How much time should you spend reading and doing problems

cs23

How do you know when to move on from reading the text and going to problems?

Also, when making notes from a physics text, what should you be making notes on. I find that when making my own notes, i'm just re writing the textbook and having pages of notes at the end which take a lot of time to write.

Let's say i read a chapter, what should be going on in my head regarding what i read?

PhDorBust

10 hours a day is a safe bet.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/chapman.htm

ParticleGrl

I recommend, more than anything else, after reading a chapter or attending lectures try to work through the problems without notes in front of you. If you don't know a formula you need, try to work it out yourself. Don't look things up or consult notes unless you've been stuck for a long period of time.

cs23

THANK YOU particlegirl!!!! So when I'm solving problems, instead of looking up equations from notes or a textbook, I should try and derive the equations myself each time without the help of anything. I can see how this will help me immensely. I usually rely on solved examples and follow their procedure, which is ineffective because I'm not thinking myself.

thegreenlaser

I would say move to problems when you feel like you could explain the main points of the section to someone without having to look at your notes or the text book. When you do read, always read actively; try to understand "why?" rather than just memorizing. After I read a small portion of text, I like to pretend that I'm tutoring someone: putting it into words that they would understand. That forces you to really understand what's going on and how it connects to everything you've learned so far, rather than just being able to regurgitate what the text says. Then, when you do problems, don't just try to get the right answer. Always make sure to ask yourself lots of questions: "Why did that method I just used work in general?" "What is it about this problem that allowed me to use that method?" "What other methods could I use to solve this, and why was the one I chose the best?" "What would I do if they made the problem harder by _____" Also, make sure to keep deriving formulas until they're stuck in your head rather than just memorizing them. Even if formulas are given, work through the derivations yourself a couple times. It takes much longer to get through practice problems this way, but you'll get a lot more out of it, and things will stick with you much longer. Professors like to throw those tricky problems on a test that most people won't have seen, but if you can anticipate those when you're doing practice problems, you'll have no trouble on the test. Also, if you're unsure about a formula (I know test anxiety always makes me doubt myself) you can simply re-derive it and have faith that you're correct.

mal4mac

That sounds a very slow way of proceeding. You should learn how to derive simple equations, like v = u + at, in your early courses. But, if you need basic equations like these in an advanced problem, actually deriving them will (a) take time (b) look daft to the examiner. Some (like v = u + at!) should be so lodged in your memory that you can never forget them - so use them, don't derive them (unless you are asked to!)

Solved examples are *very* useful, just keep thinking when you are going through them! Then do similar unsolved examples the same way. Note that the solved examples will simply *use* basic facts ("the derivative if t^2 is 2t...") without deriving them. Follow their example... if you ever want to finish an exam question in time...

In many exams you are given a list of equations you can use - you don't have to derive them - you don't even have to memorise them! Check with your lecturer if you get such a list of equations...

If you become a working physicist then you'll find yourself looking up equations a lot! So get used to it...