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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. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does actually come from where the image appears to be. If you place a screen in front of a real image - the image will be projected onto the screen.






2. A body or set of bodies that we choose to analyze as a group.






3. A coefficient that tells how much the volume of a solid will change when it is heated or cooled.






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






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






6. The property of a vector that distinguishes it from a scalar: while scalars have only a magnitude - vectors have both a magnitude and a direction. When graphing vectors in the xy-coordinate space - direction is usually given by the angle measured cou






7. For a gas held at a constant temperature - pressure and volume are inversely proportional.

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8. A form of radioactive decay where a heavy element ejects a beta particle and a neutrino - becoming a lighter element in the process.






9. When a solid - liquid - or gas changes into another phase of matter.






10. 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






11. The center of a mirror or lens.






12. 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.






13. When two waves of slightly different frequencies interfere with one another - they produce a "beating" interference pattern that alternates between constructive (in-phase) and destructive (out-of-phase). In the case of sound waves - this sort of inte






14. When objects collide - each object feels a force for a short amount of time. This force imparts an impulse - or changes the momentum of each of the colliding objects. The momentum of a system is conserved in all kinds of collisions. Kinetic energy is






15. A logorithmic unit for measuring the volume of sound - which is the square of the amplitude of sound waves.






16. Represented by R = 8.31 J/mol · K - the universal gas constant fits into the ideal gas law so as to relate temperature to the average kinetic energy of gas molecules.






17. Energy associated with the state of motion. The translational kinetic energy of an object is given by the equation .






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






19. 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.






20. 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.






21. The number - N - of neutrons in an atomic nucleus.






22. A reference frame in which Newton's First Law is true. Two inertial reference frames move at a constant velocity relative to one another. According to the first postulate of Einstein's theory of special relativity - the laws of physics are the same i






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






24. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the displacement vector with time. It is to be contrasted with speed - which is a scalar quantity for which no direction is specified.






25. The speed at which a wave crest or trough propagates. Note that this is not the speed at which the actual medium (like the stretched string or the air particles) moves.






26. 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.






27. Given the period - T - and semimajor axis - a - of a planet's orbit - the ratio is the same for every planet.

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






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






30. 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.






31. A scale for measuring temperature - defined such that water freezes at 0ºC and boils at 100ºC. 0ºC = 273 K.






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






33. 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.






34. 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.






35. States that the current induced in a circuit by a change in magnetic flux is in the direction that will oppose that change in flux. Using the right-hand rule - point your thumb in the opposite direction of the change in magnetic flux. The direction y

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36. 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






37. The movement of a rigid body's center of mass in space.






38. The unit of magnetic flux - equal to one T · m2.






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






40. A wedge or a slide. The dynamics of objects sliding down inclined planes is a popular topic on SAT II Physics.






41. 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






42. 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






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






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






45. To every action - there is an equal and opposite reaction. If an object A exerts a force on another object B - B will exert on A a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted by A.

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46. The force necessary to maintain a body in uniform circular motion. This force is always directed radially toward the center of the circle.






47. A back-and-forth movement about an equilibrium position. Springs - pendulums - and other oscillators experience harmonic motion.






48. 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.






49. Atoms of the same element may have different numbers of neutrons and therefore different masses. Atoms of the same element but with different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes of the same element.






50. A form of vector multiplication - where two vectors are multiplied to produce a third vector. The cross product of two vectors - A and B - separated by an angle - - is - where is a unit vector perpendicular to both A and B. To deine which direction