D for Effort in Honors Physics

<p>So I've failed a quarter essentially. By failing I mean <65 if grading is out of a 100. I've found out my teacher curves just yesterday. I have no idea at this point what my grade will be. I would like suggestions for how to do better. My parents are convinced I somehow ****ed off the teacher and didn't listen to him. I know they're wrong. In fact today I attended two physics classes (another section with the same teacher). </p>

<p>I'm doing damage analysis and here's what I have so far:
1. I feel that rewriting a day's worth of classnotes in bigger text with color and drawings is easier. I can more easily identify which parts of the lesson are not very intrinsic or intuitive for me.
2. I do the HW, but I'm never sure if I'm right. I guess the remedy is to do more problems. Perhaps I don't really have a firm grasp on the topics? To help this I read the entire textbook before my class and did the textbook problems, I still have questions. I guess going to my teacher/TAs would be the only solution.
3. I freak out on tests. I have no idea what to do here. The only thing I can think of is lack of sleep. When I do my test corrections, I can do them without any help. I don't really know how to fix this problem.</p>

<p>Physics is just Algebra and a little concept.</p>

<p>Yeah problem is I get the physics and I freak on a test and often insert the wrong numbers. That's the outcome.</p>

<p>Is this the only class in which you freak out during tests?</p>

<p>Lol @ WhartonWannabe.
If you try to think hard about the problems until everything makes sense and becomes part of your knowledge, I think you'll do better. People in my class constantly look at examples to work their problems and they fail on tests.</p>

<p>@whartonwannabe
Er yeah actually the freaking out and blanking only occurs on physics tests and Math if I haven't studied for it. But usually the classwork=hw=test. So I'm usually good to go. </p>

<p>I'm not sure if this is true but my general gut instinct kind of says I have to be extremely anal with physics which I can't be because I get lazy. Then I don't account for stuff or sometimes overthink problems because of panicking. </p>

<p>Like last test I understood the concepts nearly perfectly (8 out of 10 tricky conceptual problems basically no math), but I focused my energies on rocket problems and rain falling at some angle toward a moving care, problems which I learned the day before were clearly not going to be on the test. Not knowing what to do I just didn't do much besides solve more problems. </p>

<p>Test/Quiz grades last quarter: 84, 62, 64, 79 (Kinematics test). I mean there was a 15 point improvement... eh not good enough. Class average was a 70 which means some people are still failing the other section's average was a 76. However after curving (which I have no idea how this happens), there's only one D and that person clearly failed with like a 45.</p>