Lacking confidence in my AP Physics 1 teacher?...

My teacher makes error after error during her lessons and when she works through practice problems. I’m always that kid in class who keeps correcting her, but it’s starting to make me scared of how her tests are graded.

Our test over projectile motion and vectors is coming up on wednesday, and she said something today during the review that I’m not totally sure about. She told us that in situations where you use the second kinematic equation (d=Vit +(1/2)gt^) to find the time, you would input 0 for initial velocity even if the initial velocity were not 0 because the AP test doesn’t require that you solve quadratics. Is this actually true? The time derived from an initial velocity of 0 is pretty different than the one derived from using the true vertical velocity.

And because she makes countless errors, constructs her VERY OWN tests, and applies no curve to any test, I’m worried about my grade in that class.

I took AP Physics 1 last year. The whole “input 0 even if it isn’t” is definitely wrong. The problems I did from last year required a non-zero initial velocity most of the time. A handful of times, it was required to solve quadratics for projectiles on tests and homework.

For grade purposes, I would just do what your teacher says. For AP, self-studying might be an option.