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






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






3. A mirror that is curved such that its center is closer to the viewer than the edges - such as a doorknob. Convex mirrors reflect light away from a focal point.






4. 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






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






6. 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.






7. The current induced in a circuit by a change in magnetic flux.






8. The disorder of a system.






9. 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.






10. 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.






11. A vector quantity - - that reflects the change of angular displacement with time - and is typically given in units of rad/s. To find the direction of the angular velocity vector - take your right hand and curl your fingers along the particle or body






12. 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






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






14. A unit for measuring angles; also called a "rad." 2p rad = 360º.






15. A vector quantity - or vector - is an object possessing - and fully described by - a magnitude and a direction. Graphically a vector is depicted as an arrow with its magnitude given by the length of the arrow and its direction given by where the arro






16. The separation of different color light via refraction.






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






18. The ray of light that is refracted through a surface into a different medium.






19. The unit for measuring pressure. One Pascal is equal to one Newton per meter squared - 1 Pa = 1 N/m2.






20. Light such that all of the associated waves have the same wavelength and are in phase.






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






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

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23. A measure of force per unit area. Pressure is measured in N/m2 or Pa.






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






25. 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.






26. 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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27. 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 -






28. The energy of a particle moving in space. It is defined in s of a particle's mass - m - and velocity - v - as (1/2)mv2.






29. The square of the amplitude of a sound wave is called the sound's loudness - or volume.






30. Two oscillators that have the same frequency and amplitude - but reach their maximum displacements at different times - are said to have different phases. Similarly - two waves are in phase if their crests and troughs line up exactly - and they are o






31. A pendulum consists of a bob connected to a rod or rope. At small angles - a pendulum's motion approximates simple harmonic motion as it swings back and forth without friction.






32. With spherical mirrors - the radius of the sphere of which the mirror is a part.






33. The lowest theoretical temperature a material can have - where the molecules that make up the material have no kinetic energy. Absolute zero is reached at 0 K or -273º C.






34. Indicates how "bouncy" or "stiff" a spring is. More specifically - the spring constant - k - is the constant of proportionality between the restoring force exerted by the spring - and the spring's displacement from equilibrium. The greater the value






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






36. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






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






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






39. 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






40. The energy of a particle rotating around an axis.






41. 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.






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






43. 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 .






44. 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






45. Energy associated with the state of motion. The translational kinetic energy of an object is given by the equation .






46. The position - of an object according to a co-ordinate system measured in s of the angle of the object from a certain origin axis. Conventionally - this origin axis is the positive x-axis.






47. 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.






48. In oscillation - a cycle occurs when an object undergoing oscillatory motion completes a "round-trip." For instance - a pendulum bob released at angle has completed one cycle when it swings to and then back to again. In period motion - a cycle is the






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






50. A constant - - not to be confused with wavelength - that defines the speed at which a radioactive element undergoes decay. The greater is - the faster the element decays.