Feeling Bummed about Physics... please help

[Pequitas]

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Hey guys, I'm fairly new to the forum and have done way more lurking than posting, but I am just so frustrated and unhappy right now and don't know where else to turn. 🙁 Second term of physics is completely miserable. I feel like all I do is study hours each day, and it doesn't help one BIT. I don't go out. I don't watch TV (okay... I had a brief lapse when "The Bachelor" was running... no judgment!) But in all seriousness, I don't mean even I *just* study, I mean I actively:

-Read the text, review powerpoints, do TONS of problems at least 4-5 days a week
-Draw out diagrams/discuss concepts with TA's I don't understand
-Look at previous exams and try to analyze trends in where I went wrong, and how to improve strategies
-Study with other students 1x/wk, explaining and getting help (hey, they say teaching is the best way to learn)
-Stalk my poor professors with endless questions
-Gotten lots of sleep, exercised, hydrated before exams

...And I am still getting 70's/75's. What KILLS me is that since our tests are multiple-choice, there is NO partial credit (I have at least 2 questions where I've mixed up a negative sign, or done something similar. Which, I'll grant you, yes I deserved to lose credit, but seriously??? Having the same outcome on that question as a student who had no idea where to begin and might'be been guessing???). And there are only 20 questions per exam, so each one is worth five points.

This seemed to work well enough for the first term, in which I got an A with the curve (similar test scores). And PLEASE don't flame me, because I am honestly not trying to troll or be all like "boo hoo... a B+." But I don't know if the other students are just more used to the exam format or the ones who didn't do well in the first term self-selected out, or what, but the curve is KILLING me this term. With the same EXACT scores, I am just barely above mean/median. Which is, I dunno, B-? C+?

Again, I am honestly not trying to be a gunner, and I know one or two B's didn't kill anyone, but it's obviously less-than ideal. And especially frustrating to have a downward trend. I am SO CLOSE (I just have this, orgo, and MCAT's), and am feeling totally burned out and like I just want to give up. I know I'm smart. I know I am studying hard (and not just studying hard, studying smart/strategically too). I am not some naive freshman. So what is it???

Please please guys... anyone who's been in a similar situation (and I am talking PHYSICS/MATH/quantitative courses here... bio, chem, and orgo have been totally manageable so far), help me. (I am a humanities person, so maybe I'm missing something in this whole science area that others seem to get. Although, again, I've managed to do well in my other pre-med courses). How did you improve? What did you change? How do you stay focused without getting discouraged??? 😕

Sorry for the long vent and thank you in advance. I would really appreciate some thoughts. I am at my rope's end here.

 

[Navier]

Hey guys, I'm fairly new to the forum and have done way more lurking than posting, but I am just so frustrated and unhappy right now and don't know where else to turn. 🙁 Second term of physics is completely miserable. I feel like all I do is study hours each day, and it doesn't help one BIT. I don't go out. I don't watch TV (okay... I had a brief lapse when "The Bachelor" was running... no judgment!) But in all seriousness, I don't mean even I *just* study, I mean I actively:

-Read the text, review powerpoints, do TONS of problems at least 4-5 days a week
-Draw out diagrams/discuss concepts with TA's I don't understand
-Look at previous exams and try to analyze trends in where I went wrong, and how to improve strategies
-Study with other students 1x/wk, explaining and getting help (hey, they say teaching is the best way to learn)
-Stalk my poor professors with endless questions
-Gotten lots of sleep, exercised, hydrated before exams

...And I am still getting 70's/75's. What KILLS me is that since our tests are multiple-choice, there is NO partial credit (I have at least 2 questions where I've mixed up a negative sign, or done something similar. Which, I'll grant you, yes I deserved to lose credit, but seriously??? Having the same outcome on that question as a student who had no idea where to begin and might'be been guessing???). And there are only 20 questions per exam, so each one is worth five points.

This seemed to work well enough for the first term, in which I got an A with the curve (similar test scores). And PLEASE don't flame me, because I am honestly not trying to troll or be all like "boo hoo... a B+." But I don't know if the other students are just more used to the exam format or the ones who didn't do well in the first term self-selected out, or what, but the curve is KILLING me this term. With the same EXACT scores, I am just barely above mean/median. Which is, I dunno, B-? C+?

Again, I am honestly not trying to be a gunner, and I know one or two B's didn't kill anyone, but it's obviously less-than ideal. And especially frustrating to have a downward trend. I am SO CLOSE (I just have this, orgo, and MCAT's), and am feeling totally burned out and like I just want to give up. I know I'm smart. I know I am studying hard (and not just studying hard, studying smart/strategically too). I am not some naive freshman. So what is it???

Please please guys... anyone who's been in a similar situation (and I am talking PHYSICS/MATH/quantitative courses here... bio, chem, and orgo have been totally manageable so far), help me. (I am a humanities person, so maybe I'm missing something in this whole science area that others seem to get. Although, again, I've managed to do well in my other pre-med courses). How did you improve? What did you change? How do you stay focused without getting discouraged??? 😕

Sorry for the long vent and thank you in advance. I would really appreciate some thoughts. I am at my rope's end here.

I've taken the calc based phys series, which is different than yours (since your exams are MC). The concepts are still the same though. I'm assuming the is E&M - tougher than solid mechanics. Sounds to me like you're studying WAY too much. I've never studied that much for any class in my life. Maybe I'm an anomaly, but the way I approach exams is such: I just keep up with the homework and reading (which I fail to do after about week 2). Then right before the exam I will look over the book chapters and lecture notes. I thrive off derivations and hate example problems, since they limit you to particular cases.

Physics is a different animal than chem or bio. Now I'm an engineering major, so I'm definitely biased. I would try to think about concepts more logically and from a physical/conceptual standpoint, and understand the phenomena that way. You're definitely not going to do well in physics by pure memorization like the other science courses. You will need to understand the concepts to flourish and do well. Another suggestion that I have (that others proclaim is great) is to review the lecture and correlate with the text as soon after lecture as possible to reinforce ideas.

As I mentioned, my study habits are awful and I can't give great advice on that, but hopefully this helps you.

 

[greensoup]

Sounds like you aren't fully grasping the concepts. Hop on over to the Prof or TA and make sure you get every concept clear. MC's can be brutal if they trick you into an answer if you do not have 100% clear concepts (such as the negative sign). In that sense, doing a million problems still wouldn't help you.

Good luck! Push through it and seek to understand.

 

[kansaskid]

I had a super hard time with physics. I got As in the classes because they were ridiculously easy with simple regurgitation on the tests, but when it came time for MCAT physics I was totally screwed because I had never really learned the concepts. I agree that getting help now from someone who can explain it in a way you understand is going to be key. I wish I had taken physics at my regular college where it would have been very difficult and I probably would have gotten a much lower grade, but maybe I would have been forced to actually learn the material. So I guess my advice would be focus on learning, not just the grade. Doing your best often means getting help!

 

[Isoprop]

Find a tutor. Go to your academic success center or tutoring center and ask for a physics tutor. Show them how you study and get advice.

Read the text, review powerpoints, do TONS of problems at least 4-5 days a week

The amount of practice isn't enough. Quality over quantity. Are you getting most of your practice questions correct? If so, you need to find more difficult practice questions. You need to be making mistakes while practicing so you can learn from them. What happens when you run into a problem you don't know how to do? Do you just find the solution? If so, stop that! Go through each question by yourself first. Then if you're stuck, give yourself a hint but don't look at the entire solution.

 

[TOcho118]

Do you by any chance go to Penn and have professor Klein?

 

[Pequitas]

Hi guys,

Thank you so much for everyone's thoughts. I really appreciate your ideas. At any rate, I feel a little better after a night's sleep. In response to some of your comments though:

-Nope, sorry, not at Penn. Why? Do you have him? And if so, what got you past the class?

-I HAVE a tutor, believe it or not. Here's the dilemma... he is actually a high school physics teacher. So he is very good at explaining the basic foundation/essentials behind each unit, which I need, since I have never taken physics before. But obviously, his expectations are lower than a college prof's. He doesn't offer any stimulation past the basic level. This is where I go to the TAs. I find though, that a lot of them end up using calculus/unnecessarily difficult explanations (I mean... maybe they wouldn't be that difficult if I had taken more math... this is non-calc based physics). At any rate, I end up leaving them more confused than when I came in.

-In addition to doing textbook problems, I'm doing problems from 3000 Solved Problems in Physics. They have lots of problems in various permutations, which I'd argue means having to know more than just memorization. I use them as a kind of diagnostic, so before I start studying, I'm usually getting 60-70% of those right. By the end, it's more around 80-90%.

The reviewing the lecture right after class is a good idea... I'm going to give that a shot. But a lot of these are things I've tried to address already. I am not trying to shoot anyone's ideas down... I AM really hoping someone will have an alternative take. I think right now the problem is a mix of:

-theoretical questions. Sometimes they have questions requiring no calculations, just asking about "what would happen if..." And they are always worded differently than in the book. English is not my first language, and although I thought that by this point I was totally comfortable and had no issues, I find the language sometimes confusing, or translating the words to math/logic.

-confidence. There are ALWAYS one or two questions that I end up second-guessing and changing to the wrong choice.

Does anyone have any alternative book suggestions? Kind of like a "Organic Chemistry as a Second Language," but for physics? Or any other people, maybe smart, but not necessarily math/science people who successfully went from on-the-cusp to excelling?

Many thanks again.

 

[Hypaspist]

I can't give you any real advice on physics, as I am starting the series this quarter, but confidence is definitely the kicker for me on a lot of exams. I think once you can get used to thinking out enough highly conceptual problems in a shorter and shorter amount of time, by test time thinking in such a way and under pressure will a bit easier to see what's really going on. Now I'm not saying how you've previously studied hasn't done this, but as you become more confident on your tests, not second guessing what you know you know, it will start a positive trend for next test. I dunno, not really advice but maybe some perspective because it's something I deal a lot with college exams. Good luck!

 

[once]

Wow, it seems that you are definitely putting in the effort and have the right mindset to do well in the class.

I would suggest other books with practice questions, past exams, and tutoring.

More importantly, you must be sure you understand the concepts completely. In electricity and magnetism there are lots of exceptions and analyzing the practice questions can help with these exceptions.

There are videos on youtube (MIT open courseware) to help for specific topics. I struggled with lenz's law quite a bit in high school but just did many practice questions until I really understood it. I also reread the explanation they gave until I knew it well. This was enough to make sure I got it.

Another thing is that you might have factors other than your studying techniques affecting your performance. Lots of people get extremely nervous during exams. Be sure to:

-eat well balanced meals the day before and the day of the exam
-get a good night's sleep
-don't study right before the exam; instead try to go in as relaxed as possible
-pace yourself during the exam (my physics exams were too long to finish and would shoot to finish about half of it during the hour; I don't know how your exams are though)

 

[Isoprop]

I HAVE a tutor, believe it or not. Here's the dilemma... he is actually a high school physics teacher. So he is very good at explaining the basic foundation/essentials behind each unit, which I need, since I have never taken physics before. But obviously, his expectations are lower than a college prof's. He doesn't offer any stimulation past the basic level. This is where I go to the TAs. I find though, that a lot of them end up using calculus/unnecessarily difficult explanations (I mean... maybe they wouldn't be that difficult if I had taken more math... this is non-calc based physics). At any rate, I end up leaving them more confused than when I came in.

Sounds like you should find a better tutor. An ideal tutor would explain the concepts and work out problems at the difficulty level you are at. I highly recommend finding another tutor.

-In addition to doing textbook problems, I'm doing problems from 3000 Solved Problems in Physics. They have lots of problems in various permutations, which I'd argue means having to know more than just memorization. I use them as a kind of diagnostic, so before I start studying, I'm usually getting 60-70% of those right. By the end, it's more around 80-90%.

How are you attacking these problems? What do you do when you are getting problems wrong? Just "doing problems" doesn't mean anything. This is hard to explain, but a good tutor should be able to show you how to solve physics problems and think like a physicist.

-theoretical questions. Sometimes they have questions requiring no calculations, just asking about "what would happen if..." And they are always worded differently than in the book. English is not my first language, and although I thought that by this point I was totally comfortable and had no issues, I find the language sometimes confusing, or translating the words to math/logic.

While the language barrier might be a problem, I have a feeling that your test-taking abilities might be a problem here. You may want to go to the testing/learning/success center at your school and speak with somebody on test-taking techniques.

 

[tabascosauce]

Find a tutor. Go to your academic success center or tutoring center and ask for a physics tutor. Show them how you study and get advice.



The amount of practice isn't enough. Quality over quantity. Are you getting most of your practice questions correct? If so, you need to find more difficult practice questions. You need to be making mistakes while practicing so you can learn from them. What happens when you run into a problem you don't know how to do? Do you just find the solution? If so, stop that! Go through each question by yourself first. Then if you're stuck, give yourself a hint but don't look at the entire solution.

👍 i agree. this is a positive post. take heed OP.

 

[StudyShy]

How is everyone else doing in the class if you know? Are your scores fairly typical compared with the rest of the class?

 

[TOcho118]

-Nope, sorry, not at Penn. Why? Do you have him? And if so, what got you past the class?

Had him. Same format exactly. 20 questions, multiple choice, no partial credit. It took me a test to realize it, but the best way to do well in his class was to really understand the fundamentals and concepts. Since it was a multiple choice test, and we only had 50 min for the test, no one question was extremely hard or required a lot of work. It was more about using tricky methods to see if you really "got it." In the end it was actually a lot like the MCAT.

Still, I totally agree with you that college physics should not be tested this way. There were a lot of people in the class who truly hated him because of it even though he was a really good professor.

 

[Pequitas]

How are you attacking these problems? What do you do when you are getting problems wrong? Just "doing problems" doesn't mean anything. This is hard to explain, but a good tutor should be able to show you how to solve physics problems and think like a physicist.

Well, my thought process goes something like this:

1) Categorize. I ask myself - what subject does this question fall under?
2) Goal. What do they want me to figure out?
3) Plan/Translate. What formulas can I apply/diagrams can I draw to figure out where to get to where I need?
4) Follow through with the appropriate algebra/plug-in.

For obvious reasons, part 3 is the toughest. I think one of my problems is that I just hate drawing diagrams, which I know is important in physics. I am not a visual learner. I learn much better through talking with people, or "talking it out" to myself (which, unsurprisingly, is not exactly feasible during an exam). Like, I have serious difficulties "seeing" what math goes with what, even when an series/parallel circuit is drawn in front of me, and I know Kirchhoff's laws, in theory.

When I get something wrong, I'll first look at their work and compare it with my own. Was I on the right track? Did I read the directions carefully? Maybe I didn't realize they wanted an ELECTRON's force, which goes the opposite way of the field. Or maybe I answered in joules, and they wanted volts. What did I possibly misinterpret? And I go from there. Usually, it's the case that given more time (like an extra 2-3 minutes/question), I probably would've gotten it. But we're on a strict time limit, so you really have to know your concepts down cold. And I honestly have no idea how other people are learning these concepts when we are BLAZING through an entire unit in a week (that's 3 hours of class), especially when I have never seen this stuff before. And just when I think I get the basic concept, they throw a kink in, or add something from three chapters back, or ask us to go a step beyond all of the homeworks that I just don't know how to anticipate.

The tutor idea is a thought though... I'll check on that.

How is everyone else doing in the class if you know? Are your scores fairly typical compared with the rest of the class?

Actually, maybe someone who's had statistics more recently can help me on this one. I am consistently in the top 36% percentile. Like, 10 points above the mean, which is generally high 50's/low 60's. Not quite the peak of the bell curve, but the next one up. Everything else (my homework, labs) are perfect, and midterms are 50% of the grade (there are three). What do you think this is roughly equal to, in terms of letter grades?

 

[firecloak]

I was in your situation not long ago. I took Physics for technical majors (engineering physics), and had a hard time doing well on the tests despite practically living and breathing physics problems.

You should find a tutor, even if it's a paid tutor. You probably wouldn't spend more than $200 in the end. Looking back, I wished I could've swallowed my pride and just paid someone else to tutor me. After all, an A is worth the money. I mean, I would've paid even $200 if that meant I could've understood the concepts enough to get an A.

If your current teacher isn't helping, maybe you can look for your former physics professor (Physics I professor).

 

[bajoneswadup]

I was in the same boat last semester for phy1. I made all A's but I felt I didn't really learn anything. I think I found the key this semester, though. I started focusing almost all of my study time on the concepts, rather than problems and formulas. For example, we're doing magnetic fields now for phy2 and our test is in 3 weeks. I'm mostly focusing on what a magnetic field is, how it's relevant and important, and the relationships between current, the field strength, etc.. Then closer to test time I'll sit down and do the problems in the chapter. It's been working 100x better for me compared to what I did last semester, which was the same thing you're doing now. Just an idea ;P

 

[AllDay24]

.

 

[jadealer]

LoL do you go to Rutgers-Main? I had a similar physics classes before. sucked.

 

[TOcho118]

Why? Klein is THE MAN. He explains stuff so well. Kikkawa is awesome too.

I agree with you completely. I happened to love him and I feel he definitely prepared me well for the MCAT. His tests made a lot of enemies though

 

[asli]

I hated physics (particularly E&M). Granted, I didn't do nearly as much studying as you do, but I don't know if would have helped. Our class averages were very low and the curve was super harsh (70% was a B- or C+!!!!!!!). Physics classes are really variable though; some schools just have harder classes. But one class won't kill you so don't be so hard on yourself.

 

[Pequitas]

Thank you so, so much for everyone's support and advice! There have some been some great thoughts and I am definitely going to look into reviewing the material right after class, finding a new tutor, and focusing more on concepts. I'll keep you guys posted on how it goes!

PS- Not at Rutgers either, but wow, is it a relief knowing that my school isn't the only school that has really annoying grading system for physics!