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How to study HL physics


rams

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Hey everyone, this is a very generic question but how should you study for physics? My teacher really rushes through topics and I’m finding it hard to understand how to apply the theory. So far we’ve done topics 1-4 and I’ve found mechanics the hardest because we did not spend enough time on it, we also barely learnt the theory and went straight into past paper questions.  Waves and thermal physics on the other hand I found quite straight forward. Is the best approach to first study the theory and take notes and then do questions? Or is there better methods

Thanks

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There's a search bar on the top right and others may have given better advice than the following.

You definitely should study theory then do problems, the key is to not memorize theory and to not immediately do past papers. Basically if you ever need to memorize anything other than definition in topics 1-4, consider whether you are missing key conceptual understanding. You should ask questions whenever you are not sure how your teacher come to a certain result or if are finding yourself memorize anything. Then after the class, you should look for/go through many sample problems so you can follow the solution and see how the problem is set up. This can be in your textbook or in online videos such as KhanAcademy or YouTube. A typical textbook will have practice problems of various difficulties (from simply plugging numbers into an equation to some very complex problem solving) and you should attempt a variety of easy to medium problems until you feel comfortable with the topic. Then you can drill through the past papers. Past papers sometimes test multiple concepts at once and may not useful for reaffirming concepts right after you learn it. 

It is also worth while to brush up on the math if you are not comfortable with vectors or algebra. Basically I think math is doing same problems over and over, but physics it's to some extent doing a variety of problems because some problems may look similar but the approaches could be very different. Eg. instead of doing a projectile problem with an upward initial velocity component for the 20th time, consider doing one with a downward initial velocity component. 

In most multiple choice/paper 1 problems, it is important to trust the algebra than to use instincts, or worse, using recollection. This is why algebra prowess is so valuable: you can easily get 30-40% of the points in paper 1 just be doing algebra correctly. Read questions carefully and just because it looks familiar doesn't mean answer is what you thought it was. 

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