I don’t know what it is, but I’m just not getting the information and retaining as well as i should be. I’m a junior, A student, currently taking Honors Pre Calculus, but Physics just seems so abstract. I love the idea of physics and it truly does interest me applying problems to real word entities but actual arithmetic seems overly confusing. Granted it is my first Physics course (I took Honors Chem. & Biology in years past) but the issue lies with the teacher. He is a great guy, very nice and funy but way too laidback in my opinion. He’s retiring in two years and doesn’t bother to actually teach anything in detail. He does not assign any homework (literally zero, he thinks if you don’t get it in class you won’t get it at home either), he doesn’t do presentations or anything but do problems that he’s made up on the whiteboard. I think I’d be doing much better with the information if I had structured lessons, book work and or homework. My question is if any of you are having the same issue or might have some good resources that cover each topic of year with practice examples? I can ace the class but I want to score at least a 4 on the exam! Any tips or anything is greatly appreciated!
I had the exact type of teacher last year. Ended up with a 100 in the class but a 2 on the exam. If you have a book try using that and find a tutor. There’s also a lot of resources online now with khan academy and stuff like that so you could give that a whirl.
Also in AP Physics I this year. My teacher actually has us watch Khan Academy videos before he lectures that way we see it explained to us twice and he can move a bit faster through the intro stuff. I definatley recommend watching their stuff. Work AP problem after AP problem after AP problem. There are on the College Board website and you can score yourself accordingly. If you can find the ranking problems also put out by College Board and IB problems, those are great too, but you might have to search through different teacher’s websites to find them as they are not published officially online I believe. You can also just work through a textbook and solve problems and questions from that, as we do that sometimes too. Lots of people like to study from prep book, but I don’t use one myself. I do have a book with just multiple choice questions from 5 Steps to a 5 for AP World that I like though.
The exam last year was ridiculously difficult - the only AP Exam (out of the 10 I’ve take so far) that I’ve not scored a 5 in 
You will find many teachers who don’t do a good job at teaching you. At the end of the day it is your responsibility to try and fix whatever issues are being caused by your unhelpful teacher. Assuming you have been assigned a textbook in class, there is no need for the teacher to assign specific problems for you to do. You can just go to the relevant section in the textbook and do as many problems as you think are required to understand the material. If you do not have an assigned textbook then you can try using any from this list http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/physics_1_textbook_list.html
What do you mean by “actual arithmetic seems overly confusing”? Are you talking about the basic arithmetic required to solve a problem? Usually this isn’t an issue if you use a calculator. If you mean that you do not understand the process of solving those problems, then the best way to fix that is by reading examples from the textbook and doing more problems.
@Transfer154 I appreciate the advice. I meant the process of solving problems that cover multiple concepts. One type of problem that stumped me for awhile was figuring the velocity of a bullet that got stuck into a block and traveled a certain distance on a surface with some given coefficient of friction. (I eventually figured it out.) It’s just that I need a way to help me retain the information after I learn it because when I finally do understand the material, we’ve moved on to the next subject. I do use my book religiously and started watching Khan Academy videos, so we’ll see how it goes.
@SirPepsi I heard that the exam last year was focused on a group design/project?? Kids who took it last year at my school said they didn’t even use their calculator which I find very odd…What do you think makes it so difficult?
Almost everything goes back to forces. Remember them and you’re golden.