Failed first Physics midterm; looking for advice.

[lilypetals]

Hello everyone. -waves- I'm new so...don't kill me or...anything like that, but y'all seem like nice people, what with the devoting-your-time-to-helping-with-homework questions thing. That's super cool of you. (:

So, I have this scenario, and I'm looking for some advice.

I failed my first Physics midterm. I'm a college student at Berkeley, taking Physics 7A, which is simply mechanics and wave motion. I have an okay professor, but the examples he does in class seem so much more simplistic than the problems that appeared on that midterm. The textbook is about the same; everything makes sense, even the examples they map out for you, but suddenly the problems at the end of the chapter and online in the ever-wonderful MasteringPhysics realm are dragons of horrid complexity.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it through this semester with a pass? Any resources that any of you have used to help you become better at complex problem-solving?

Thanks in advance.

 

[flyingpig]

Yesterday I divided density by mass to get volume even though I wrote down mass divided by volume. The whole question was based on that (volume), so I pretty much screwed myself over lol

You will get over it soon, I use MasteringChemistry right now and I think I understand you lol. I used webassign last semester, it was better

 

[General_Sax]

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it through this semester with a pass? Any resources that any of you have used to help you become better at complex problem-solving?

Just keep working hard. One thing you'll learn about Uni. is that the tests are almost always insane. You really have to put a lot of effort into get an A. I mean a lot of effort, do so many questions that you get blisters on your fingers.

 

[ParticleGrl]

You need to go to your professor's and your TA's office hours. Go in with the homework or other example problems you want to practice and work with them.

Gather a group of fellow students in the class and work with them. Problem solving is like playing chess- you'll learn much faster if you are playing with an expert.

 

[Rebooter]

Hello everyone. -waves- I'm new so...don't kill me or...anything like that, but y'all seem like nice people, what with the devoting-your-time-to-helping-with-homework questions thing. That's super cool of you. (:

So, I have this scenario, and I'm looking for some advice.

I failed my first Physics midterm. I'm a college student at Berkeley, taking Physics 7A, which is simply mechanics and wave motion. I have an okay professor, but the examples he does in class seem so much more simplistic than the problems that appeared on that midterm. The textbook is about the same; everything makes sense, even the examples they map out for you, but suddenly the problems at the end of the chapter and online in the ever-wonderful MasteringPhysics realm are dragons of horrid complexity.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make it through this semester with a pass? Any resources that any of you have used to help you become better at complex problem-solving?

Thanks in advance.

My best advice is to buy other textbooks than the one you're using and work through those problems.
It is common place at schools that are competitive (not most state schools... Berkeley is somewhat competitive though) to introduce brand new concepts on tests, because otherwise a majority would receive As in the class (if it was a pure test of understanding a set of material).

Take this into account... most of your classmates have had this course already... and probably at an even higher level than is being taught to you. You have to basically teach yourself past the level for the first semester right away (find a highly ranked book for calc-physics on Amazon and go through that on the side... and go to office hours/etc for HW assistance).

 

[Ashuron]

well, it's usual for intro physics class to be difficult..

my only advice is you can not depend only on those examples from professors and textbooks..
do more exercises than required by the course(HW, Quiz, etc.), develop your own understanding...

 

[lilypetals]

Thank you all for all the advice! I feel a little less worried now. Since I'm shaking on problem-solving, I picked up the suggested book for the course which is also actually rather highly rated, containing tons of practice problems and in-depth solutions, and I signed up for the study group that meets on Mondays for my class. Thanks again for all your suggestions. (:

 

[thegreenlaser]

Spend a lot of time making sure you understand EVERYTHING in your mastering physics assignments and what-not. I'm taking E&M right now, and my buddy and I spend literally our whole Saturday doing our weekly mastering physics assignment. It's not that we couldn't do it in a few hours, but we beat the thing to death trying every problem from every angle and making sure that we both understand why exactly our method works from both a mathematical and an intuitive standpoint. We both did quite well on the midterm, even though the class average was quite low and my prof is pretty bad at explaining things.

Try to go for the harder questions and spend lots of time on them rather than blasting through tons of simple ones. If you spend time making sure you understand the harder questions, then the simple ones become... Simple.

 

[bleedblue1234]

I like this post: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/...-the-highest-grade-in-my-discrete-math-class/

 

[mal4mac]

Search for past exam papers. Google! I tried. Found this after two seconds:

https://tbp.berkeley.edu/examfiles/physics/physics7A-sp05-mt1-zettl-exam.pdf

And, remember, you aren't alone :)

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/577127-so-i-failed-my-first-physics-midterm.html

 

[Ashuron]

I like this post: http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/11/...-the-highest-grade-in-my-discrete-math-class/

I also recommend the whole website...