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






2. 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.






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






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






5. The amount of heat necessary to transform a solid at a given temperature into a liquid of the same temperature - or the amount of heat needed to be removed from a liquid of a given temperature to transform it into a solid of the same temperature.






6. 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.






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






8. 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






9. 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.






10. The property by which a changing current in one coil of wire induces an emf in another.






11. 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.






12. 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.






13. The force necessary to maintain a body in uniform circular motion. This force is always directed radially toward the center of the circle.






14. 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






15. 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.






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






18. The points midway between nodes on a standing wave - where the oscillations are largest.






19. The velocity at any given instant in time. To be contrasted with average velocity - which is a measure of the change in displacement over a given time interval.






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






21. 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.






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






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






24. When an object is held in circular motion about a massive body - like a planet or a sun - due to the force of gravity - that object is said to be in orbit. Objects in orbit are in perpetual free fall - and so are therefore weightless.






25. 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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26. The points of maximum negative displacement along a wave. They are the opposite of wave crests.






27. An object cannot be cooled to absolute zero.






28. When dealing with reflection or refraction - the incident ray is the ray of light before it strikes the reflecting or refracting surface.






29. 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.






30. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the displacement vector with time. It is to be contrasted with speed - which is a scalar quantity for which no direction is specified.






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






32. A constant - J · s - which is useful in quantum physics. A second constant associated with Planck's constant is .

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






34. 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






35. The five equations used to solve problems in kinematics in one dimension with uniform acceleration.






36. 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.






37. 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.






38. 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.






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






40. 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.






41. 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






42. 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






43. 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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44. The sum of a system's potential and kinetic energy. In many systems - including projectiles - pulleys - pendulums - and motion on frictionless surfaces - mechanical energy is conserved. One important type of problem in which mechanical energy is not






45. Two quantities are directly proportional if an increase in one results in a proportional increase in the other - and a decrease in one results in a proportional decrease in the other. In a formula defining a certain quantity - those quantities to whi






46. 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.






47. 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.






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

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49. The separation of different color light via refraction.






50. The mass number - A - is the sum of the number of protons and neutrons in a nucleus. It is very close to the weight of that nucleus in atomic mass units.