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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 measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a system. Temperature is related to heat by the specific heat of a given substance.






2. 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






3. Objects that experience oscillatory or simple harmonic motion when distorted. Their motion is described by Hooke's Law.






4. A force caused by the roughness of two materials in contact - deformations in the materials - and a molecular attraction between the materials. Frictional forces are always parallel to the plane of contact between two surfaces and opposite the direct






5. 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.






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






7. 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.






8. The center of a mirror or lens.






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






10. The energy of a particle moving in space. It is defined in s of a particle's mass - m - and velocity - v - as (1/2)mv2.






11. 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.






12. The force involved in beta decay that changes a proton to a neutron and releases an electron and a neutrino.






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






14. An experiment by Ernest Rutherford that proved for the first time that atoms have nuclei.






15. The time - T - required for a rigid body to complete one revolution.






16. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the velocity vector with time.






17. 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






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






19. The unit for measuring pressure. One Pascal is equal to one Newton per meter squared - 1 Pa = 1 N/m2.






20. If the net torque acting on a rigid body is zero - then the angular momentum of the body is constant or conserved.






21. 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.






22. The reaction force of the ground - a table - etc. - when an object is placed upon it. The normal force is a direct consequence of Newton's Third Law: when an object is placed on the ground - the ground pushes back with the same force that it is pushe






23. 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.






24. An almost massless particle of neutral charge that is released along with a beta particle in beta decay.






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






26. 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 .






27. The force of gravity - F - between two particles of mass and - separated by a distance r - has a magnitude of - where G is the gravitational constant. The force is directed along the line joining the two particles.

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






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






30. The process by which a solid turns directly into gas - because it cannot exist as a liquid at a certain pressure.






31. 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.






32. When an object is held in circular motion about a massive body - like a planet or a sun - due to the force of gravity - that object is said to be in orbit. Objects in orbit are in perpetual free fall - and so are therefore weightless.






33. States that the net work done on an object is equal to the object's change in kinetic energy.






34. Waves in which the medium moves in the direction perpendicular to the propagation of the wave. Waves on a stretched string - water waves - and electromagnetic waves are all examples of transverse waves.






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






36. The amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. 1 cal = 4.19 J.






37. A vector quantity - L - that is the rotational analogue of linear momentum. For a single particle - the angular momentum is the cross product of the particle's displacement from the axis of rotation and the particle's linear momentum - . For a rigid






38. 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.






39. A device made of two coils - which converts current of one voltage into current of another voltage. In a step-up transformer - the primary coil has fewer turns than the secondary - thus increasing the voltage. In a step-down transformer - the seconda






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






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






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






43. A transfer of thermal energy. We don't speak about systems "having" heat - but about their "transferring" heat - much in the way that dynamical systems don't "have" work - but rather "do" work.






44. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does not actually come from where the image appears to be.






45. Occurs when every point in the rigid body moves in a circular path around a line called the axis of rotation.






46. A machine that operates by taking heat from a hot place - doing some work with that heat - and then exhausting the rest of the heat into a cool place. The internal combustion engine of a car is an example of a heat engine.






47. 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






48. The temperature at which a material will change phase from liquid to gas or gas to liquid.






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






50. The energy stored in a thermodynamic system.