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 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.






2. The amount of heat necessary for a material undergoing sublimation to make a phase change from gas to solid or solid to gas - without a change in temperature.






3. The standing wave with the lowest frequency that is supported by a string with both ends tied down is called the fundamental - or resonance - of the string. The wavelength of the fundamental is twice the length of the string - .






4. 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






5. 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.






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






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






8. 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.






9. 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






10. 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






11. 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 -






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






13. 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






14. A vector quantity - equal to the rate of change of the angular velocity vector with time. It is typically given in units of rad/s2.






15. The center of a mirror or lens.






16. 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.






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






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






19. The amount of error that's possible in a given measurement.






20. 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.






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






22. 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






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

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


24. 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.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


25. 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






26. 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.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


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






28. 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.






29. A wave that interferes with its own reflection so as to produce oscillations which stand still - rather than traveling down the length of the medium. Standing waves on a string with both ends tied down make up the harmonic series.






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






31. 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.






32. 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 -






33. 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.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


34. For a gas held at a constant temperature - pressure and volume are inversely proportional.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


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






36. A collision in which the colliding particles stick together.






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






38. A transfer of thermal energy from one system to another.






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






40. The separation of different color light via refraction.






41. The model of the atom according to which negatively charged electrons orbit a positively charged nucleus. This model was developed by Ernest Rutherford in light of the results from his gold foil experiment.






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






43. 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.






44. 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.






45. The energy of the molecules that make up an object. It is related to heat - which is the amount of energy transferred from one object to another object that is a different temperature.






46. 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






47. 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






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






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






50. 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).