TBR Physics..am i backwards here?

It's funny that you're posting this. I was just talking to a friend about it yesterday. I'm the say way. I have no idea what all the formula mumbo jumbo is in the answers, but I know the answers intuitively as it sounds you do. I'm not doing phenomenally, but I just finished part I for physics unit 2 with ~70% without using all the formulas. It's just not my strength and I think for this exam we need to play to our strengths, but should also understand some of our weaknesses.

I've just given into the philosophy that I'll use my intuition and common sense as a guide for most physics questions. I'm still going to memorize the formulas though, because the one place intuition doesn't help is when you need to factor by a squared, cubed, or root of some type. These types of problems are really best solved by looking about the relationship within the formula, otherwise your intuition will get you lost by not judging the correct magnitude for squared values, etc.

I wish I could tell you this is the best way, but I don't know either. I just know it's what I've decided to do, otherwise I'll waste hours and hours on formula calculations that I really don't understand when I could answer the problems conceptually in seconds.

Best of luck.

I'm not fortunate enough to say the same thing about TBR physics, but I definitely what you're talking about. A lot of times, we can find the answer in about a second without having to do any math or real calculations. However, one thing I would warn you about is to make sure you *understand* the concepts, and not just somehow having very very lucky guesses. Also, NOVA MCAT physics has a whole entire chapter dedicated on how to do problems such as "if x is increased by a factor of 30%, how much would y be affected". So if you need help on that, I would say get a hold of that chapter and read it over, do the problems to get yourself more acquainted with it. Other than that, I would say be able to relate what you understand CONCEPTUALLY to the equation. Because once you actually understand the equations, you'll see that they're nothing more than a very very very shorthand way of writing out the concepts.

unDRdog said:

Thanks guys for the repleys...I loved what you said..Play to our strenghts... For me, they are far more than lucky guesses. I mean maybe BC i worked through the NOVA like a madman for a month I'm able to sit down and pull the answers out relatively easy. I am def trying to learn the math, but that takes to many hours to cover to short of a distance and i have lots more studying to do. I have a doc buddy that made a good point: He said the test makers wont make these long drawn out problems because they cant..ie.. 1.3 min a question is not long so they have to have a conceptual bend. I'm going to keep plugging away. If i can get 1-2 questions wrong per passage I'll be OK with that. The name of the game is picking up points and i dont have time, nor the brains, to "know it all"....Any more thoughts anyone??

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I think this is a key point. None of us do. So, you should just do the best you can with what you've got. Maybe on test day we'll get lucky and they be all conceptual or maybe we won't and they'll be 70% conceptual, either way if you don't finish your entire content review because you got bogged down on formulas you can pretty much guarantee you won't get those questions right.

So, I would just do what you can but make sure you cover everything.

I also noticed when I was reviewing answers in BR yesterday that they encourage you to use conceptual reasoning wherever possible, then only pull out the parts of the formula you need if you actually need to use it. So, my take from the last section of BR is:

Conceptual reasoning > Partial Formula > Entire formula.

This relates to speed and effectiveness in the calculations. Sometimes it's necessary to use a formula, but most of the time it's not.

unDRdog said:

complications=== i was going to tell ya that i'm also working through the EK1001 book alongside TBR...It holds my hand and walks me slowly through the big bad world of physics. Its great for me bc im able to nail down SIMPLE compenents of difficult concepts. Starts small and builds...it kinda assumes you know nothing...hey what a novel idea!

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Nice, man. I might give that a shot as well. I have the 1001 series of books, but I've only been using the Bio. I'll have to give the physics one a try.