Physics 1 (summer 8 week course)

[JohnDoe12]

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Having some difficulty with the material in a condensed course version of physics 1. Physics 2 is on my agenda for next fall. I have not taken an exam yet, but we cover a new chapter every day in that class and It's begging to pile up and run together faster than I can seem to keep up. Any advice would be helpful.

 

[WingsFan]

Having some difficulty with the material in a condensed course version of physics 1. Physics 2 is on my agenda for next fall. I have not taken an exam yet, but we cover a new chapter every day in that class and It's begging to pile up and run together faster than I can seem to keep up. Any advice would be helpful.

I was lucky that physics just seemed to come naturally to me, but whenever I ran into trouble, I would just start drawing out a picture of the problem, and start doing random physics with it. I'd find out the Normal force or whatever even if it didn't seem like it was needed, just because it would knock something off the list of unknowns and might lead you to something more useful. the more you just do something on paper, the closer you come to an answer, and doing free-body diagrams an other drawings to help visualize the problem always help too. Are you struggling in a specific area, or is it just piling up in general?

 

[JohnDoe12]

Thanks for your comment. It is a good point and I'll try to implement that in my studies. I'm not really having a specific area that's troubling me, but it's only been one week of class so far. I think the problem for me is that we are told to use the examples from our book as questions and teach ourselves the algebra used to solve the problem. I'm one of those people where I usually need one example taught to me first for me to begin to understand specifically how to go about a problem.

 

[WingsFan]

Thanks for your comment. It is a good point and I'll try to implement that in my studies. I'm not really having a specific area that's troubling me, but it's only been one week of class so far. I think the problem for me is that we are told to use the examples from our book as questions and teach ourselves the algebra used to solve the problem. I'm one of those people where I usually need one example taught to me first for me to begin to understand specifically how to go about a problem.

I feel that if you go to your professor in his/her office hours and ask for an example, they'll be more than willing to show you once. If not, I'd look up examples on the internet. There are some good sites out there that are pretty helpful.

 

[JohnDoe12]

Site names?

 

[Zonagirl]

Having some difficulty with the material in a condensed course version of physics 1. Physics 2 is on my agenda for next fall. I have not taken an exam yet, but we cover a new chapter every day in that class and It's begging to pile up and run together faster than I can seem to keep up. Any advice would be helpful.

You should look up Khan Academy on youtube and browse his physics videos. He does such a good job explaining it all. I took the MCAT a few years after Physics and I almost solely relied on his videos for content review.

 

[survivordo]

Definitely working through the problems is the best way to learn physics. I was never able to get much from actually reading the text. Practice, practice, practice.

Survivor DO

 

[Didierdrogba]

If you think you just can't do well in that class, consider taking it at a community college.
4.0 at CC > 2.7 at University IMHO

 

[NontradCA]

I recommend reading the chapters a few times and doing as many problems as possible.

 

[JohnDoe12]

Thanks everyone you have all been helpful.

 

[jp6285]

Having some difficulty with the material in a condensed course version of physics 1. Physics 2 is on my agenda for next fall. I have not taken an exam yet, but we cover a new chapter every day in that class and It's begging to pile up and run together faster than I can seem to keep up. Any advice would be helpful.

i did phys 1 and 2 in 4 week summer sessions, so i feel your pain. When I did it they where the only classes I took, dont know that i could have dont it otherwise. I feel like the best way too look at it is to understand that they can really only ask a limited number of questions because there are only a limited number of formulas. From there its just variations. Focus on really understanding the formulas backwards and forwards. Make sure you can recognize what you are working with even when everything is mixed around from the standard way of presenting it. I also did a ton of extra work from the problem sets after the chapters so that when I got to the test I had likely seen something similar multiple times.

 

[pdeco1]

www.khanacademy.com

 

[Columbia09]

Join the club I'n in a 4 week physics class and it's a killer !!!! He's Russian and he throws random material at us and talks to the board. The entire class is lost. I'm also taking physics 2 in the next 4 week summer session but apparently the teacher is awesome so I'm hoping for the best !

 

[JohnDoe12]

two 4 week courses of physics would be killer. I'm in 10 hours this summer, and trying to survive. All of these comments have been a big help. The professor said there would be no more than 6 questions on the exam and as little as 4 is possible. Still taking advice from anyone who feels they can contribute. Thanks guys and gals!

 

[Dreamstoo]

Having some difficulty with the material in a condensed course version of physics 1. Physics 2 is on my agenda for next fall. I have not taken an exam yet, but we cover a new chapter every day in that class and It's begging to pile up and run together faster than I can seem to keep up. Any advice would be helpful.

At least you didn't do what I did, I tried doing calculus 2 in the summer last year but signed up apparently for a calc 2/calc 3 course in six weeks. Had to catch the 5am train 3 times a week and had class for about 10 hours a week. Homeworks used to keep me up late, I used to have come back from my friend's on a Saturday night to finish homework while they started doing "festivities." Miserable summer, miserable grade. Worst decision of my life.

Just try to keep up, I do remember our calc class average was so bad, the professor just gave students what they needed for credit, in retrospect I was above the class average despite it being in the 40s, I should have gotten a higher grade but when I tried arguing my grade, the professor pretty much said, with your grades even in comparison to the class, they are at least 30% of the class that did exponentially better than you (we had a few really smart math majors who were pulling high 80s,90s. Rest of us were from 15-60, I think my average was a very high 50). Worst summer you can possibly imagine, I was like this for 6 weeks: 😡😕👎

 

[JohnDoe12]

That sounds miserable man.. Good for you though, sticking it out. We do get a front and back piece of paper to write whatever we want on it for the exam so that should help.. Thinking bout writing all the example questions I can on it ans using that to help!!