<p>I'm taking Physics C next year. One semester is Mechanics and the other semester is Electricity and Magnetism. I have already taken Physics B and I did well in the class. However, I would like to learn Physics C over the summer as I will be taking a few community college classes during the school year and will not have much time for homework; in addition I believe it will be beneficial for the Physics Olympiad, which I almost semifinaled in this year. Anyway, how much of Physics C is new - not taught in Physics B? I have a physics text book but I am not sure if it covers Physics C also.</p>
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<p>The big thing in Mechanics that’s not covered in B is rotational motion. As for E&M, there are little things here and there not covered in B (most notably Gauss’ Law and Ampere’s Law). Check the AP Physics course description (you can find it somewhere on AP Central) for a list of topics and their weights in the B/C courses.</p>
<p>Is that all? I looked at rotational motion and those two laws you mentioned, and those don’t seem too hard. If I learn those, is that really [almost] all there is? Then I wonder why Physics C has a reputation for being so demanding, because Physics B actually covers a lot more topics not in C.</p>
<p>Physics C just requires more depth of knowledge, which is difficult for many.</p>
<p>you need to know calculus to do well
b is trig/algebra based, c is calc. based</p>
<p>I know calculus well, so I’m not worried about the calc-based parts, I actually think that will be easier for me as the difficulty of calculus problems is lower than the non-calc based ones in Physics C, if you have a good knowledge of calculus (that’s what I found, anyway). Obviously this is just for the course, not for actual calculus-based physics, which I’m sure is extremely hard.</p>