<p>my teacher is still wrapping up mechanics and the AP test is only 3 months away. is it possible to start self-studying with barron's, or should I wait for the rest of my class? i'm pretty good at understanding physics concepts, so is it still possible for me to get a 5?</p>
<p>I am also self-studying Physics C E&M but I musdt warn you. It is not easy. While Barron's is good (it is what I use) I found that I could not understand from it. Get a book like the amazing Resnick and Halliday and study from it, then do the corresponding Barron's chapter. However, note that this will be time consuming, and you will probably have to sacrifice a bit on others if you are determined. But there is no saying that it cannot be done.</p>
<p>Agreed. We started E&M in our C class a month ago, and it's hard.</p>
<p>Princeton Review seems to do a good job as well, but the sample problems are a tad easy.</p>
<p>The AP Physics teacher spends the entire year teaching Mechanics; they go way in-depth. My friend is really glad that they only do half, because if they did both sections, they'd have to move at warp speed to get it all in (much like the Physics B Kids)</p>
<p>is it too late to start studying for e&m?
I still have to finish mech too...im really behind...but im self studying whole thing...thnxx</p>
<p>Doing E&M in 3 months would be tough, but not unreasonable if you're really willing to put in some time. Make sure you find a good, reasonably succinct textbook. Do not get the text written by Randall Knight. That thing is absolutely terrible for E&M and the author has, like, 10 cats, according to the little brief biography. If you're looking for a prep book, I thought Princeton Review was very good.</p>
<p>cool, thanks everyone. luckily my school already uses resnick and halliday, so I just started using that in combation with barrons. For anybody else whos self-studying, I also stumbled upon these awesome video lectures at MIT OCW: </p>
<p>which topics/areas are tested most frequently on the AP exam? also, which ones are the most difficult to understand?</p>
<p>Rhapsody: I'm self-studying Physics C M and EM by only using PR. I'm almost done with M, but I haven't started on EM yet. I briefly looked at the EM section on PR; it looked really difficult. Approximately how many hours should be spent each day and each week until May?</p>
<p>I wrote a really nice, long reply, and then clicked the wrong button and lost it. I hate it when that happens. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly how long it will take you, but I imagine you'll get a feel for that yourself pretty quickly. Keep in mind that magnetism will probably take a lot more work than electricity, because electricity is almost the same as gravity except for some stuff about charge distributions and Gauss's Law. DC circuits look complicated at first, but they're actually really easy. You just need to know a few simple rules, and a number of them are given to you in the formula sheet. For magnetism, a lot of the formulas will be given to you, but make sure you can do crossproducts without difficulty and know how electromagnetic induction works. You need to know other stuff too, of course, but those are the things I remember being most important. I hope that helps somewhat.</p>
<p>Also, this is kind of a joke, but I think it has some more intuitive alternatives to the right-hand rule. <a href="http://xkcd.com/c199.html%5B/url%5D">http://xkcd.com/c199.html</a></p>
<p>i agree with the above. I started self studying e&m in october and just finished yesterday. Gauss's law is by far what you need to study the most extensively, as it takes the most intuitive thinking. I...wouldnt suggest self studying EM now. You want to save the final month for pure review.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your post, Rhapsody and sriharifez. The right-hand rule joke is funny, especially the body rule..:D</p>