1. Choosing and obtaining books.</p>
<ul>
<li>A textbook is very helpful for learning the concepts for the first time and has many practice problems. Get one of the standard ones (for example, Cutnell/Johnson or Serway’s College Physics) and you should be good for that area.</li>
<li>If you need solved problems to study from, buy a book like 3000 Solved Problems in Physics or Schaum’s Outline of College Physics; they are very helpful for figuring out exactly what is required to solve problems and have a good deal of practice problems with answers.</li>
<li>A prep book for the exam is essential if you want to do well. I used the 5 Steps to a 5 and Princeton Review books. 5 Steps to a 5 is useful for getting a somewhat superficial overview of a topic and has a bunch of advice on actually taking the exam (i.e. common types of problems). Princeton Review is good for going more in-depth on a topic, preferably after reading the corresponding section in 5 Steps to a 5. It also has way more practice MC/FR problems than 5 Steps to a 5. The practice exams in both of them are good; 5 Steps to a 5 is fairly accurate, but the MC sections of Princeton Review’s exams are more calculation-focused than the actual exam. (I haven’t used any of the other prep books.)</li>
<li>In general, older editions of books will suffice; I used a textbook from 2001 and prep books from 2008/2009.</li>
</ul>
<p>2. Studying through the year.</p>
<ul>
<li>You probably want to start by going through the textbook. Be forewarned: quite a few of the topics in the textbooks aren’t on the AP exam. In particular, rotational kinematics/dynamics and relativity aren’t really on the AP exam at all (though they do appear on the SAT Subject Test). So look through the topics in your prep books and decide if you want to do everything or if you just want to cover what’s on the exam.</li>
<li>Once you read a section (or chapter or a bunch of related chapters), do corresponding problems in the textbook and/or problem books. For most people, it is essential to do a LOT of problems in order to get the concepts down. Don’t just do 5 or 6 problems per topic, do like 30-40 or as many as you need to feel confident that you have it nailed. And don’t just do easy problems; throw some intermediate and hard problems in there. The FR section of the exam is mostly on the level of intermediate problems, and you want to be prepared for those.</li>
<li>OPTIONAL: Go through the corresponding section in your prep book(s) once you finish a topic. I didn’t do this a lot, but if you want to be sure that you understand, go for it.</li>
<li>You should generally go in the order that the textbook (or prep book) presents the topics. The order is something like: kinematics, dynamics (“Newton’s Laws”), work/energy, momentum, oscillations, fluids, heat, electricity, circuits, magnetism, waves, optics, atomic/nuclear physics. You definitely need all the mechanics stuff before you do anything else. Also, you should do everything else before you do atomic/nuclear stuff.</li>
<li>At this point, you might be thinking, “This is a lot of stuff! How am I going to get through all of it?” Yes, it is a lot of material. After all, this is the equivalent of a 2-semester college course! You need to pace yourself well and plan ahead. In general, the first semester consists of mechanics, fluids, and heat, and the second semester consists of electricity, magnetism, waves, optics, and atomic/nuclear physics. You probably want to finish by the time April comes around.</li>
</ul>
<p>3. Preparing for the AP exam (starting anywhere from March to May).</p>
<ul>
<li>Once you’re done with all or most of the textbook stuff, start going through your prep books. 5 Steps to a 5 has a sort of timeline you can follow if you want to. Just read the material for each topic, do the questions, and if you don’t feel you understand it well, then come back again in a few days or so. I started in early April and usually did one topic a day in both books.</li>
<li>Obviously, you want to take practice exams. I did the practice exams after I had finished reviewing all of the topics, then I went back to review the stuff I missed. Definitely use prep books for multiple choice, since not many of those sections are available freely. For free response, just download all of the past FRQs from College Board’s website (Googling “ap physics b frq” should give you the link). Do as many as you can so that you get used to the style of College Board’s questions.</li>
</ul>
<p>Whew. That’s a lot to deal with, isn’t it? Don’t get discouraged if you feel like you’ve gotten stuck somewhere and “just don’t get it”; I think this happens to most people at some point when doing stuff like this. For me, it happened when I was studying electricity and magnetism; I really felt like I couldn’t understand the concepts, no matter how much I read the text. Come back to it later if you feel this way.</p>
<p>Good luck to anyone who attempts this!