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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 number of digits that have been accurately measured. When combining several measurements in a formula - the resulting calculation can only have as many significant digits as the measurement that has the smallest number of significant digits.






2. The tendency of an object to remain at a constant velocity - or its resistance to being accelerated. Newton's First Law is alternatively called the Law of Inertia because it describes this tendency.






3. 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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4. 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






5. The building blocks of all matter - atoms are made up of a nucleus consisting of protons and neutrons - and a number of electrons that orbit the nucleus. An electrically neutral atom has as many protons as it has electrons.






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






7. An electromagnetic wave of very high frequency.






8. 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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9. The phenomenon of light bouncing off a surface - such as a mirror.






10. 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






11. 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.






12. 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.






13. For a heat engine - the ratio of work done by the engine to heat intake. Efficiency is never 100%.






14. For an oscillating spring - the restoring force exerted by the spring is directly proportional to the displacement. That is - the more the spring is displaced - the stronger the force that will pull toward the equilibrium position. This law is expres

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15. 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.






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






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






18. The center of a mirror or lens.






19. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






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






21. 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.






22. 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






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






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






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






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






27. 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.






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






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






30. The motion of a body in a circular path with constant speed.






31. A constant in the numerator of a formula.






32. The center of an atom - where the protons and neutrons reside. Electrons then orbit this nucleus.






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






34. 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






35. 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.






36. An equation - PV = nRT - that relates the pressure - volume - temperature - and quantity of an ideal gas. An ideal gas is one that obeys the approximations laid out in the kinetic theory of gases.






37. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






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






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






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






41. The force that causes simple harmonic motion. The restoring force is always directed toward an object's equilibrium position.






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






43. 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.






44. A vector quantity - - that reflects the change of angular displacement with time - and is typically given in units of rad/s. To find the direction of the angular velocity vector - take your right hand and curl your fingers along the particle or body






45. The amount of heat of a material required to raise the temperature of either one kilogram or one gram of that material by one degree Celsius. Different units may be used depending on whether specific heat is measured in s of grams or kilograms - and






46. 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.






47. 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






48. 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.






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






50. 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.