• 50 questions

Physics Major Field Test Practice

Unofficial practice questions in the six content areas of ETS's Major Field Test in Physics, mechanics to quantum.

A satellite moves in a circular orbit of radius r about a planet of mass M. What is its orbital speed?

Pick an answer, then press Check answer. Then you see Correct or Not quite, with the reason. Keys: A to D pick, Enter checks.

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Unofficial practice questions, not affiliated with ETS. Bank checked October 12, 2026.

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Classical mechanics and relativity 10

  • A ball is thrown horizontally at 15 m/s from the top of a 20 m cliff. Taking g = 10 m/s² and ignoring air resistance, how far from the base of the cliff does it land? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), kinematics, projectile motion. Wikipedia, "Projectile motion".
  • A glider on a frictionless track strikes an identical glider at rest in a perfectly elastic head-on collision. What happens? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), collisions; conservation laws. Wikipedia, "Elastic collision".
  • A mass on a spring moves in simple harmonic motion with amplitude 0.10 m and angular frequency 5.0 rad/s. What is its greatest speed? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), periodic/oscillatory motion. Wikipedia, "Simple harmonic motion".
  • A proton has rest energy 938 MeV and total energy 1,876 MeV. How fast is it moving? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), relativistic energy and momentum. Wikipedia, "Lorentz factor".
Show all 50 questions (46 more)

Classical mechanics and relativity, continued

  • A satellite moves in a circular orbit of radius r about a planet of mass M. What is its orbital speed? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), central forces and celestial mechanics, satellites. Wikipedia, "Circular orbit".
  • A thin uniform rod of mass M and length L has moment of inertia ML²/12 about a perpendicular axis through its center. What is it about a parallel axis through one end? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), rotation of rigid bodies about a fixed axis. Wikipedia, "Parallel axis theorem".
  • Kepler's second law says the line from the Sun to a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times. Which conservation law does it express? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), central forces and celestial mechanics, Kepler's laws. Wikipedia, "Kepler's laws of planetary motion".
  • Two events are separated by Δt in time and Δx in space. Which combination has the same value in every inertial frame? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), four-vectors; Lorentz transformations. Wikipedia, "Spacetime".
  • Two flashes of light happen at the same time but at different places in one inertial frame. What does an observer moving along the line between them measure? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), simultaneity. Wikipedia, "Relativity of simultaneity".
  • Which fictitious force in a rotating frame of reference acts only on bodies that move relative to the frame? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: I. Classical Mechanics and Relativity (~19%), noninertial frames. Wikipedia, "Coriolis force".

Electromagnetism 8

  • A battery of emf 12 V and internal resistance 1.0 Ω is connected across a 5.0 Ω resistor. What is the voltage across the battery's terminals? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), current, resistance and DC circuits (Ohm's law, Kirchhoff's laws). Wikipedia, "Internal resistance".
  • A capacitor is charged to voltage V and stores energy U. The voltage is then doubled. How much energy does it store now? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), capacitance. Wikipedia, "Capacitor".
  • A long solenoid has n turns per unit length and carries current I. What is the magnetic field inside it, far from the ends? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), magnetic fields in free space (Ampere's law). Wikipedia, "Solenoid".
  • A solid piece of metal carries a net charge and has reached electrostatic equilibrium. Where is the excess charge, and what is the electric field inside the metal? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), electrostatics, Gauss's law. Wikipedia, "Electrostatic induction".
  • A straight rod 0.50 m long moves at 4.0 m/s at right angles to its length and to a uniform magnetic field of 0.20 T. What emf appears between its ends? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), Faraday's law of induction and motional emf. Wikipedia, "Faraday's law of induction", motional emf.
  • An ideal transformer has 200 turns on its primary coil and 50 on its secondary. The primary is fed 240 V AC. What is the secondary voltage? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), AC circuits. Wikipedia, "Transformer".
  • In a plane electromagnetic wave in vacuum, how do the electric field, the magnetic field and the direction of travel lie? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), electromagnetic waves. Wikipedia, "Electromagnetic radiation".
  • Why can a static magnetic field never change the kinetic energy of a charged particle moving through it? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: II. Electromagnetism (~17%), Lorentz force law. Wikipedia, "Lorentz force".

Optics, waves, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics 9

  • 100 g of water at 80 °C is poured into 300 g of water at 20 °C in an insulated cup. What is the final temperature? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), calorimetry. Wikipedia, "Richmann's law".
  • A concave mirror has a focal length of 20 cm. An object stands 60 cm in front of it. Where is the image? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), geometrical optics. Wikipedia, "Curved mirror".
  • A diffraction grating with 500 lines per millimeter is lit at normal incidence by light of wavelength 500 nm. At what angle does the second-order maximum appear? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), diffraction. Wikipedia, "Diffraction grating".
  • An ideal gas with ratio of specific heats γ expands reversibly with no exchange of heat. Which quantity stays constant during the expansion? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), thermodynamic processes. Wikipedia, "Adiabatic process".
  • By the equipartition theorem, what is the molar heat capacity at constant volume of an ideal diatomic gas whose molecules translate and rotate but do not vibrate? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), statistical concepts; kinetic theory of gases. Wikipedia, "Equipartition theorem".
  • Heat flows of its own accord from a hot body to a cold one and never the other way. How does the second law of thermodynamics account for this? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), laws of thermodynamics; entropy. Wikipedia, "Second law of thermodynamics".
  • Light traveling in air reflects from the surface of a glass plate. What happens to the reflected wave's phase? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), interference; physical optics. Wikipedia, "Thin-film interference".
  • Light travels inside a material of refractive index 2.0 and meets a flat boundary with air. Beyond what angle of incidence is it totally reflected? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), geometrical optics. Wikipedia, "Total internal reflection".
  • Two tuning forks, one of 256 Hz and one of 259 Hz, sound together. How many beats are heard each second? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: III. Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (~18%), superposition; wave properties. Wikipedia, "Beat (acoustics)".

Quantum mechanics and atomic physics 12

  • A beam of electrons passes through a slit, and the slit is then made narrower. What does the uncertainty principle say about the beam beyond the slit? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Wikipedia, "Uncertainty principle".
  • A hydrogen atom emits a photon as its electron drops from n = 4 to n = 1. To which series does the line belong, and where in the spectrum does it lie? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), atomic spectra; Bohr model. Wikipedia, "Hydrogen spectral series".
  • A particle moving along a line has the normalized wave function ψ(x). What does |ψ(x)|² dx give? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics, wave function. Wikipedia, "Born rule".
  • A particle of energy E meets a barrier of finite width whose height V₀ is greater than E. What does quantum mechanics predict? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), Schrödinger equation solutions. Wikipedia, "Quantum tunnelling".
  • A system is in a state for which an energy measurement gives 2 eV with probability 1/4 and 6 eV with probability 3/4. What is the expectation value of the energy? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics, expectation values. Wikipedia, "Expectation value (quantum mechanics)".
  • Electrons are accelerated from rest through a potential difference V and stay nonrelativistic. If V is made four times as large, what happens to their de Broglie wavelength? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), de Broglie wavelength. Wikipedia, "Matter wave".
  • In Compton scattering from a free electron, the wavelength shift is (h/mc)(1 − cos θ), with h/mc = 2.43 pm. What is the shift for a photon scattered straight back? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), properties of photons; properties of electrons. Wikipedia, "Compton scattering".
  • In the Stern-Gerlach experiment a beam of silver atoms passed through a nonuniform magnetic field. What appeared on the screen, and what did it show? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), spin; atoms in electric and magnetic fields. Wikipedia, "Stern-Gerlach experiment".
  • Observables are represented by Hermitian operators. What does that guarantee about the results of measurement? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics, eigenvalues, operators. Wikipedia, "Observable".
  • The spectrum of an x-ray tube shows sharp peaks standing on a smooth continuum. What produces the sharp peaks? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), X rays; atomic spectra. Wikipedia, "Characteristic X-ray".
  • Under the Pauli exclusion principle, how many electrons can the n = 3 shell of an atom hold? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), Pauli exclusion principle; atomic structure. Wikipedia, "Electron shell".
  • Using hc = 1,240 eV·nm, what is the energy of a photon of wavelength 620 nm? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: IV. Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics (~23%), properties of photons. Wikipedia, "Photon energy".

Special topics 8

  • A detector records 100 counts from a steady source in one minute. If it counts for four minutes, how does the fractional statistical uncertainty of the total change? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), laboratory methods, counting statistics. Wikipedia, "Poisson distribution".
  • A nucleus of uranium-238 (Z = 92) emits an alpha particle. What is the daughter nucleus? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), nuclear and particle physics, radioactive decay. Wikipedia, "Alpha decay".
  • A radioactive isotope has half-life T. What is the mean lifetime of its nuclei? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), nuclear and particle physics, radioactive decay. Wikipedia, "Exponential decay".
  • A system has the Hamiltonian H(q, p). Which pair of equations gives its motion? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism (Hamilton's equations of motion). Wikipedia, "Hamiltonian mechanics".
  • How many lattice points belong to one conventional cubic cell of a face-centered cubic lattice? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), condensed matter physics, crystal structure. Wikipedia, "Cubic crystal system".
  • The proton is a baryon. What is its quark content? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), nuclear and particle physics, particles and interactions. Wikipedia, "Proton".
  • What condition must hold in the gain medium for a laser to amplify light? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), laboratory methods, lasers. Wikipedia, "Population inversion".
  • When the temperature rises, the resistance of a metal goes up but the resistance of a pure semiconductor goes down. Why does the semiconductor behave this way? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: V. Special Topics (~17%), condensed matter physics, semiconductors. Wikipedia, "Semiconductor".

Miscellaneous topics 3

  • An equation of motion is integrated on a computer by the Euler method. If the time step is halved, roughly what happens to the accumulated error at a fixed final time? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: VI. Miscellaneous Topics (~6%), computer applications. Wikipedia, "Euler method".
  • For |x| much less than 1, which expression approximates (1 + x)ⁿ to first order in x? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: VI. Miscellaneous Topics (~6%), mathematical methods. Wikipedia, "Binomial approximation".
  • What is the Chandrasekhar limit? ETS, Major Field Test in Physics test description: VI. Miscellaneous Topics (~6%), astrophysics. Wikipedia, "Chandrasekhar limit".

How this list was compiled: Our own questions, written to the test description ETS publishes for the Major Field Test in Physics (https://www.ets.org/content/dam/ets-org/pdfs/mft/physics-test-description.pdf, read 2026-10-12): Classical Mechanics and Relativity about 19%, Electromagnetism about 17%, Optics and Waves, Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics about 18%, Quantum Mechanics and Atomic Physics about 23%, Special Topics about 17%, Miscellaneous Topics about 6%. The bank holds 10, 8, 9, 12, 8 and 3 questions. Each fact or formula was read on 2026-10-12 in the Wikipedia article named under its question, and every answer that is arithmetic was worked out a second time. Licence: Questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.

How it works

Physics Major Field Test practice: 50 questions of our own in the six content areas ETS lists, classical mechanics to quantum mechanics and special topics, each with a worked answer. Unofficial, and not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by ETS.

Read the full guide

Six areas by weight

From ETS's test description, read October 12, 2026: classical mechanics and relativity about 19%, electromagnetism 17%, optics and waves with thermodynamics and statistical mechanics 18%, quantum mechanics and atomic physics 23%, special topics 17%, miscellaneous topics 6%. The bank splits 10, 8, 9, 12, 8 and 3.

Words, symbols, numbers

ETS also sorts questions by setting: verbal 25%, symbolic 25%, numerical 32%, graphical 10%, pictorial 8%. Being text, ours are 20 verbal, 8 symbolic and 22 numerical, with none on a graph or picture.

Half a sitting

Seventy questions fill two hours on the real test. The timed exam here sets 35 in 60 minutes.

  • Work these without a calculator, as on the real test. Each question states the constants it needs.
  • By ETS's count about a fifth of questions are recall, half apply one concept and a third combine two or more.

Questions and answers

What is on the Major Field Test in Physics?

70 multiple-choice questions, some in sets built on diagrams, graphs, experimental data or described physical situations. ETS says most can be answered from the first three years of undergraduate physics, and that the emphasis is on fundamental principles applied to problems.

How is the Major Field Test in Physics scored?

Students get a total score and two subscores: Introductory Physics, on mechanics, electromagnetism, optics and thermodynamics, and Advanced Physics, on quantum, special and miscellaneous topics. Five area indicators are reported for the group, when at least five students test.

Can you use a calculator on the physics Major Field Test?

You do not need one, ETS says, since questions are constructed to simplify the arithmetic. The test works mostly in SI units and supplies a table of physical constants and a few conversion factors.

Does this practice use ETS's sample questions?

No. The 50 questions were written for this page from the topic list in the test description, and each cites a public reference for its formula. None is one of the sample questions ETS posts, or a rewording of one.

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