Strategies for Physics

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I'm studying audio engineering and am in my 2nd semester out of 3 as far as physics goes, and it's been brutal. I ended up with a B+ in Physics I, which was not great but acceptable by my standards...I'd just rather not go much lower. I had to put in a ton of work for that B+ and in general I'd say I struggled more than I used to.</p>

<p>Well, I just got my first midterm back in Physics II and I got a 67. I'm really disappointed and I'm just not sure how to attack this class. The professor is awful, and I glean almost nothing from the lectures. The school provides tutoring but it's usually just preoccupied seniors or grad students who aren't much help, so I've given up on that as well. I need to figure out a way to effectively study on my own, but I don't really know how.</p>

<p>Can anybody suggest study strategies to improve my performance on exams? My main issue seems to be application- I generally seem to understand everything conceptually, but applying it on the exams is another story.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

2

<p>Well, I haven’t taken physics 1 yet, just a more introductory course to make up for my lack of high school physics, but I’ve been getting between 95-105% on everything (only missing some because the professor is strict about significant digits) by first learning the concepts in and out (making sure you know all there is to know about each) and then doing as many practice problems as I can find. And not all in a day or two, but just about every day. Spread it out.</p>