<p>I'm taking my SAT Physics this coming December, and I'm using two reviewers now, Barron's and Sparknotes. Do you think I should focus on one reviewer or use both of them at the same time?</p>
<p>Also, do you guys know any easy way to memorize the sin, cos, tan angles and stuff like that? Oh, and formulas too!</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>If you don’t know trig very well, you’ll have a really hard time.
I used SparkNotes, Princeton Review, and Kaplan. I took some Barron’s tests using my friend’s book. I got 800 on every test but I REALLY struggled on the actual test. Just a little bit of a heads up. But the Barron’s is surprisingly easier for physics. I found Princeton Review to be much tougher… For physics B too (the physics B tests for Barron’s are a JOKE).
You should focus on SparkNotes to learn the material. Then do practice problems on Barron’s. Barron’s isn’t really good at teaching so use SparkNotes as your teacher and Barron’s as your trainer.
As for formulas, know them all:
<a href=“http://www.erikthered.com/tutor/facts-and-formulas-3-ref.pdf[/url]”>http://www.erikthered.com/tutor/facts-and-formulas-3-ref.pdf</a>
AND more, that is kind of incomplete^. Don’t memorize Doppler shift equations or stuff like relativity. You also don’t need rotational kinematics except torque.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply, undefined123! I’m not really having a hard time in trig since I’m part of the top 3 in math for my school. However, I’m just really really curious on how to solve things like sin(32) or tan(57). Thing like that.</p>
<p>I got 800 in May. And I just used Barron’s. But it’s okay if you are also studying with Sparknotes since I bet the contents of both are pretty the same.
As for the trigonometry thing, you can just memorize the pythagorean theorem. And then calculate on your own.</p>
<p>Sin 32 or such irregular trigonometric functions require really complicated formulas and calculations. If you will be a math major, you may have the chance to learn how to figure that out.</p>
<p>Hey JasperTraum! Thanks for the reply. Any chance that irregular trigonometric functions will appear in the real test? Thanks again.</p>
<p>Hello everyone !
I studied physics in high school for 2 years and I plan to give sat physics in May … I have prepared from Barron’s and scored 730 on the practice tests …
Will my actual score be somewhat like that or should I do some other practice tests too ?</p>
<p>@youngbin1130 In general, sin x = x - (x^3/3!) + (x^5/5!) - … I’m not too familiar with the Taylor series for tan x but I just looked it up on Wikipedia. Hence you can approximate sin 32 with the first few terms of the Taylor series for sin x.</p>
<p>However you likely won’t need any more complicated trig identities for the physics subject test.</p>