<p>No one seems to be able to give an answer to what specific calculus topics tend to show up on the Physics C exams.</p>
<p>Last year I took Physics C: Mechanics and Calc BC concurrently and got a 5 on each.
However, I haven't reviewed much calculus since then and I need to study that along with the material for the second Physics C test.</p>
<p>For Electricity and Magnetism:</p>
<p>We will definitely have derivatives and integrals, but what kind of functions will we be deriving and integrating? Just polynomials, or will we get in to trigonometric functions, exponential and logarithmic functions, inverse trig functions, and partial integration?</p>
<p>Also, what kind of vector math is involved in the Electricity and Magnetism test?</p>
<p>E&M has more challenging math than Mechanics, though not by much. You learned more than enough in BC to do well on E&M. I remember logs, exponentials, and some functions that need chain rule. I don’t think I used partial integration last year in E&M. The main focus of E&M, like other physics courses, is the physics. The math is used only to calculate expressions (e.g. Gauss’s law) that can be used to solve problems. When it comes to vectors, the dot and cross product are definitely important, in addition to the usual scalar multiplication, addition, and subtraction.</p>
<p>This list is not exhaustive; it is only based on my memories of last year.</p>
<p>Mechanics is very simple calculus (relatively). But if you want to have a fundamental grasp of E&M, you need a much more thorough background in calculus. Just take a look at part of the reference table for each course—E&M is more calculus-intensive. You need to have a better understanding to be able to deal with integrals over a closed surface and more things happening in 3D space than they do in Mech (but definitely not multivariable calculus). If you’ve done Calc BC, you’re fine.</p>