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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 temperature at which a material will change phase from solid to liquid or liquid to solid.






2. The number of hydrogen atoms in one gram of hydrogen - equal to . When counting the number of molecules in a gas - it is often convenient to count them in moles.






3. 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






4. 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.






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. 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.






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






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


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






10. 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.






11. 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.






12. 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.






13. The principle stating that for any isolated system - linear momentum is constant with time.






14. A neutrally charged particle that - along with protons - constitutes the nucleus of an atom.






15. 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 .






16. 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.






17. 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.






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






19. In a right triangle - the tangent of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the side adjacent to the triangle.






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






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






22. For two given media - the smallest angle of incidence at which total internal reflection occurs.






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


24. The distance between successive wave crests - or troughs. Wavelength is measured in meters and is related to frequency and wave speed by = v/f.






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


26. For a gas held at constant pressure - temperature and volume are directly proportional.


27. 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.






28. 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.






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






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






31. Any vector can be expressed as the sum of two mutually perpendicular component vectors. Usually - but not always - these components are multiples of the basis vectors - and ; that is - vectors along the x-axis and y-axis. We define these two vectors






32. The position - of an object according to a co-ordinate system measured in s of the angle of the object from a certain origin axis. Conventionally - this origin axis is the positive x-axis.






33. 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.






34. A conserved scalar quantity associated with the state or condition of an object or system of objects. We can roughly define energy as the capacity for an object or system to do work. There are many different types of energy - such as kinetic energy -






35. 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.






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






37. 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.






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






39. An object that retains its overall shape - meaning that the particles that make up the rigid body stay in the same position relative to one another.






40. 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






41. 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.






42. The spectrum containing all the different kinds of electromagnetic waves - ranging in wavelength and frequency.






43. The bending of light at the corners of objects or as it passes through narrow slits or apertures.






44. 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.






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






46. 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.






47. A model for the atom developed in 1913 by Niels Bohr. According to this model - the electrons orbiting a nucleus can only orbit at certain particular radii. Excited electrons may jump to a more distant radii and then return to their ground state - em






48. 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.


49. The disorder of a system.






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