How to Study for Physics? Textbooks, Resources and Tips?

[SharkSpider]

Well, for each topic, I read the chapter in the book till I thought I could try some practice problems, then did problems until I understood why I was getting the right answers. After that, I'd memorize all definitions that I was required to know, and start trying to recognize what steps to solving provlems used them. If you can solve open ended problems, then the guided ones on IB exams will be a piece of cake.

[IB_sucks]

Before doing any past papers, make sure you understand the material by studying you book(s)/notes. Also, it's very important to know how the formulas were derived because that seriously helps you understand how to use the formula and the topic in general, i have experienced this myself (specificly with the doppler effect). If there is anything you dont understand, dont just skip it. Try anyway to understand it by reffering to the internet and animations, they really help. After this, do examples and exercises in your book, then finally do past papers.

[rrswong]

I'm very similar to you - I do fine with HL Maths and Chem, but in Physics it just screws up for me.

Every week, or second week, I go through the syllabus document and write down all the definitions and explanations that we're expected to know for the new stuff that we've done, and look over the old stuff. Before I do questions, I make sure I understand the topic, so I read through a couple of my textbooks - the more, the better. Also try the internet.. but make sure the site is certifiable. I agree with IB_sucks: don't just skip the stuff you don't get. Try and make sense of it, and if you can't, leave it, but COME BACK to it.

Then, try and do past papers/questions from textbooks/questionbank questions.

[victimofIB]

dont just read the textbook for the sake of reading it, read it carefully and slowly try to understand the concept. take ample time to do so. i use "Physics for use with IB DP program" written by Kerr and Ruth. the third edition is available on the internet i think referring to this book might help.

[Tilia]

Also, something that's troublesome in chemistry at least, is how they want you to answer. I scored 11/25 on a chemistry test once and most of these lost points were because I forgot one single word in my definitions or didn't explain it in the way they wanted it.

[Peachez]

Well, do past papers.

I use to write notes on the syllabus, (definitions, theory and stuff)since our teacher doesn't care much about the theoretical part.

Our teacher is the opposite, he only cares about the theoretical part.. of course it is important and all, but not AS important.

[librarymugger]

I have spent like almost the whole June holiday to mug for Physics.

Yet, the result of my exam for Physics is not very optimistic... It's ironic that even though I really studied, the questions in exam were totally irrelevant.

Anyone has any method to score well for Physics ? Any text book recommended ?

[Sandwich]

I never took Physics, but I can tell you what really helped with Bio & Chem (especially Chem which is a demon subject, too) was going through past paper questions, especially multiple choice, and checking over my knowledge that way. Especially with something which has processes/equations in it (like Chem and so I presume like Physics) you can improve in both practice of a repeatable method and also just generally essential understanding by going through past papers. I'd really recommend them as the best way to learn. Go over everything from a textbook for a single section and then do every single past paper question you can find which tests that particular section.

[deissi]

The book for Physics: Physics Standard Level for the IB Diploma published by Heinemann

It works well for HL too because it has all the SL options which are essentially HL core stuff.

[master135]

The book by K.A. Tsokos is good (many exam questions were similar to the example problems in it) too along with the study guide by Tim Kirk. Dont bother getting the course companions - they are not very helpful IMO.

Just go through a lot of past paper questions, and follow the latest syllabus very closely - getting a 7 should be no problem. The grade boundaries for physics tend to be one of the lowest...this year physics SL TZ1 went as low as 65-100% for a 7 I think .

[sweetnsimple786]

Also, don't screw up on lab reports [practicals]. Try to do them early and see if your teacher will take a look at the format and maybe some content and approve that.

The math part of physics was easy for me, but there would be some questions about concepts I hadn't thought about. Take that into consideration. When your teacher lectures about that kind of stuff, write it all down. As master135 said, learn everything on the syllabus! You won't be tested on all the material, but do it anyways haha.

[sweetnsimple786]

You started this thread for physics. You should go over to the history forum if you want to talk about/ask help on the IA

=)

[benjaminlee92]

I saw in my Physics Textbook that there are Options from A-F. How do they work? Do i just choose one of the topics or do i have to do all of them?

Also, are there good websites for revision in general? Any good websites for Physics IB?

Help is much much much appreciated!

Yours

Ben

[sweetnsimple786]

Are you taking Physics SL or HL? [standard or Higher Level]

There are three papers that make up the Physics exam. Paper 3 is just the options. For SL, your teacher is supposed to teach 2 of the options. Therefore, you don't have much choice. However, some teachers... don't do that adequately for whatever reason. So students take it upon themselves to self-study if they are in this situation.

Here is some info about SL options.

Here is one for revision

Here is a thread on methods of revision.

For my options, I used these two sites:

Kstruct

Wikibooks

And this seems like a good site to find other good sites lol

Good luck! And don't worry too much about the options now.. ask your teacher which options he/she will be teaching. Most often, teachers integrate it into the lesson because options aren't totally new topics... just extensions.

Edit: I think on that first link [the first thread] it someone said it's 2 options for HL and SL. It's definitely not all of them!

Edited July 27, 2009 by sweetnsimple786

[biochem]

Physics is all about application. What you want to do is take notes, and work readily on your work. So you go through a section understand the theoretical concepts and the abstract ideas, then go through and do the math part. Thisi s just of your book like AP physics or IB physics. Either one are usually used. then what you may want to do if u have it, use the physics course companion if you are having trouble understanding. the Course companion is used in order to *ExplaiN* the reason why the concepts are like this and their use. For example, while the biology IB course just asks for memorization and understanding (superficial) of the stem-cell research, the course companion is really good good in expalning how far these types fo research ideas exist and how teratomas and tumors play an actual beneficial role in medicine (yup! - I learned that a tumor was actually beneficial becomes in grew cells out of proportion and under control can give u a developed part of an organ).

then after all you have done, perhaps looked online to see how things work (I usually used youtube for physics to look at vectors and more).

then this is the best educational part and improving score. This is probably where you are at with studying. Use a book called "3000 solved problems in Physics". It really really helps! I cant stress this enough. I got the book offline for chemistry for like 3 dollars at amazon, and I found it amazing. Its that application part and synthesis part of understanding physics for you (getting physics one for next year now). The best feature of the book: all problems are solved right there and then, and you dont need to look in the back for the answers.

Best of luck!!

[Ruan Chun Xian]

Tim Kirk's book, unless there's a new edition out, has quite a few mistakes so I would cross-check it.

On the other hand, they do repeat questions across exams. I would look at markschemes to see what they give points for, because sometimes you can earn marks by just knowing where points are allocated, so that even if you don't know the answer, you can get partial points.

The number of lines they give you to answer the question is relative to the length they want. If they "state" something, don't bother to explain it, just state it. Similarly, there are techniques to answering other key words that they use in exam questions.

[Tilia]

Make sure you know your maths, such as sine functions, trigonometric ratios, calculus etc.

Do past papers, especially P1 questions can be tricky, so make sure you get used to them.

The Heinemann book is really good, I can really recommend it.

Print out the syllabus and when it says "Define this concept", then write the definition next to it.

Read the syllabus continously and make sure you follow it.

Ask you teacher if you don't understand something.

Focus on mechanics, a lot of the questions on the exams are on mechanics.

[Georgie]

I have just started IB and to my dismay, my physics teacher can't teach and so far has neglected to give us any notes aside from his own (they're terrible, fill in the missing word etc etc) I'm thinking I might need to buy a proper text book (that covers the HL options too) if we are not provided with one within a few weeks.

Any ideas for the best ones?

[TidusBlade]

Well, I can't comment too much since I haven't used my textbooks too much but I guess some comment is better than nothing

I don't like study guides/revision books etc. or anything that condenses information, I'd much rather go through the book and if I need a quick refresher I just jot down the definitions and equations, it's not like physics has tons of factual information to learn and I'd much rather understand everything and derive the stuff I need rather than memorize.

[bias]

The first book we got which was Phsyics, 3rd Edition by Gregg Kerr & Paul Ruth (I've never seen a physics book with a creative name =/) pretty much follows the syllabus exactly and covers every option also, so if you're just looking for all the information in one book, it's not bad.

It explains almost everything pretty well but I didn't really like because it has almost zero problems. You might get a problem or two or maybe several if you're lucky at the end of each chapter but that's about it, and they're not particularly challenging. I also didn't like the fact that it barely went beyond the syllabus. Maybe that's just me but I don't like when a book talks about a topic only qualitatively. Then again, it does it's job of covering the syllabus so if that's what you want, it's good enough I guess ^^ Other than that, I think I've heard my teacher say that it has it's fair share of errors, or at least more than the usual found in a physics textbook, but it probably wouldn't be anything too significant.

Next up is Advanced Physics by Steve Adams & Jonathan Allday. The link has tons of reviews on it (well 14 is a lot compared to most books I check for ) so I won't say much.

It's not an IB book so it covers a lot of stuff in and out of the syllabus, most of the stuff is explained pretty well although I still think of it as a review book sort of since each subtopic gets 2 pages or a spread as they call it. Each subtopic gets several questions which is good since you're not gonna learn or physics without tons of problems imo.

The best thing I found about it was that the authors aren't writing the book just to make a quick buck like the one in the paragraph above, they are passionate about physics and it shows, some pages get conversational and it's pretty interesting to read about much more than just the why and how + equations. Forgot if it covers options and stuff so might wanna check the table of contents on Amazon.

The book I liked the most however was University Physics by Young & Freedman (or Sears & Zemansky for the older editions). Again, there's tons of reviews so I'll just post what I liked about it.

Firstly, it explains every last concept in excruciating detail, and I'm not saying the info is scattered and the authors leaves in tons of unneeded info, the info is actually quite condensed. It's really rare for me not to understand something it's trying to say, like I remember not understanding resonance at all but after googling for a bit and then coming back to the book, I finally got it.

It also goes through all the detail of how something came to be. The other two books (and the vast majority of physics books for that matter) just give you the equation and explain it, sometimes going through a simple derivation of it or something, but the first equation in most chapters would probably be out of nowhere. In this book however, it goes through all the detail on how each equation was derived in detail, sometimes spending pages just explaining how a simple equation like ω^2=k/m was discovered. It does skip over the derivation of some more complicated and obscure equations, either telling you how to go about deriving it or just simply saying something like there's too many differential equations that it's annoying to derive, but if you want you could do it yourself since it gives you the basis to do so.

Other than that, I really liked the huge problem sets it has at the end of each chapter (125 questions on Newton's Laws anyone ?) which really help you get everything in the chapter as well as discussion questions so you get the physics behind stuff and also the math. Some of the questions can get pretty tough and by that I mean hellishly hard lol, especially the challenge problems at the end, but they're always satisfying to solve.

Only thing you might not like about it is that it 20% or maybe even less of it's contents are in the IB syllabus, not a bad thing if you ask me, but it might not fit your requirements. Also, I'm too cheap to buy a book like this obviously so I was using my dad's ancient 5th edition until I found the 12th edition online online along with the solutions manual, so that should give you a tip if you're interested in taking a look at this, plus you'll probably want to use the solutions manual a lot. PM me if you're interested.

At the end of the day; If you want to get everything and pass nicely, get the first book. If you enjoy physics and want to pass with flying colours, Advanced Physics is probably what you're looking for. If you want to understand everything extremely well and enjoy a more rigorous approach to physics, I'd go for University Physics.

[/bias]

Hope this helps somehow and that I wasn't too biased. As I said, I've barely used the first two books so can't comment too much so if anyone thinks I've said something unfair about a book, please bash this post

EDIT: Forgot to mention to fuel further bias; this post comes from my experiences of self-teaching myself physics from these books, we don't use books in class anyways. But from the sound of your post, you'll be self-studying as well so no problems I guess ^^

Edited February 12, 2010 by TidusBlade

[Georgie]

Wow

Thank you so much! That was a lot of information, I'll look up the books you mentioned. Is it easy to download IB past exam questions off the internet? Which I would have to do if I didn't get a book with questions. I really enjoy physics but I'm not sure that I'm going to have time to dissect through a book that covers a lot more than I need to know. I would definitely like to understand it on the deeper level to give me an edge it's just a question of whether I can fit in the extra study.

Thank you very much for your advice, you clearly know what you're talking about Would I be able to have that link you mentioned to that online addition?

Cheers