I’m currently in this class and have done well throughout the school year. However, we recently took a mock exam and… honestly, it was very strange (in a bad way).
I talked to some seniors who took it last year when it was first introduced, and told me they found it much more difficult than AP Physics C, which they currently take. My physics teacher has a master’s and she even told me undergrad physics students would find this test quite difficult because of how much it stretches your understanding of physics concepts.
Is there a consensus on the difficulty of this course?
Probably not. But I’ll give you my thoughts having looked at last year’s FRQ’s and having taken the old AP Physics B exam and the AP Physics C exams. The exam is not that difficult. However, last year 63% of the people who took the test failed the AP exam for a variety of reasons:
• Twice as many students took the AP Physics 1 exam vs Physics B the prior year, which probably means that at least half those students should not have been in an AP course to begin with.
• AP Physics 1 is more conceptual and less plus-n-chug math compared to Physics B, but not all teachers may have gotten the message and adjusted their teaching accordingly.
• For many (most?) students, AP Physics 1 is a first physics course, where most Physics B students had a prior physics course (going back to point #1)
Anyway, with the right preparation, I see no reason why someone cannot do well in both the course and on the exam. But I would not say that it is more difficult than Physics C, and it is certainly much less difficult than a college physics course.
Good luck.
The thing with AP Physics 1 exam is that it is all conceptional. I’m a sophomore i just had my AP physics final and I literally only had to use my calculator about 4 times during the whole test. So that’s a big factor as to why most people do bad because physics is thought of to be more hands on and more equations rather than words, but then you get the ap test and it’s all conceptional so that’s annoying. Overall, i wouldn’t worry about it that much because the curve is pretty big. I scored a 5 on it and in order to get a 5 you only need a raw score of 64 and above which is pretty convenient. Honestly, I would just suggest going over everything from the beginning of the school year and taking many online practice AP tests!!! Best of luck.
I agree with the other two in that Physics 1 is very much a conceptual course. If you’re more of a numerical-mathy kind of person (like me), AP Physics C is better in the sense that it’s far less conceptual. Additionally, there’s a lower cutoff for a five (~57%?). Unfortunately, you do require some knowledge of calculus and the variable-only free response questions can be extremely difficult. I suggest that next year you take Physics C in conjunction with either Calculus AB (if you haven’t taken calculus yet) or Calculus BC (if you took calculus this year). That way, you can just not report your scores for Physics 1 if they’re not satisfactory. Besides, most ivy league schools only accept Physics C marks and not Physics 1 or 2.
The curve was also horrible last year.
Physics 1 is very conceptual, you don’t do much math. Physics C on the other hand is very mathematically oriented, so there are lots of calculations. Physics 1 makes sure you really understand the concepts, there’s none of that “plugging and chugging” into equations. It is a difficult course, so if you’re struggling a bit, it’s good that you’re having a bit of a challenge (as long as you’re ultimately understanding the physics). Hope you did well on the exam today, I took it as well 
@swim1128 How did you find the exam? I thought it was okay-ish. Not too sure how I felt tbh. MC wasn’t too bad, but the FRQs were a little tough IMO.
I just took it today. My teacher forced everyone in the class to take it or he will lower their grades by 2 letters…
He was like “the test is free so why would you not take it?”.
@neoking I thought the exam went alright. I thought that the MC was harder than the FR. The timing was nice though, I finished both parts early. Some of the FR parts I had no clue what to do, but I rambled on about some principle that related to the question.
And some of the MC were tricky, but I feel pretty good about the whole exam.