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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 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






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






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






4. A coefficient that tells how much the volume of a solid will change when it is heated or cooled.






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






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






7. 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 .






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






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






10. In an interference or diffraction pattern - the places where there is the most light.






11. 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 -






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






13. A wave on a string that is tied to a pole at one end will reflect back toward its source - producing a wave that is the mirror-image of the original and which travels in the opposite direction.






14. 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






15. A rigid body's resistance to being rotated. The moment of inertia for a single particle is MR2 - where M is the mass of the rigid body and R is the distance to the rotation axis. For rigid bodies - calculating the moment of inertia is more complicate






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






17. 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






18. 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.






19. 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.






20. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave trough for sound waves. The spacing between successive rarefactions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of rarefaction that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






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






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






25. Given the trajectory of an object or system - the center of mass is the point that has the same acceleration as the object or system as a whole would have if its mass were concentrated at that point. In terms of force - the center of mass is the poin






26. The phenomenon by which light traveling from a high n to a low n material will reflect from the optical interface if the incident angle is greater than the critical angle.






27. The acceleration of a body experiencing uniform circular motion. This acceleration is always directed toward the center of the circle.






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






29. The emf created by the motion of a charge through a magnetic field.






30. 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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31. 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.






32. The path of each planet around the sun is an ellipse with the sun at one focus.

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






34. 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.






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






36. 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






37. When a solid - liquid - or gas changes into another phase of matter.






38. 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






39. The number of cycles executed by a system in one second. Frequency is the inverse of period - f = 1/T. Frequency is measured in hertz - Hz.






40. 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.






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






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






43. The cancellation of one wave by another wave that is exactly out of phase with the first. Despite the dramatic name of this phenomenon - nothing is "destroyed" by this interference—the two waves emerge intact once they have passed each other.






44. 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






45. The center of a mirror or lens.






46. 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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47. The force between two surfaces moving relative to one another. The frictional force is parallel to the plane of contact between the two objects and in the opposite direction of the sliding object's motion.






48. The standing wave with the lowest frequency that is supported by a string with both ends tied down is called the fundamental - or resonance - of the string. The wavelength of the fundamental is twice the length of the string - .






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






50. To every action - there is an equal and opposite reaction. If an object A exerts a force on another object B - B will exert on A a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force exerted by A.

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