Is it Weird I Find Physics II easier than Physics I?

[sheldonrocks97]

Is it weird that I find physics II easier than physics I? I am currently in Physics II at university and flying through it with an A. However, I took Physics I at Community College and BARELY got a B.

On my tests so far this semester I got a 87 on the first one and a 97 on the second one. In physics I, my highest exam score was an 86.

I never really liked mechanics but I absolutely love E&M. It's one of the reasons I decided to become an EE major. I love studying how charges behave and about properties of electric fields.

Am I in the minority here or do other people think Physics II is easier.

*By the way I'm talking about calculus based physics where physics I is mechanics and physics II is electricity and magnetism*.

 

[Danger]

Hi. Maybe it's just because you learned a whole new subject the first time, and now have all of that out of the way to concentrate on specifics?

 

[Gaz1982]

This isn't unusual in any domain.

I aced the final year of my degree after performing pretty mediocre in the previous 3.

 

[JorisL]

It's quite reasonable in my mind.
Whenever I encounter a subject that's really up my alley, I can spend countless hours studying about it.
Even though I usually need less time to study it because it registers faster. Which is often why better grades and understanding follow.

 

[axmls]

Physics I at my university was our "weed out" course, in that the one professor who usually teaches it makes his tests very long and difficult (so that in the end, a 40 could be a B). Physics II was a bit more straightforward. Another thing it could be is that maybe you find electricity and magnetism more interesting, so you're inclined to study it more. Ultimately, physics II isn't radically diffferent from physics I. After all, a decent sized portion of Physics I is spent dealing with kinematics, and another portion on forces or vectors, so, aside from being in different contexts, seeing these things in Physics II isn't too bad, because you've already dealt with them.