Understanding Physics content

[helpmeimstruggling]

Hey,

I understand that Physics is probably one of the most difficult subjects to do in high school, but I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions to understand the content better? I take notes in class, I watch videos from time to time and I look at practise papers - but I don't know how to answer them. I don't quite understand the classwork, and upon asking my teacher I just get confused even more.

Currently I'm in Year 12 and didn't do so well with my first assessment, however I still want to try and improve my marks because I (like) to think that I can do better. I just a medium to understand the content easier.

I know Khan academy has helpful videos, but I was wondering if there's anything tailored to the HSC syllabus?  I understand practise papers are probably the best way to study in Physics, but there's a bit hard to do when I don't quite understand what I'm doing haha.

Any insight would be appreciated,

Thanks

[Bri MT]

Hey,

One thing that I found helpful was to annotate all of my formulas and make sure I understood why they were as the are. I also found it more useful to deeply focus on understanding one topic and then moving on to the others after I fully got it rather than skimming each subject.

There's a list of resources here which you might find useful


Are there any topics in particular you are struggling with?

[helpmeimstruggling]

Hey,

One thing that I found helpful was to annotate all of my formulas and make sure I understood why they were as the are. I also found it more useful to deeply focus on understanding one topic and then moving on to the others after I fully got it rather than skimming each subject.

There's a list of resources here which you might find useful


Are there any topics in particular you are struggling with?

Thanks for responding.

I think I’m okay with projectile motion for the most part, but orbital velocity + turning on a banked curve and the electromagnetism section is where things seem to be getting confusing for me.

I’ll definitely try the formula method you used though.

[Bri MT]

Thanks for responding.

I think I’m okay with projectile motion for the most part, but orbital velocity + turning on a banked curve and the electromagnetism section is where things seem to be getting confusing for me.

I’ll definitely try the formula method you used though.

No worries!

The biggest thing I find usually helps people with projectile motion is very clear working keeping vertical and horizontal components separate.

In that case, I'd say definitely go over circular motion more, making sure you understand centripetal force as being a resultant force (i.e. the net force). Then it should get easier to look at banked tracks (where you get the net force being horizontal from the vertical component of the normal force cancelling out with the net force). Look at the working out for the banked track design speed formula and make sure you understand each step. This is likely to also help with orbits (which we approximate as circular).

Hmm electromagnetism is pretty big and has a lot of parts that confuse people. Some generic advice here:
- very clearly labelled diagrams (with colour coding!) are your friend
- when confronted with a shape that isn't a straight piece of wire, try "zooming in" and looking at pieces of it as if it was straight wire segment on its own.