[Rampage]

I have a designated question for the American students at HLP.

"Did anyone take a 'AP Physics C' course followed by an exam in May?"

Being the jack-of-all-trades, I'm trying to jump from my school's history department to its science department.  Of course, it's going to be the next school year that I make the jump, but I still need some recon information beforehand.

I need to know:

1. How much calculus is required for the course?
2. If calculus is required, then to what degree is it required?
3. Does the exam require hefty amounts of calculus? (REWORDED: Will the questions be calculus based, such as in the case when answer choices are given in standard calculus notation?)
4. If you guys can provide me with some links, it would help me in my preparation.

Thanks,

Rampage

[phreak]

IIRC AB was algebra-based and BC/C was calculus based.  my school didn't offer it since our science department sucked large quantities of ass.

[Knight Templar]

I'm not in AP Physics yet but my friend who has AP Physics and AP Calc say they are more or less the same class (so much that he says I should wait until my senor year to take Physics so that I can take it a long with Calc.)

[Stealth]

well as far as i know PhReAk, there's an A, B, and C Physics (etc.), i.e. Physics 1, 2, and 3.

for Calculus we have Calculus AB and Calculus BC.  both are AP classes.  Calculus AB covers one semester of college calculus.  Calculus BC (which i'm in) covers two semesters of college calculus

[Cannikin]

I'm currently in AP Physics C and AP Calculus AB. In my school, it is not permitted to take this course without being concurrently enrolled in a calculus course. So far, calculus has been used pretty extensively, where it is applicable of course because sometimes it's not necessary when good ol algebra will do (which sometimes I find more difficult than something like derivatives and integrals, because it's very tedious and easy to get lost/make careless mistakes).

However, you do need to have a bit of background on calculus beforehand as in the first week we were using derivatives and after about one month, we needed to know how to use integrals. Since that's a little faster than what I'm learning in Calc AB, I find myself looking ahead in my textbooks to get an idea on these topics so I'm not totally clueless in physics.

I'm obviously still towards the beginning of the courses (just finished half of first semester), but this may help you a bit to get an idea.

REWORDED: Will the questions be calculus based, such as in the case when answer choices are given in standard calculus notation?

Yes, you will definitely need calculus to answer questions on the exam, otherwise the process is long, tedious and sometimes impossible to do without calc, and you'd never finish in time without it (heh, I just had a vision of trying to find the velocity of an object from a position function by drawing the graph and trying to estimate the slope of a tangent line, rather than just using a simple derivative ).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure there will be no multiple choice on the exam EDIT: Correction, I found out there will be some multiple choice questions on it, but I don't think they'll be a major part of the exam, and they're probably just value answers rather than anything that requires calculus notation. These are hand-graded by people, rather than fed into machines. My teacher says that they will look at every bit of work and process that you use and write down to come up with the answer, so understanding the concepts behind the questions and applying them correctly counts for nearly all of the credit, while having a correct answer itself is a miniscule component of your score.

[Cannikin]

Oh and these may help you understand what the course is about:

http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_physc.html

and

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/physics/ap_cd_physics.pdf
which includes more detail and sample questions on the exam itself.

[Rampage]

Great stuff!  I just talked to the science department head and she has a plan for me.

She teaches AP Physics B, but she has eight students also taking AP Calculus AB.  So she decided to give thos eight students a shot at the C exam.  And above that, she wants me to teach after school every Thursday.  Since AP Physics B is mostly mechanics, I will only be doing electromagnetism with those kids.  (I don't get paid extra, by the way.)

I have a question for Cannikin:
"I noticed that vector calculus is required, to an extent.  Line (standard and recursive) integrals and surface integrals I have witnessed on certain electromagnetism laws (The five Maxwell laws, specifically.)  These integrals I can handle, but they're definitely not covered in Calculus AB, maybe not even in Calculus BC.  So I guess I have to teach those poor kids.  Do you know if any other vector-scalar operations with calculus is required on the test, things such as gradient, divergence, and curl?  I assume that you're currently learning linear/projectile motion about now; how often is integration used thus far?  And, Cannikin, are you a high school junior or a senior this year?"

Thanks for the input,

Rampage

[phreak]

i think vector calc is third semester. so it should be covered in BC

[Stealth]

yeah well in Calc BC at the moment we just started learning second derivatives, curves, etc. about two weeks ago

[Cannikin]

Originally posted by Rampage

I have a question for Cannikin:
"I noticed that vector calculus is required, to an extent.  Line (standard and recursive) integrals and surface integrals I have witnessed on certain electromagnetism laws (The five Maxwell laws, specifically.)  These integrals I can handle, but they're definitely not covered in Calculus AB, maybe not even in Calculus BC.  So I guess I have to teach those poor kids.  Do you know if any other vector-scalar operations with calculus is required on the test, things such as gradient, divergence, and curl?  I assume that you're currently learning linear/projectile motion about now; how often is integration used thus far?  And, Cannikin, are you a high school junior or a senior this year?"

Hmm... I've been looking ahead in my calculus book, and doesn't appear to cover those topics. I know those are most definitely not covered in Calc AB, and considering that this book was used for BC last year, don't think they cover it either.

In Physics C, right now we're finishing up work and energy. So far the only two things we've needed integration so far were for finding total displacement from velocity equations and finding the work done from force vs. displacement equations. Looking ahead in my physics book, in the next few chapters we'll need integration again for things like calculating impulse and finding the inertia of a solid object over its entire volume.

But looking through a few chapters, it appears that we'll be using derivatives a lot more than integrals, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Again, hope that helps somewhat, but I'm not too far into the course and haven't even touched electromagnetism yet, which is second semester.

Oh and I'm a senior this year, as is everyone in my Calc and Physics classes.

[Kazan]

TAKE AP CALC if it's available to you!

I decided not to because my HS's AP Calc teacher was also the AP Stat teacher - and he wrote the textbook, and that same textbook is used at a lot of colleges *ph34r*  I didn't want to take calc from him because he's also a butthead

so I suffer through calc in college - it's taught like **** - only time i've ever found math difficult, and it's because **** isn't adequately explained

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Knight Templar
my friend who has AP Physics and AP Calc say they are more or less the same class (so much that he says I should wait until my senor year to take Physics so that I can take it a long with Calc.)

but you know there's more than one version of "Calculus" and "physics", right?

we've got two versions of calculus in our district, the "AB" and "BC" (both AP classes) (they cover one college semester and two college semesters respectively)

then there's Physics 1, 2, etc.

[CP5670]

I took the Physics C tests about two years ago and there wasn't really all that much math needed. There are two separate tests, one on mechanics and one on EM. Each test has about 20 multiple-choice questions along with two or three free-response questions that are actually each composed of several problems with a related theme. The mechanics one hardly uses anything; knowing expressions for derivatives and integrals of basic elementary functions and how to solve first-order linear ODEs (only because they sometimes give a problem where you have to calculate falling motion with a linear air resistance function) is enough. The EM section uses physics laws that involve surface integrals as you said, but in the problems they give you it is usually not necessary to evaluate the integrals directly at all, and in the few cases where it is, they are very easy ones that can be done with conventional methods (i.e. without using stokes' theorem and related results). The biggest constraint on both tests is by far the time; it is necessary to work very fast and you usually will not have any time left over to check your work.

Also, the TI-89 calculator is surprisingly allowed on both this and any of the calculus tests (although the functionally identical 92+ is not), so tell your students to do what I did: buy one of those just for the test and then return it once the test is over. The CAS on this really comes in handy for solving equations and integrals, especially since there is so little time.

[Knight Templar]

Originally posted by Stealth


but you know there's more than one version of "Calculus" and "physics", right?

we've got two versions of calculus in our district, the "AB" and "BC" (both AP classes) (they cover one college semester and two college semesters respectively)

then there's Physics 1, 2, etc.

Not here. Hence me not mentioning it.

[Rampage]

Originally posted by CP5670
...and how to solve first-order linear ODEs (only because they sometimes give a problem where you have to calculate falling motion with a linear air resistance function) is enough.

Code: [Select]



[b]v[/b](t) = [sqrt(g/k)]tanh[t sqrt(gk)]   ; Velocity with air resistance.

[b]d[/b](t) = (1/k)ln{cosh[t sqrt(gk)]}     ; Displacement wil air resistance.



Solving hyperbolic trig. equations, you mean?

Originally posted by CP5670
...and in the few cases where it is, they are very easy ones that can be done with conventional methods (i.e. without using stokes' theorem and related results).

I know that the four equations of Maxwell will be on there. (The fifth one will not be tested.) These four equations have, I know, algebraic equivalents that can be used instead.  So, give me an example where a surface integral needs to be evaluated.