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






2. 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.






3. 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.






4. The point of a mirror or lens where all light that runs parallel to the principal axis will be focused. Concave mirrors and convex lenses are designed to focus light into the focal point. Convex mirrors and concave lenses focus light away from the fo






5. 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 -






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






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






8. The coefficient of kinetic friction - - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the force of kinetic friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






9. The energy stored in a thermodynamic system.






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






11. A collision in which both kinetic energy and momentum are conserved.






12. 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






13. The force involved in beta decay that changes a proton to a neutron and releases an electron and a neutrino.






14. Linear momentum - p - commonly called "momentum" for short - is a vector quantity defined as the product of an object's mass - m - and its velocity - v.






15. 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.

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16. 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.






17. The amount of energy that metal must absorb before it can release a photoelectron from the metal.






18. A constant in the numerator of a formula.






19. In radioactive substances - the number of nuclei that decay per second. Activity - A - will be larger in large samples of radioactive material - since there will be more nuclei.






20. A rough approximation of how gases work - that is quite accurate in everyday conditions. According to the kinetic theory - gases are made up of tiny - round molecules that move about in accordance with Newton's Laws - and collide with one another and






21. 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






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






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






24. A transverse traveling wave created by the oscillations of an electric field and a magnetic field. Electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light - m/s. Examples include microwaves - X rays - and visible light.






25. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






26. 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.






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






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






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






30. 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






31. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






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






33. The effect of force on rotational motion.






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






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






36. 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.






37. 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.






38. When objects collide - each object feels a force for a short amount of time. This force imparts an impulse - or changes the momentum of each of the colliding objects. The momentum of a system is conserved in all kinds of collisions. Kinetic energy is






39. In the graphical representation of vectors - the tail of the arrow is the blunt end (the end without a point).






40. 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






41. An almost massless particle of neutral charge that is released along with a beta particle in beta decay.






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






43. 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






44. 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.






45. The unit of magnetic flux - equal to one T · m2.






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






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






48. The constant of proportionality in Newton's Law of Gravitation. It reflects the proportion of the gravitational force and - the product of two particles' masses divided by the square of the bodies' separation. N · m2/kg2.






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






50. A scale for measuring temperature - defined such that water freezes at 0ºC and boils at 100ºC. 0ºC = 273 K.