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






2. A pulley is a simple machine that consists of a rope that slides around a disk or block.






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






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






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






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






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






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






9. 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






10. A push or a pull that causes an object to accelerate.






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






12. The line that every particle in the rotating rigid body circles about.






13. 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.






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






15. 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






16. 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.

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17. 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.






18. 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.






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






20. An image created by a mirror or lens in such a way that light does not actually come from where the image appears to be.






21. 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






22. 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.






23. The net change - - in a point's angular position - . It is a scalar quantity.






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






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






27. 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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28. Given the period - T - and semimajor axis - a - of a planet's orbit - the ratio is the same for every planet.

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29. A machine that operates by taking heat from a hot place - doing some work with that heat - and then exhausting the rest of the heat into a cool place. The internal combustion engine of a car is an example of a heat engine.






30. 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






31. 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






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






33. 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






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






35. 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






36. Also called a converging lens - a lens that is thicker in the middle than at the edges. Convex lenses refract light through a focal point.






37. A form of radioactivity where an excited atom releases a photon of gamma radiation - thereby returning to a lower energy state. The atomic structure itself does not change in the course of gamma radiation.






38. 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).






39. Essentially a restatement of energy conservation - it states that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the heat added plus the work done on the system.






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






41. 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.






42. The number - N - of neutrons in an atomic nucleus.






43. A form of radioactive decay where a heavy element ejects a beta particle and a neutrino - becoming a lighter element in the process.






44. In the graphical representation of vectors - the tip of the arrow is the pointy end.






45. 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 -






46. 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.






47. 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.






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. 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.






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

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