<p>Ehh, I’ve seen people do just fine without needing to fall back on any physical models. It just requires understanding the math at a higher level than you’ll learn just by taking a class.</p>
<p>The majority of the AP guides abstract the integral calculus into a bundle of formulas left to the student to memorize. While I disagree with this form of teaching, there aren’t many alternatives for those who aren’t concurrently studying for the BC exam nor have had any (besides the simplest of polynomial calculus in precal) experience in Calculus at all. The minimum prerequisite therefore would be a solid understanding of precal, and a solid understanding of the material covered in the B section (I had a friend who took the C exam with no prior Calculus instructions and got a 5 on both parts). As physics is no more and no less than an abstraction of the mechanical world into a set of numerical systems, it’s crucial, as Leafblade have pointed out, to understand the conceptual objectives behind the math. But also at the same time, you can still score high without the conceptual aspect of physics, but I would not recommend that.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I personally found E&M to be much harder (although the test was much easier) than Mechanics, but I guess that’s just because I have higher affinity for classical physics (which consists mainly of Mechanics) than modern.</p>
<p>The MIT lecture series by Prof. Lewin is supposed to be amazing to teach yourself physics.</p>
<p>That’s what I heard, so I looked it up. what book would you suggest I use?</p>
<p>serway and tipler are pretty good (they are two separate books btw.)</p>
<p>Ok, maybe i overstated myself. You should definitely try it, has no risk.</p>
<p>^oh wait, Tipler is better because the odd answers are in the back.</p>
<p>It is possible to teach yourself calculus. At my school, there are about 40 seniors in AP Physics (Mechanics), and only two juniors. We juniors are both in PreAP Precalculus, and there is some stuff that goes over our heads at first, but we have an AMAZING calculus teacher at our school, she even let me borrow a calculus book. It gets tough at times, but it’s entirely possible.</p>
<p>I’ll probably end up self studying ap calculus because of all these dillemas I’ve run into at my high school. Public education in the south is terrible. By the way, thanks for the titles.</p>
<p>personally, I believe the mechanics part of physics would definitely be do-able as a first year course. and as for the arguments about math, i strongly disagree. chances, its the physics, not the math, that will pwn you. (im in the same boat btw, taking physics c as a first year physics course along with calc bc)</p>
<p>e&m, on the other hand, is a completely different story…</p>
<p>ok, well thank you</p>