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. Heat transfer via the mass movement of molecules.






2. 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.






3. Defined as the rate at which work is done - or the rate at which energy is transformed. P is measured in joules per second (J/s) - or watts (W).






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






5. A device that breaks incoming light down into spectral rays - so that one can see the exact wavelength constituents of the light.






6. The principle by which the displacements from different waves traveling in the same medium add up. Superposition is the basis for interference.






7. A particle - which consists of two protons and two neutrons. It is identical to the nucleus of a helium atom and is ejected by heavy particles undergoing alpha decay.






8. 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.






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






10. 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






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






12. An experiment by Ernest Rutherford that proved for the first time that atoms have nuclei.






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






14. The coefficient of static friction - for two materials is the constant of proportionality between the normal force and the maximum force of static friction. It is always a number between zero and one.






15. 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.






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






17. A negatively charged particle that orbits the nucleus of the atom.






18. 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.






19. 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


20. Waves in which the medium moves in the direction perpendicular to the propagation of the wave. Waves on a stretched string - water waves - and electromagnetic waves are all examples of transverse waves.






21. In the Bohr model of the atom - the state in which an electron has the least energy and orbits closest to the nucleus.






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






23. A sheet - film - or screen with a pattern of equally spaced slits. Typically the width of the slits and space between them is chosen to generate a particular diffraction pattern.






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






25. Waves that oscillate in the same direction as the propagation of the wave. Sound is carried by longitudinal waves - since the air molecules move back and forth in the same direction the sound travels.






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






27. A wave with wave crests that propagate down the length of the medium - in contrast to stationary standing waves. The velocity at which a crest propagates is called the wave speed.






28. The force transmitted along a rope or cable.






29. A vector quantity - commonly denoted by the vector s - which reflects an object's change in spatial position. The displacement vector points from the object's starting position to the object's current position in space. If an object is moved from poi






30. The center of a mirror or lens.






31. The substance that is displaced as a wave propagates through it. Air is the medium for sound waves - the string is the medium of transverse waves on a string - and water is the medium for ocean waves. Note that even if the waves in a given medium tra






32. 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.






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






34. 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.






35. 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.






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






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






38. 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.

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


39. A small particle-like bundle of electromagnetic radiation.






40. In a right triangle - the tangent of a given angle is the length of the side opposite the angle divided by the length of the side adjacent to the triangle.






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






42. The energy stored in a thermodynamic system.






43. The process by which a solid turns directly into gas - because it cannot exist as a liquid at a certain pressure.






44. An object that retains its overall shape - meaning that the particles that make up the rigid body stay in the same position relative to one another.






45. A collision in which both kinetic energy and momentum are conserved.






46. The gravitational force exerted on a given mass.






47. The emf created by the motion of a charge through a magnetic field.






48. The bending of light as it passes from one medium to another. Light refracts toward the normal when going from a less dense medium into a denser medium and away from the normal when going from a denser medium into a less dense medium.






49. A device made of two coils - which converts current of one voltage into current of another voltage. In a step-up transformer - the primary coil has fewer turns than the secondary - thus increasing the voltage. In a step-down transformer - the seconda






50. When two waves of slightly different frequencies interfere with one another - they produce a "beating" interference pattern that alternates between constructive (in-phase) and destructive (out-of-phase). In the case of sound waves - this sort of inte