A helpful guide for those in or going into AP Physics 1
Abstract
Whether one is in AP Physics or going to be in one, this post was made to essentially point out the things that one must look forward to and must keep in mind while in an AP Physics 1 class.
On a short excursion, assuming all schools are created equal, AP Physics 1 will mainly cover the following:
- Vectors (Linear motion at first with speed, distance, displacement, velocity and acceleration)
- Forces (Force of Gravity, Normal Force, Applied Force and Frictional force being your big four covered)
- Newton's Three Laws of motion
- Energy (as Work and Joules)
- Kinetic and Potential energies (with their constants)
- Momentum and Impulse
- Angular motion (Angular versions of linear motion with different symbols to come along with it)
- Waves (Transverse and Longitude Waves)
- Finally charges (Attraction-Repulsion, negative/positive charges and Coulomb's Constant)
Multiple Choice
The multiple choice portion will take up half of the time and will come in the stock-standard four possible answer format. The majority, if not all questions, of the test will usually consist of, and can combine with, the following:
- Number crunching (plug and chug numbers to find the missing answer)
- Equation derivatives (derive an equation for the missing answer)
- Picture analysis (self-evident)
FRQs (Free Response Questions)
The other half of the test will consist of FRQs that essentially will have you look at the scenario and analyze the givens to come up with the answers to the questions they ask you. The following questions here are common:
- Lab-based FRQs (analyze the lab scenario and generate answers for such)
- Scenario-based FRQs (self-evident, look at the scenario and analyze it)
- Derivative questions (derive equations from Givens stated)
- Proportion questions (self-evident, analyze the scenario equations)
Labs
(For my school: this hadn't been used in tests, but some labs do count heavily on grades.) These are liken to that Chemistry labs or Biology labs if you've taken Chemistry/Biology before. If you haven't been in a classroom lab, here's the general rundown for AP Physics 1 specifically:
- Pre-Lab questions that pertain to the topic at hand
- Background, variable listings (controlled, independent and dependent variables) and Procedure for one's conducting inside the lab as to minimize error and maximize safety
- Conducting the lab and gathering the data
- Formatting the data and graphing it
- Assessment of the data, conclusion and insight for better improvements
Core concepts
With the abstract out of the way, now let's get to the core concepts that one will be useful coming in and needs to keep in mind at all times. Since these will be a recurrent theme across the entire year of AP Physics 1.
Givens and Symbolic Givens
Givens are things that the question at hand, whether it be in your homework to your quizzes to your tests, that they outright state what unit/symbol has what quantity of such. So a scenario can be: "Find displacement if velocity is v and time is t" where v and t are arbitrary numbers. Of course not many, if any at all, questions will ever be as simple as that, but that should get you to start understanding that behind all the mysticism* inside the question, there's this underlying simple question they really are asking.
The same follows suit with Symbolic Givens. Essentially they are diagrams, pictures and outright symbols that tell you something about what they represent but don't have to be outright stated in the scenario.
Whenever you are in possession of these you should annotate them somewhere in unit/picture form because:
- Easier to analyze and break-down the problem to find the right answer
- Possibility of "pity" points from the teach
- Easier to remember and makes it easier to find out what one is solving for
Graphs
As a small excursion, graphs play a huge role when solving a problem and may be the only way to answer a problem correctly. These are liken to Symbolic Givens but they act more like answer than being something useful to yield the answer down the road. What must be taken to heart is how to format one: that is that title must represent what is being analyzed at hand, first item being the y-value, the second item being the x-value and that there's a clear relationship between the two that can be analyzed. Most of the time graphs act like the following:
- Literally anything vs. time (Usually a change in of something over time)
- Derivative graphs (graphing using derived units to symbolize them in an empirical way)
- Area graphs (graphing the area of a graph that is useful for analysis)
Vectors
Vectors is the first and most major concept that an AP Physics student has to grasp for their entire physics career since this core concept will manifest itself in a lot of subject areas covered by Physics in its Universality. Vectors are easily explained as having both magnitude and direction. This concept is important to grasp because:
- Many units are vectors
- Which that determine how one goes about solving a problem
- How one graphs a unit
- How one answers the original problem
- The denotation of the unit is crucial in any analysis of a problem/scenario
Vector Components
Equally as important as vectors are vector components. They come in all shapes and sizes and depend upon the theta (angle) of the object and/or its direction as to determine the relative quantity of the vector component. The following are four prime examples of vector components, followed by the general equation for the first two:
- Fx = FcosTheta (sometimes flip-flops with Fy based upon the scenario)
- Fy = FsinTheta (sometimes flip-flops with Fx based upon the scenario)
- Perpendicular force (based upon the scenario)
- Parallel force (based upon the scenario)
Force Body Diagrams (FBDs)
Force Body Diagrams are as they sound. They are vector diagrams that display the forces that act on the object, with magnitude and direction, and obeys the scenario with all the Givens and Symbolic Givens. Most FBDs are:
- Center of mass FBDs (where all the arrows point away from the center; assumes that the center of mass is in that centralized dot and center of gravity is there as well, easier to analyze how a force interacts with an object)
- Center of mass FBDs without the center of gravity being where the center of mass is (same as the case above)
- Incline plane FBDs (same as the first case, but force components will be broken up to parallel and perpendicular directions relative to the incline itself)
- Centripetal force FBDs (where a force is pointing, at any point of the circle, straight forward but the object will continuously revolve/rotate around the center of the circular/angular path it creates)
Derivatives and Anti-Derivatives
Derivatives and Anti-Derivatives are important in the fact of connecting equations together, variables with important equations and equations restructured around units for a variable. If one can derive an equation for a variable one way, then one can undo it to return back to the original equation. Regardless, one should study up their equation sheet and know the equations so one can easily connect a seemingly random variable with concrete equations. This is considered a core concept since many questions and many variables can easily be explained away with just reshuffling equations to fit the overall problem in the first place.
Concrete
Withal, this post should be remembered as a guide that is a living document and not the law on this subject. As of 2018, these are relevant and have been taught in this way, yet in 2019 all of this could drastically change. But in consideration of practicality and the fact that "why to change if it ain't broken?" line seems to apply to the AP College Board, this post should serve well for the following years.
Footnotes
*Mysticism: purposeful vagueness, indirection and usage of red herrings that makes it difficult, but not impossible, to analyze the question correctly with all the statements listed in the problem/scenario.