Test your basic knowledge |

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 property common to both vectors and scalars. In the graphical representation of a vector - the vector's magnitude is equal to the length of the arrow.






2. 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.






3. The separation of different color light via refraction.






4. The process by which a gas turns directly into a solid because it cannot exist as a liquid at certain pressures.






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


6. 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.






7. The amount of error that's possible in a given measurement.






8. A transfer of thermal energy from one system to another.






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






10. 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.






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






12. Heat transfer by molecular collisions.






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






14. The mass difference between a nucleus and the sum of the masses of the constituent protons and neutrons.






15. 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






16. A process that aligns a wave of light to oscillate in one dimension rather than two.






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






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






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






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






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






22. 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






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


24. In a right triangle - the sine of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the hypotenuse.






25. 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.






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






27. The model of the atom according to which negatively charged electrons orbit a positively charged nucleus. This model was developed by Ernest Rutherford in light of the results from his gold foil experiment.






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






29. When electromagnetic radiation shines upon a metal - the surface of the metal releases energized electrons. The way in which these electrons are released contradicts classical theories of electromagnetic radiation and supports the quantum view accord






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






31. 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.






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






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






34. The two shorter sides of a right triangle that meet at the right angle.






35. If a line is drawn from the sun to the planet - then the area swept out by this line in a given time interval is constant.


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


37. Body diagram- Illustrates the forces acting on an object - drawn as vectors originating from the center of the object.






38. 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






39. The particles and energy released by the fission or fusion of one atom may trigger the fission or fusion of further atoms. In a chain reaction - fission or fusion is rapidly transferred to a large number of atoms - releasing tremendous amounts of ene






40. 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.






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






42. 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.






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






44. 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.






45. The energy of the molecules that make up an object. It is related to heat - which is the amount of energy transferred from one object to another object that is a different temperature.






46. The dot product of the area and the magnetic field passing through it. Graphically - it is a measure of the number and length of magnetic field lines passing through that area. It is measured in Webers (Wb).






47. 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






48. The ray of light that is reflected from a mirror or other reflecting surface.






49. 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.






50. 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.