Cracking the SAT Physics Subject Test

The Skinny on Velocity Since velocity is defined as the change in position per second, we can say the following (for motion alon ...

in 1 minute and 20 seconds. Find her average speed and the magnitude of her average velocity. Here’s How to Crack It Average spe ...

ACCELERATION When you step on the gas pedal in your car, the car’s speed increases; step on the brake and the car’s speed decrea ...

Test will never use the term deceleration, as this is just a negative acceleration that slows an object’s speed. Notice that an ...

Spotting a police car ahead, the driver of the car in the previous example slows from 32 m/s to 20 m/s in 2 sec. Find the car’s ...

The Skinny on Acceleration Since acceleration is defined as the change in velocity per change in time, we can say the following: ...

UNIFORMLY ACCELERATED MOTION AND THE BIG FIVE The simplest type of motion to analyze is motion in which the acceleration is cons ...

Well, Well, What Do You Know? Each of the Big Five equations is missing one of the kinematic quantities, so always start by iden ...

An object with an initial velocity of 4 m/s moves along a straight axis under constant acceleration. Three seconds later, its v ...

A rock is dropped off a cliff that’s 80 m high. If it strikes the ground with an impact velocity of 40 m/s, what acceleration d ...

KINEMATICS WITH GRAPHS So far, we’ve dealt with kinematics problems algebraically, but for this test, you should also be able to ...

What does this graph tell us? It says that at time t = 0, the object was at x = 0. Then, in the next two seconds, its position c ...

during this time interval; that is, it moved in the negative x direction. The fact that v is negative also agrees with the obser ...

Note that the average velocity (or average speed) for the whole journey is not the same as taking the average of the velocities ...

Velocity vs. Time Let’s next consider an object moving along a straight axis in such a way that its velocity-versus-time graph l ...

Now notice that the ratio that defines the acceleration, ∆v/∆t, also defines the slope of the v versus t graph. Therefore The sl ...

We call this the signed area because regions below the horizontal axis are negative quantities (since the object’s velocity is n ...

Distance If we wish to find the distance traveled using a velocity vs. time graph, then all areas are considered to be positive. ...

The velocity of an object as a function of time is given by the following graph: At which point (A, B, C, D, or E) is the magni ...

The acceleration is equal to the slope of the velocity-versus-time graph. Although this graph is not composed of straight lines ...