<p>I am a junior as high school right now. I had a decent GPA last year (4.17) so I had thought to take the challenge of 5 AP classes to make things easier in my future college life. Still living the tale today, I would say that it is pure rigor. At the moment I am bouncing forward and backward on most of my classes, but it is AP Physics that pushes me down the most. I have never had a bad grade in my science classes until now. This is probably due to my lack of understanding of the concepts of Physics, or the teacher's inability to teach well.</p>
<p>Regardless, my grade stands at a D+. I am trying my best to learn the concepts but it seems way too difficult to me. The reason I had taken this class was to compensate my SATs so that it would correspond to my major. However, I feel that it is too much of a pain especially taking 4 other AP classes. I'm thinking of switching next semester (as I have heard that it gets much harder later), but I fear of the consequences of switching. Of course, I want to be in a good college or university, but I feel that switching will hurt my chances.</p>
<p>Should I switch? Are there any downsides of switching? Is there simply any way for my to improve my grades in Physics? I thank you for your help as this is nearly breaking me down at the moment.</p>
<p>I feel you. I have four APs at the moment and I have straight As except for AP Physics B, which is a B- right now. That’s the main class that is stressing me out, and it’s by far the toughest class I’ve taken to date. But unlike other people in my class, I actually really like it, and despite my grade, I don’t regret taking it. The difficulty of our tests are forcing me to practice physics nearly every day and study harder than I ever have before. My other APs are pretty much a joke, but I know that this is one that will truly prepare me for college. I don’t know if you feel the same way about Physics, but I would still stick it out. I’m assuming this is your hardest class, and you need to spend the most time on it! Some of your other grades may drop a little, but that’s the risk that comes with taking 5 APs. For the first couple months of my class, I didn’t spend too much time on Physics, because we hardly had any homework, so I would just finish my homework in there and then move onto my other classes with more homework. But I was failing all of the quizzes… so I started putting more time in, practicing on my own, and I even skipped school the day before our last exam to study. I don’t know what I got on that exam yet, but I got an A on our last quiz, and I’m feeling pretty confident about our quiz today. I don’t know if anyone’s told you this already, but all the chapters of Physics (at least in Mechanics) just build on each other, so the sooner you understand the basic concepts, the better you’ll do, and the easier it will become. Definitely get help from your teacher. If they can’t help, try getting help from a student. Pay someone for tutoring if you absolutely have to! Just don’t give up on the class; it’s a good one.</p>
<p>Physics C - Mechanics was a tough class for me; even though I aced the class, there were certain topics I didn’t know well (mostly rotational motion). I knew all the calculus required, it was mostly my lack of knowledge of physics concepts. Fortunately, you don’t need to know everything to do well on the AP test. I think I only solved half of the FRQs, and most of the MC, and got a 5.</p>
<p>Keep at it, it’ll start getting easier. Right now I’m taking 8.012 Classical Mechanics at MIT, which is 5x harder than AP Physics. For example, a couple homework problems involved using Taylor series to expand a potential energy function in order to find the frequency of small oscillations around an equilibrium point. I cranked through those problems last night (even though it took a few hours), and finally was able to understand >90% of today’s lecture…</p>
<p>I’m also in the same boat, my 8.012 grade is barely passing. I’ll probably just trudge through…</p>
<p>I’m kind of iffy on whether I’m interested in Physics or not. Yes, I do have an interest for it. Still, I’m just overwhelmed not by the concepts of physics, but the applications. That seems to be the toughest thing for me so far. I didn’t expect it to be this hard compared to taking other sciences. I’m not sure if I would devote enough time for physics as I’m still juggling the other 4 APs, but I have tried significantly to understand the concepts myself. I feel like physics is the most challenging to understand out of all of my classes. Still, I’ve been told that mechanics is only the easy part (And I still have some trouble with motion even though I’m almost done with energy already!) and that it’ll just get harder as the course progresses on. It’s tough, really. I guess I’m not used to delving deep to so much content on my own then be challenged with tests that rival the AP level’s standards. I have a test on Friday, so I hope I can study well enough to pass it. </p>
<p>@rspence
I’m in Physics B. I do feel great to hear that I don’t need to know everything for the test. I guess it’s just that my class is wearing me down. If I can’t pass it, then what would the AP test mean at the moment to me? Well I do hope you do fine at your MIT class though. Physics is indeed a tough subject overall…</p>