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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 device that breaks incoming light down into spectral rays - so that one can see the exact wavelength constituents of the light.






2. An object that moves about a stable equilibrium point and experiences a restoring force that is directly proportional to the oscillator's displacement.






3. A transfer of thermal energy from one system to another.






4. Energy associated with an object's position in space - or configuration in relation to other objects. This is a latent form of energy - where the amount of potential energy reflects the amount of energy that potentially could be released as kinetic e






5. The amount of error that's possible in a given measurement.






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






7. A push or a pull that causes an object to accelerate.






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

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9. 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.






10. The velocity at any given instant in time. To be contrasted with average velocity - which is a measure of the change in displacement over a given time interval.






11. The stable position of a system where the net force acting on the object is zero.






12. 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.






13. The process by which a gas turns directly into a solid because it cannot exist as a liquid at certain pressures.






14. In radioactive substances - the number of nuclei that decay per second. Activity - A - will be larger in large samples of radioactive material - since there will be more nuclei.






15. Essentially a restatement of energy conservation - it states that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the heat added plus the work done on the system.






16. A vector quantity - equal to the rate of change of the angular velocity vector with time. It is typically given in units of rad/s2.






17. The net change - - in a point's angular position - . It is a scalar quantity.






18. The state of a nonrotating object upon whom the net torque acting is zero.






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






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






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






22. An object is called radioactive if it undergoes radioactive decay.






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






24. A frequency - f - defined as the number of revolutions a rigid body makes in a given time interval. It is a scalar quantity commonly denoted in units of Hertz (Hz) or s-1.






25. The energy associated with the configuration of bodies attracted to each other by the gravitational force. It is a measure of the amount of work necessary to get the two bodies from a chosen point of reference to their present position. This point of






26. Heat transfer by molecular collisions.






27. 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.






28. When dealing with reflection or refraction - the incident ray is the ray of light before it strikes the reflecting or refracting surface.






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






30. The points of maximum negative displacement along a wave. They are the opposite of wave crests.






31. 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.






32. The building blocks of all matter - quarks are the constituent parts of protons - neutrons - and mesons.






33. A wave that interferes with its own reflection so as to produce oscillations which stand still - rather than traveling down the length of the medium. Standing waves on a string with both ends tied down make up the harmonic series.






34. A class of elementary particle whose mass is between that of a proton and that of an electron. A common kind of meson is the pion.






35. A scalar quantity. If an object is moved from point A to point B in space along path AB - the distance that the object has traveled is the length of the path AB. Distance is to be contrasted with displacement - which is simply a measure of the distan






36. In reference to oscillation - amplitude is the maximum displacement of the oscillator from its equilibrium position. Amplitude tells how far an oscillator is swinging back and forth. In periodic motion - amplitude is the maximum displacement in each






37. The distance between the focal point and the vertex of a mirror or lens. For concave mirrors and convex lenses - this number is positive. For convex mirrors and concave lenses - this number is negative.






38. 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.






39. A wave on a string that is tied to a pole at one end will reflect back toward its source - producing a wave that is the mirror-image of the original and which travels in the opposite direction.






40. A means of defining the direction of the cross product vector. To define the direction of the vector - position your right hand so that your fingers point in the direction of A - and then curl them around so that they point in the direction of B. Th






41. Light such that all of the associated waves have the same wavelength and are in phase.






42. The ray of light that is refracted through a surface into a different medium.






43. A system with many parts in periodic - or repetitive - motion. The oscillations in one part cause vibrations in nearby parts.






44. A negatively charged particle that orbits the nucleus of the atom.






45. A coefficient that tells how much a material will expand or contract lengthwise when it is heated or cooled.






46. Waves that oscillate in the same direction as the propagation of the wave. Sound is carried by longitudinal waves - since the air molecules move back and forth in the same direction the sound travels.






47. An electromagnetic wave of very high frequency.






48. Also called a diverging lens - a lens that is thinner in the middle than at the edges. Concave lenses refract light away from a focal point.






49. A wave with wave crests that propagate down the length of the medium - in contrast to stationary standing waves. The velocity at which a crest propagates is called the wave speed.






50. 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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