<p>We have done everything except the following: Oscillations and gravitation, Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Physics, Waves and Optics, and Atomic and Nuclear Physics. We are currently working on Waves and Sound and will probably only be done with optics before the AP exam. That leaves around 40% of material that we haven't covered. How much should I start studying each day for the AP exam? I have Barrons 3rd Ed. and PR 2007 for AP Physics B and my College Physics (Serway,Faughn) text book. Should I use these books conjunctionally or should I just focus on one? </p>
<p>What section that I've listed above should I study first?? I've taken a practice exam and I'm skipped tons of questions (around 20) relating to thermal physics and optics and some nuclear physics. Which sections that I listed in the first paragraph are the easiet to understand? Should I just study the according to the content outline that lists the percentage of expected problems that will appear on the exam? What should I do? Thanks.</p>
<p>Should I worry about depth or breadth at this point? Should I simply go over the equations and basic concepts of each section with the cost of not understanding the concepts in depth or should I focus more on depth than breadth and really dig into the concepts? What should I study after waves?? Thermo and fluid?</p>
<p>first, screw PR and barrons and use serway. it's better to understand physics than to memorize little fact snippets. then, if i remember correctly:</p>
<p>oscillation/gravitation is the most important thing you haven't covered yet. get that down now. fluids and atomic are pretty trivial. my teacher was running out of time when i was taking physics B and we covered that in like three hours on a saturday. thermo can be a little tricky the first time you learn it. ditto for waves. they're not huge parts of the syllabus, so if you find yourself running out of time, get to those last.</p>
<p>Sounds like you know too little of the curriculum to get a decent score, so you'll be spending $85 on a bad score which might screw you over if you want to get into a great college.</p>
<p>Don't listen to the guy telling you to read Serway. That book would be acceptable if you were trying to learn physics, rather than trying to cram in study in a month. Serway is hard to read/comprehend anyway.</p>
<p>If your heart is set on taking the test and doing well, then I really can't help you because it sounds like you have too much to study in too little time.</p>
<p>I thought you only need like 65% to get a passing/good score. I think I can get at least a 3 mabye a 4 if I study hard now. Btw, I can dedicate a lot of time from now till the test to study. </p>
<p>Are there any closely related chapters/concepts from the topics that I have listed in my expository paragraph? I need to know which ones I should study first just incase I run out of time. Also, at what rate do you think I should study each section so that I can finish and understand. Leaving out a section would probably be okay. Thanks!</p>
<p>Oscillations and gravitation -- Very mechanics-based. If you had trouble with mechanics, go study something like optics, thermo, or nuclear physics instead. If you thought mechanics was a piece of cake, you should have no trouble with this unit (gravitation is basically just Newton's Laws and energy and all that good stuff, applied to the force of gravity.) Fluid Mechanics -- Also very mechanics-based (it's basically just Newton's Laws applied to fluid forces and things like that). Thermal Physics -- A ton of new concepts, if you had to completely skip any section I'd pick this one or waves. Waves -- Quite a bit of new material (three chapters in my book). I'd feel similar to Thermo on this one. Optics -- If you're really short on time, just memorize 1/p + 1/q = 1/f. That'll get you past most optics questions on the multiple choice. And memorize a few other things, like what p, q, and f stand for, what signs they have, a few relationships between different terms (real images are always inverted), and the magnification formula m=-q/p. If you want better understanding of just about everything, go read University Physics (thoroughly, including the derivations), but I think you're too short on time to actually attempt to understand the material. (For what it's worth, I studied optics in roughly two days. It was my lowest test grade, but I still got an A. A low A.) Atomic and Nuclear Physics Some stuff here you should already know from elementary school or whatever. And then there are a few sections on things like the photoelectric effect that you should review.</p>
<p>But after you do all this cramming, don't expect to actually know physics. (Even if you get a good score on the test, you'll probably forget it in a few months anyway.) Try to read your actual textbook (but don't bother to do the problems, or read the "optional" sections, or sections that aren't covered by AP)</p>
<p>Do you think I can do everything that I haven't done in depth and detail? What I mean by that is reading from the text and doing problems. Should I follow the outline or study everything? (Some minor things are excluded on the outline but they appear on the released ap exams)--Only a couple problems though, most follow the outline.</p>
<p>There are two parts to AP C, Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism. </p>
<p>My class is doing great as far as time goes, but I'm one of three people that actually understands it. I'm happy because so far, I got a high 5 on a full Mechanics portion as my midterm, I got a 29/35 on an E&M MC practice the other day, and I have so far not come across an E&M part 2 I couldn't do.</p>