form of vector multiplication - where two vectors are multiplied to produce a scalar. The dot product of two vectors - A and B - is expressed by the equation A · B = AB cos .






36. The force that causes simple harmonic motion. The restoring force is always directed toward an object's equilibrium position.






37. Another word for the frequency of a sound wave.






38. The force between two surfaces moving relative to one another. The frictional force is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and in the opposite direction of the sliding object's motion.






39. The line perpendicular to a surface. There is only one normal for any given surface.






40. The coefficient of static friction - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the maximum force of static friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






41. A unit of force: 1 N is equivalent to a 1 kg · m/s2.






42. A number - Z - associated with the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom. Every element can be defined in s of its atomic number - since every atom of a given element has the same number of protons.






43. Kinematics is the study and description of the motion of objects.






44. The constant of proportionality in Newton's Law of Gravitation. It reflects the proportion of the gravitational force and - the product of two particles' masses divided by the square of the bodies' separation. N · m2/kg2.






45. The square of the amplitude of a sound wave is called the sound's loudness - or volume.






46. A law - || = - which states that the induced emf is the change in magnetic flux in a certain time.

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47. The points of maximum displacement along a wave. In traveling waves - the crests move in the direction of propagation of the wave. The crests of standing waves - also called anti-nodes - remain in one place.






48. The index of refraction n = c/v of a substance characterizes the speed of light in that substance - v. It also characterizes - by way of Snell's Law - the angle at which light refracts in that substance.






49. The angle between a reflected ray and the normal.






50. A rigid body's resistance to being rotated. The moment of inertia for a single particle is MR2 - where M is the mass of the rigid body and R is the distance to the rotation axis. For rigid bodies - calculating the moment of inertia is more complicate