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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. In oscillation - a cycle occurs when an object undergoing oscillatory motion completes a "round-trip." For instance - a pendulum bob released at angle has completed one cycle when it swings to and then back to again. In period motion - a cycle is the






2. The points on a standing wave where total destructive interference causes the medium to remain fixed at its equilibrium position.






3. 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






4. 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.






5. Energy cannot be made or destroyed; energy can only be changed from one place to another or from one form to another.






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






7. The units of frequency - defined as inverse-seconds (1 Hz = 1 s-1). "Hertz" can be used interchangeably with "cycles per second."






8. A positively charged particle that - along with the neutron - occupies the nucleus of the atom.






9. 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






10. 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.






11. 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.






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






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






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






15. 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






16. When a light ray strikes a surface - the angle of incidence is the angle between the incident ray and the normal.






17. A nuclear reaction that takes place only at very high temperatures. Two light atoms - often hydrogen - fuse together to form a larger single atom - releasing a vast amount of energy in the process.






18. 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.






19. 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.






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






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

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22. 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.






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






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






25. A wavelength - given by = h/mv - which is associated with matter. Louis de Broglie proposed the idea that matter could be treated as waves in 1923 and applied this theory successfully to small particles like electrons.






26. 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






27. 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.






28. 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.






29. 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.






30. The force that binds protons and neutrons together in the atomic nucleus.






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






32. A device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy by rotating a coil in a magnetic field; sometimes called a "dynamo."






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






34. A property of a metal - the minimum frequency of electromagnetic radiation that is necessary to release photoelectrons from that metal.






35. 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 .






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






37. 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.






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






39. Two materials are in thermal equilibrium if they are at the same temperature.






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

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






42. 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.






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






44. Heat transfer via electromagnetic waves.






45. 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.






46. The principle by which the displacements from different waves traveling in the same medium add up. Superposition is the basis for interference.






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






48. The ratio of the size of the image produced by a mirror or lens to the size of the original object. This number is negative if the image is upside-down.






49. 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.






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