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

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2. The process by which unstable nuclei spontaneously release particles and/or energy so as to come to a more stable arrangement. The most common forms of radioactive decay are alpha decay - beta decay - and gamma decay.






3. An electromagnetic wave of very high frequency.






4. A constant - - not to be confused with wavelength - that defines the speed at which a radioactive element undergoes decay. The greater is - the faster the element decays.






5. The energy of the molecules that make up an object. It is related to heat - which is the amount of energy transferred from one object to another object that is a different temperature.






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






7. Life- The amount of time it takes for one-half of a radioactive sample to decay.






8. In an interference or diffraction pattern - the places where there is the least light.






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






10. 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.






11. If two systems - A and B - are in thermal equilibrium and if B and C are also in thermal equilibrium - then systems A and C are necessarily in thermal equilibrium.






12. An object at rest remains at rest - unless acted upon by a net force. An object in motion remains in motion - unless acted upon by a net force.

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13. Two quantities are directly proportional if an increase in one results in a proportional increase in the other - and a decrease in one results in a proportional decrease in the other. In a formula defining a certain quantity - those quantities to whi






14. In an interference or diffraction pattern - the places where there is the most light.






15. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave trough for sound waves. The spacing between successive rarefactions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of rarefaction that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






16. A positively charged particle that - along with the neutron - occupies the nucleus of the atom.






17. A vector quantity - or vector - is an object possessing - and fully described by - a magnitude and a direction. Graphically a vector is depicted as an arrow with its magnitude given by the length of the arrow and its direction given by where the arro






18. With spherical mirrors - the center of the sphere of which the mirror is a part. All of the normals pass through it.






19. 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.






20. A unit for measuring angles; also called a "rad." 2p rad = 360º.






21. The joule (J) is the unit of work and energy. A joule is 1 N · m or 1 kg · m2/s2.






22. The points on a standing wave where total destructive interference causes the medium to remain fixed at its equilibrium position.






23. 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






24. The application of kinematics to understand why objects move the way they do. More precisely - dynamics is the study of how forces cause motion.






25. The series of standing waves supported by a string with both ends tied down. The first member of the series - called the fundamental - has two nodes at the ends and one anti-node in the middle. The higher harmonics are generated by placing an integra






26. A unit vector is a vector with length 1.






27. A measurement of a body's inertia - or resistance to being accelerated.






28. Two quantities are inversely proportional if an increase in one results in a proportional decrease in the other - and a decrease in one results in a proportional increase in the other. In a formula defining a certain quantity - those quantities to wh






29. For a reflected light ray - . In other words - a ray of light reflects of a surface in the same plane as the incident ray and the normal - and at an angle to the normal that is equal to the angle between the incident ray and the normal.






30. In the graphical representation of vectors - the tail of the arrow is the blunt end (the end without a point).






31. 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.






32. The cancellation of one wave by another wave that is exactly out of phase with the first. Despite the dramatic name of this phenomenon - nothing is "destroyed" by this interference—the two waves emerge intact once they have passed each other.






33. The cosine of an angle in a right triangle is equal to the length of the side adjacent to the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.






34. The energy stored in a thermodynamic system.






35. The experience of being in free fall. If you are in a satellite - elevator - or other free-falling object - then you have a weight of zero Newtons relative to that object.






36. A nuclear reaction in which a high-energy neutron bombards a heavy - unstable atomic nucleus - causing it to split into two smaller nuclei - and releasing some neutrons and a vast amount of energy at the same time






37. The particles and energy released by the fission or fusion of one atom may trigger the fission or fusion of further atoms. In a chain reaction - fission or fusion is rapidly transferred to a large number of atoms - releasing tremendous amounts of ene






38. 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.






39. Heat transfer by molecular collisions.






40. 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.






41. Done when energy is transferred by a force. The work done by a force F in displacing an object by s is W = F · s.






42. The amplification of one wave by another - identical wave of the same sign. Two constructively interfering waves are said to be "in phase."






43. The amount heat necessary to cause a substance to undergo a phase transition.






44. A particle - identical to an electron. Beta particles are ejected from an atom in the process of beta decay.






45. A vector quantity defined as the product of the force acting on a body multiplied by the time interval over which the force is exerted.






46. 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.






47. An experiment in 1879 that showed that the speed of light is constant to all observers. Einstein used the results of this experiment as support for his theory of special relativity.






48. A measure of force per unit area. Pressure is measured in N/m2 or Pa.






49. A mirror that is curved such that its center is farther from the viewer than the edges - such as the front of a spoon. Concave mirrors reflect light through a focal point.






50. Two oscillators that have the same frequency and amplitude - but reach their maximum displacements at different times - are said to have different phases. Similarly - two waves are in phase if their crests and troughs line up exactly - and they are o