General tips

 Keep up with the course. Once you fall behind it is very difficult to catch up. If you
ignore this advice and do fall behind (it happens to the best of us sometimes), and if you
cannot manufacture the time to do a thorough job of catching up, then skim the passed-
over course material for its most important points and move on to a thorough study of the
current course material. Attempting a thorough study of last week's material usually
results in being one week behind for the entire semester.
 Do the reading before attending the lectures. This way way you won't need to take notes
on everything the lecturer says, because you will already understand some of the material
and you will know that some of it is treated well in your textbook. If you follow this
advice, then you can use the lecture for what lecture is good at: asking questions,
following the demonstrations, discovering how this week's material fits into the overall
structure of the course, and gaining a conceptual understanding of the material under
study. At the same time you can use the text for what text is good at: presenting
derivations and sample problems, and getting the details right.
 Devote a little time to studying physics each day, rather than a large amount of time once
a week: this allows the material to sink in.
 Make some friends in the course and work through the material in small groups. Use
these groups for discussion, problem suggestions, and companionship. Throw ideas into
the group's "pot" as well as drawing ideas from it. Do not use your study group as a
crutch.
 Attend the course's conference sessions to learn informal techniques that are not well-
taught through the lecture method.
 Do not memorize. In almost all cases, the temptation to memorize indicates a simple a
lack of understanding. In the words of Charles Misner: "The equation F = ma is easy to
memorize, hard to use, and even more difficult to understand."

Tips regarding reading

 Read aggressively. The amount of reading assigned in a physics course will be far less
than the amount of reading assigned in a literature or a sociology course, but the reading
is much denser and your teacher expects you to read it thoroughly, thoughtfully, and
critically. Read with pencil and paper in hand, and follow the algebra yourself. Keep a list
of questions and of points that you don't understand.
 Take notes in your book. Mark the most important points and record why they are
important. The act of deciding what is important is the first step in turning reading from
passive page-turning into active, aggressive--and rewarding--penetration. (Some students
take notes by highlighting with a yellow marker. This is all right, but don't fall into the
trap of highlighting everything in your book!)
 Examine the sample problems carefully.
 If the reading is too dense, try skimming it once to get an overview of what's going on,
then coming back and reading in detail the second time.
  The active, aggressive reading advocated here is very time-consuming. Reserve it for the
most important parts of your textbook. You might be able to get your teacher to list for
you the most important sections, or you might have to decide for yourself.

Tips regarding lectures

 Listen aggressively. What you get out of lecture is proportional to what you put into it. If
you follow the lecture, think about the material, ask questions, and care about what's
going on, then lecture will be an active, productive learning experience for you. If you sit
slumped in your seat, then lecture will give you a backache and little more.
 Come to lecture armed with questions for your teacher, developed from doing your
reading.
 Some students are used to rewriting their lecture notes or taping lectures and then
listening to them twice. We discourage such practices, not because they are useless, but
because they are less profitable than other practices advocated here. (In particular, taping
a lecture does not record the all-important blackboard display.)
 On the other hand, many students do find it useful to review each lecture by making a
simple list of the most important topics, and also a different list of the puzzling aspects
that need clarification. This review can be done through your notes or in your memory or
with your study group, but it is best done soon after the lecture.

Tips regarding problems

 Do the reading and listen to the lectures before attempting the problems.
 Do not put off the problems until the night before they are due. In particular, take a stab
at the problems before conference sessions, so that you can ask well-formulated questions
there.
 Read the problem carefully to make sure you understand what is being asked.
 Do not rush into solving a problem. Instead, first formulate a strategy for solving the
problem. Usually this is as simple as classifying the problem according to its method of
solution. Is it a "constant acceleration" problem? A "work-energy" problem? A "Gauss's
law" problem?
 If you find yourself writing pages of words or working reams of algebra, then you are off
on the wrong track. Stop, reread the problem, think, reformulate your strategy, and then
start over again from the beginning.
 Think of the problems as mystery stories. How would Sherlock Holmes approach this
problem?
 Don't search through your book for "the right equation". You will not be able to
solve your problem by finding an appropriate equation and then plugging numbers into it.
No self-respecting college-level teacher would assign such a problem.
 If the final answer called for in the question is a number, then you will ultimately have to
plug numbers into an equation. But even in such cases it is almost always easier and less
error-prone to keep the quantities as symbols until the very end. (For one thing, it is
easier to do algebra with the symbol "m" than with the value "2.59 kg".)
  Sometimes the problem statement will give you more information than is needed to
answer the question. Sometimes it will give you less information than is needed, and ask
you not for an answer but for a list of the unknown information required to find an
answer. Sometimes the problem will be a short narrative from which you need to extract
relevant information. Students often find such problems exasperating, but in fact they
develop an important problem-solving skill called building a mathematical model.
Problems that arise in the world outside of your textbook usually come with more or less
data present than needed to solve the problem. The ability to recognize which data are
needed and which are irrelevant is an important practical skill.
 Review your problem solutions when they are returned (or when model solutions are
handed out). Why did you make the mistakes you did? How could you have avoided
them? This review should be quick (after all, you have new material piling up) but five or
ten minutes spent in this review can save hours by preventing similar mistakes in the
future.
 More suggestions are available in the page Solving Problems in Physics.

Tips regarding lab work

 Skim the lab instructions before coming to lab. You won't be able to understand things
fully without the equipment in front of you, but you'll get a general overview that will
serve you well and ultimately save you time.
 Don't be afraid to fiddle with lab equipment unless you have been specifically warned
away from it. Many students are reluctant to play with electrical equipment because
they're afraid of being shocked. Unless you are told otherwise, the stuff used in lab won't
hurt you.

Tips regarding exams

 Keep up with the course. Don't cram at the last minute.

 Get a good night's sleep. Even if you ignored the advice above and have to cram, limit
cramming in favor of sleep.
 Prepare a one-page summary of the material being examined.
 Don't memorize. Your teacher expects you to work with ideas and solve problems, not
plug numbers into equations.
 Bring to the exam a calculator (fully charged) and several pens or pencils (sharpened).
 As you read an exam problem, place a check mark beside the given data and underline
the unknown quantity to be found. This will help you prepare a strategy and help you
avoid answering a question that is similar to but different from the one that is asked.
 Make a sketch or graph to familiarize yourself with the situation. Make sure you
understand the problem before plunging in.

Weaknesses

 If you need help with mathematical background, consult either Arthur Beiser, Essential
Math for the Sciences (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1969), or Daniel Kleppner and Norman
 Ramsey, Quick Calculus (Wiley, New York, 1985), or Colin Adams, Joel Hass, and
Abigail Thompson, How to Ace Calculus: The Streetwise Guide (Freeman, San
Francisco, 1998).
 Guard against the two most common failings: reliance on memorization and on "plug and
chug" problem technique.
 http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/StudyTips.html

Physics Exam Advice

Feature From: Dec/02

Physics Exam Advice

December, that magical time of year when people stop and reflect on... whether they're going to
pass Physics! Having marked Physics exams at three Universities I've found a few general
principles that seem to help. If you'd like to do better in Physics than what you're doing right
now, here are some points to consider which may help in other subjects as well:

1. Go for the part marks: too many students think its all or nothing. they don't hand in imperfect
assignments, and don't write down enough to give them part marks on exam questions. Believe
me, most teachers/professors are looking for every opportunity to give you marks - and they
don't watch you come into class the next day thinking "there's Joe, boy was that a dim-witted
answer to number 5". We've seen it all, brilliantly good and incredibly bad. If you're not
convinced, consider which will look worse 4 out of ten, or zero out of 10. If we look down on
anybody, it's those who hand in nothing. You're not going to get negative marks for writing
down something wrong, nor will marks be deducted from another question. The worst a bad
answer will give you is zero. So, your choice is a worst case of zero versus a guaranteed zero on
the question --- what to do should be a no-brainer. Consider a couple of scenarios:
1) Jeff gets 5 out of 10 questions completely correct and puts nothing down for the other 5 --
50%, D minus.
2) Kim gets 5 out of 10 questions completely correct and puts down few equations she thinks
are applicable, a couple of free-body diagrams, and some notes about how she thinks she
should proceed - much of which is wrong, but some of which is right... 60%, C minus (correlation
between percentage and grade varies).

Run some scenarios of your own, figuring that you might get 1 or 2 marks out of 10 for
going beyond what you are sure of and writing in some stuff that you think shows some
correct understanding of how to tackle the problem. Your 6 out of 10 on a question could
become a 7 or 8 if you go out on a limb on the part you don't know. You will probably
find differences like D becomes C, or B+ becomes A-.

2. Make a crib sheet: perhaps you're even allowed a crib sheet. If so, don't just copy your friend's
to save time. If your professor provides one, make your own even though you won't take it to
the exam. The magic of a crib sheet is not that it helps you with equations you couldn't
remember, it is that making it forces you to organize the course material in your mind. By the
time you've made your own crib sheet you probably won't need to look at it.
 Some of my graduate courses would spend around 50 pages spanning several lectures to
derive a single result. I would look at this stuff and think there was no way I could learn
the details of the derivation, but then I would make the crib sheet. Typically I could get
the entire term's material down to about 30 pages on the first pass. I would chop,
organize, paraphrase, until I had about 30 pages that would suffice for notes if it was all I
was allowed to bring to the exam. On the next pass I might condense this down to 10
pages, then to 3 then to 1. By the time I had gone over the course layout enough that I had
a single page which I thought would get me started sufficiently to do everything else if
asked... I didn't even need that sheet any more.

3. Come in rested: this is easier said than done, but a Physics exam requires being sharp. The odds
are that if you are up late the night before cramming, the extra information you cram in will be
more than offset by the sluggish pace you answer the questions due to being over tired. Get a
good night's sleep, and the day of the exam get into a good frame of mind: listen to music, go
jogging, pray... whatever helps you become mentally set.
4. Practice Solving Problems: the vast majority of most Physics exams consists of problem solving.
You need to be good and fast at solving the type of problems you will be asked. Doing all of your
assigned questions during the term should be the bare minimum you consider - redo them when
preparing for the exam. Do any supplemental questions given, look for other questions of the
same type in your text. Get another text from the library and use the questions from the same
sections (most introductory Physics textbooks are laid out pretty much the same). If it helps, try
my page Practice Physics Problems. On the left you may see an ad for books with titles like
"3000 Solved Physics Problems" (the ads are random, so it may require some reloading if you
wish to see these ones). Books like this can be very helpful Remember to do lots of these three
things: practice, practice and practice.
5. Learn to Recognize Problem Types: when you do an assignment you typically get a question
from a section of the book - so you flip to that section to check out the equations and examples.
On an exam, you have to figure out for yourself whether a ball hitting the ground problem is:
collision, gravity, trajectory, energy conservation... or a mixture of these. In fact, it is the
temptation to mix problem types on an exam that I think accidentally makes many exams more
difficult than intended. After a student uses energy conservation to find how fast a ball hits the
ground, why not get them to do an inelastic collision to find how fast it rebounds and then do a
trivial 1D trajectory to figure out how long it will be til it bounces again? This train is easy to
follow if you are practiced at figuring out for yourself what type of problem you are dealing with,
and recognize that in multistep problems the type can keep changing. To look for examples in
your text, this is often what gets labeled as the challenge problems - they are a challenge
because you need to go beyond what you could immediately find in the same chapter.
6. Take the Time to Write in the Units: "Dimensional Analysis" is one of the easiest and yet most
powerful tools for checking your work. Far too many Physics Exams only have units written on
the final answer. Consider the trivial example of finding the speed of a car which travels 10000
cm in 5 seconds. Your work should read something like:
v = 10000 cm/ 5 s =2000 cm/s
then, assuming you are expected to give the answer in m/s, your next line would be a unit
conversion:
v = 2000 cm/s * 0.01 m/cm = 20 m/s
 Notice that writing in the units will make it less likely that you make the mistake of
missing the cm -> m unit conversion that needs to be done. If you have the formula
wrong you would also discover that... if you get s/m it means you put each number in the
wrong part of the ratio. If you get m2/s it means you got an exponent wrong. Practice
writing units in all you calculations when you do assignments and it will become
effortless quickly. It will then guard you against many needlessly lost marks on exams.

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