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






2. The distance between the focal point and the vertex of a mirror or lens. For concave mirrors and convex lenses - this number is positive. For convex mirrors and concave lenses - this number is negative.






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






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






5. Occurs when every point in the rigid body moves in a circular path around a line called the axis of rotation.






6. 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.






7. Life- The amount of time it takes for one-half of a radioactive sample to decay.






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






9. The study of the properties of visible light - i.e. - the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths between 360 and 780 nm (1 nm = m/s).






10. An object at rest remains at rest - unless acted upon by a net force. An object in motion remains in motion - unless acted upon by a net force.


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






12. A mirror that is curved such that its center is farther from the viewer than the edges - such as the front of a spoon. Concave mirrors reflect light through a focal point.






13. 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.






14. 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.






15. 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.






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






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






18. A scalar quantity that tells us how fast an object is moving. It measures the rate of change in distance over time. Speed is to be contrasted with velocity in that there is no direction associated with speed.






19. An area of high air pressure that acts as the wave crest for sound waves. The spacing between successive compressions is the wavelength of sound - and the number of successive areas of compression that arrive at the ear per second is the frequency -






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






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






22. Heat transfer by molecular collisions.






23. A vector quantity defined as the rate of change of the velocity vector with time.






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






25. 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.






26. States that the current induced in a circuit by a change in magnetic flux is in the direction that will oppose that change in flux. Using the right-hand rule - point your thumb in the opposite direction of the change in magnetic flux. The direction y


27. A scalar quantity. If an object is moved from point A to point B in space along path AB - the distance that the object has traveled is the length of the path AB. Distance is to be contrasted with displacement - which is simply a measure of the distan






28. A principle derived by Werner Heisenberg in 1927 that tells us that we can never know both the position and the momentum of a particle at any given time.






29. The speed at which a wave crest or trough propagates. Note that this is not the speed at which the actual medium (like the stretched string or the air particles) moves.






30. 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.






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






32. The distance between successive wave crests - or troughs. Wavelength is measured in meters and is related to frequency and wave speed by = v/f.






33. A system with many parts in periodic - or repetitive - motion. The oscillations in one part cause vibrations in nearby parts.






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






35. 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






36. 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.






37. Heat transfer via electromagnetic waves.






38. 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.






39. 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






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






41. 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.






42. 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.






43. A transfer of thermal energy. We don't speak about systems "having" heat - but about their "transferring" heat - much in the way that dynamical systems don't "have" work - but rather "do" work.






44. 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).






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






46. The property of a vector that distinguishes it from a scalar: while scalars have only a magnitude - vectors have both a magnitude and a direction. When graphing vectors in the xy-coordinate space - direction is usually given by the angle measured cou






47. The movement of a rigid body's center of mass in space.






48. 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.






49. Another word for the frequency of a sound wave.






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