<p>I am taking it concurrently with Calculus BC next year and was wondering how difficult it is without any prior Physics knowledge. What topics do you recommend I study beforehand over the summer so that it isn't as difficult?</p>
<p>Do you have any prior knowledge of calculus? If you don’t, I’d recommend that you at least study basic derivatives and integrals over the summer. It might make calculus a bit boring, but if you don’t know any physics OR calculus going in, physics C is going to hurt you.</p>
<p>Got it, study basic integrals and derivatives. Okay so what Physics material should I go over? Kinematics? Newtonian physics? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>In my opinion, there’s no real need to teach yourself much physics over the summer. What trips people up in AP physics isn’t usually learning the physics itself; it’s understanding how to use the math to properly apply it.</p>
<p>On that note, do make sure that you CAN actually apply calculus, not just go through a list of functions and find their derivatives.</p>
<p>Alright, so just studying Calculus will be enough? No Physics needed? Thanks.</p>
<p>Most universities I know won’t take AP Physics C for credit, so I took Physics B instead.</p>
<p>The calculus will help a lot. It can be difficult, but it’s doable if you have pretty decent natural intuition for physics - of course, I totally understand that you don’t know that, not having taken physics.
Until this year, my school let people go straight into AP Physics C Mech with no prior physics experience. They no longer do it, because they felt it wasn’t the best way. However, every year, there were people who found it doable.</p>
<p>I’m doing that this year. I took precalc last year, had no knowledge of physics, am taking BC Calc and Physics C. It’s not that bad especially because for mechanics, there are real-life examples therefore it’s easier to understand.</p>
<p>If you want, go over Newton’s laws and know that F=ma (this equation will often be your savior haha). Also, know your powers of 10s ie. pico, nano, micro, etc.</p>
<p>I’d also advise you get in the habit of showing your work and making neat diagrams. It helps me a LOT.
Good luck! (:</p>
<p>@lemone: what are you smoking buddy? O.O Its the other way around. virtually every school give credit for C, but only the selected few(non-engineering schools) give credit for B. I suggest you do some research before posting next time.</p>
<p>Luckily, mechanics, unlike e&m is easy to understand and can be learned easily without previous physics knowledge. I would not worry too much about the calculus part and just tackle the physics problems, especially the chapter regarding rotational motion, I found that to be the hardest topic in mech.</p>
<p>No, I should elaborate on what I said. They do give credit for the course, but they won’t exempt you from first-year Physics </p>
<p>Edit: They won’t even bother with AP Physics B either.</p>