- The AP Survival Guide series (literally) -

- Abstract for AP Physics 1 -

Whether one is in AP Physics or going to be in one: this post was made to essentially point out the things that one must look forward to, take note off, look out for and must keep in mind while in an AP Physics 1 class. This post does not serve to hand the entire years worth of AP Physics 1 down like candy to children, take the class or look "Flipping Physics" on YouTube to have that education for free. Also, yes, this post is USA-centric, because AP (Advanced Placement) is an USA-only (for now) course unlike the IB (International Baccalaureate).

On a short excursion, assuming all schools and AP classes are created equal across the USA, AP Physics 1 will mainly cover the following items:

• Vectors (Id est: Linear motion at first with speed, distance, displacement, velocity and acceleration)
• Forces (Id est: Force of Gravity, Normal Force, Applied Force and Frictional force being your big four covered)
• Newton's Three Laws of motion
• Energy (Id est: as Work and Joules)
• Kinetic and Potential energies (with their constants)
• Momentum and Impulse
• Angular motion (Id est: Angular versions of linear motion with different symbols to come along with it)
• Waves (Id est: Transverse and Longitude Waves)
• Finally charges (Id est: Attraction-Repulsion, negative/positive charges and Coulomb's Constant)

- Multiple Choice-

The multiple choice portion will take up half of the time and will come in the stock-standard four possible answer format. The majority, if not all questions, of the test will usually consist of and can combine with the following:

• Number crunching (Id est: plug and chug numbers to find the missing answer)
• Equation derivatives (Id est: derive an equation for the missing answer)
• Picture analysis (Id est: self-evident)

Number crunching as a term would seem foreign to those outside the USA, so to explain away this crass: it's the repetitious work that one must continuously plug in numbers to get an answer, these can take forever to solve if you have to deal with the next item. That being, equation derivatives which should be universal but for those who haven't even heard the term of derivatives: you set about staring at one equation where if one were to think hard enough it will auto-transform itself, if only that were true; mainly one will spend a lot of time trying to fit an equation to set restrictions, doing it but realizing they got something off-kilter like someone incorrectly solving a Rubik's cube. Picture analysis, probably the easiest the do but the hardest to relate back to the problem, is just that; you better have studied those formulas and the scenarios they apply in!

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- FRQs (Free Response Questions) -

The other half of the test's time will consist of you solving FRQs which essentially will have you look at the scenario to then analyze the givens to come up with answers to the questions they ask you. (Which sometimes you have to compliment the College Board, company that owns AP, for creating questions that not even college students will find - or at least not stumble upon in that insidious form.) The following questions here are common:

• Lab-based FRQs (analyze the lab scenario and generate answers for such)
• Scenario-based FRQs (self-evident, look at the scenario and analyze it)
• Derivative questions (derive equations from Givens stated)
• Proportion questions (self-evident, analyze the scenario equations)

- Labs -

(For my school: this hadn't been used in tests, but some labs do count heavily on grades. And if you want the relative answer to that: compare a single feather to a bar of steel.) These are liken to that Chemistry labs or Biology labs if you've taken Chemistry/Biology beforehand in either a Standards ("Regular" version) or Honors ("Non-AP High standards" version) course. If you haven't been in a classroom lab, here's the general rundown for AP Physics 1 specifically:

• Pre-Lab questions that pertain to the topic at hand (philosophize, relate or hypothesize; all three intertwining at times which can be actually thought provoking).
• Background (like, the story of the thing for AP kids to not fall asleep when doing the lab), variable listings (controlled, independent and dependent variables) and the Procedure for one's conducting inside the lab as to minimize error and maximize safety.
• Conducting the lab and gathering the data (self-evident)
• Formatting the data and graphing it (self-evident, you may need a statistics nerd)
• Assessment of the data, conclusion and insight for better improvements (self-evident, last one basically being a self-critique session when auto/self-analyzing your and your group-mates contributions)

- Core concepts -

With the abstract out of the way, now let's get to the core concepts. These are the ones that will be useful when the hard times come in to wreck the place, usually in a lab or a test. For these need to be kept in mind at all times, like the usage of one's sword when being a knight or one's plow when being a farmer. Since these will be recurrent themes across the entire year of AP Physics 1.

- Givens and Symbolic Givens -

Givens are the things that the question, whether it be in your homework or your quizzes or your tests, that they outright state what unit/symbol has what quantity of such. So a scenario can be: "Find the displacement if velocity v and time t are this" where v and t are arbitrary numbers. Of course not many, if any at all, questions will ever be as simple as that, but that should get you to start understanding that behind all the mysticism* inside the question, there's this underlying simple question they really are asking... Which they never are interested in just directly stating as they are payed more for the quantity words per question they make than helping kids get around in life... Of course, that may have changed since then but who knows with College Board...

The same follows suit with Symbolic Givens. Essentially they are diagrams, pictures and outright symbols that tell you something about what they represent but don't have to be outright stated in the scenario. Whenever you are in possession of these you should annotate them somewhere in unit/picture form because:

• Easier to analyze and break-down as to help solve the problem which will help you find the right answer.
• Possibility of "pity" points from the teacher or the test scorer somewhere in those AP facilities.
• Easier to remember and makes it easier to find out what one is solving for, if you hadn't fallen into red-herrings.

- Graphs -

As a small excursion, graphs play a huge role when solving a problem and may be the only way to answer a problem correctly. These are liken to Symbolic Givens, but they act more like an answer than being something useful to yield the actual answer down the road. What must be taken to heart is how to format one: that is the title must represent what is being analyzed at hand, first item being the y-value, the second item being the x-value and that there's a clear relationship between the two that can be analyzed. Most of the time graphs act like the following:

• Literally anything vs. time (Usually a change in something over time)
• Derivative graphs (graphing using derived units to symbolize them in an empirical way)
• Area graphs (graphing the area of a graph that is useful for analysis)

- Vectors -

Vectors is the first and most major concept that an AP Physics student, hell even a mathematics student, has to grasp for their entire physics career. Since this core concept will manifest itself in a lot of subject areas covered by Physics in its Universality (entire range of all possible particularities). Vectors are easily explained as having both magnitude and direction. This concept is important to grasp because:

• Many units are vectors:
  • Which that determines how one goes about solving a problem
  • How one graphs a unit
  • How one answers the original problem
• The denotation of the unit is crucial in any analysis of a problem/scenario

- Vector Components -

Equally as important as vectors are vector components. They come in all shapes and sizes and depend upon the theta (angle) of the object and/or its direction as to determine the relative quantity of the vector component. The following are four prime examples of vector components, followed by the general equation for the first two:

• Fx = FcosTheta (sometimes flip-flops with Fy based upon the scenario)
• Fy = FsinTheta (sometimes flip-flops with Fx based upon the scenario)
• Perpendicular force (based upon the scenario, usually related to Weight and Normal Force)
• Parallel force (based upon the scenario, usually related to friction)

- Force Body Diagrams (FBDs) -

Force Body Diagrams are as they sound. They are vector diagrams that display the forces that act upon the object, with magnitude and direction, and obeys the scenario with all the Givens and Symbolic Givens. Most FBDs are:

• Center of mass FBDs (where all the arrows point away from the center; assumes that the center of mass is in that centralized dot and center of gravity is there as well; which makes it easier to analyze how a force interacts with an object and evades the Calculus that such a question would usually invoke)
• Center of mass FBDs without the center of gravity being where the center of mass is (same as the case above)
• Incline plane FBDs (same as the first case, but force components will be broken up to parallel and perpendicular directions relative to the incline itself)
• Centripetal force FBDs (where a force is pointing, at any point of the circle, straight forward but the object will continuously revolving/rotating around the center of the circular/angular path it creates)

- Derivatives and Anti-Derivatives -

Derivatives and Anti-Derivatives are important in the fact of connecting equations together, variables linked with important equations and equations restructured around units for a variable. If one can derive an equation for a variable one way, then one can undo it to return back to the original equation. Regardless, Calculus students will be shamed out of the classroom if they try their wizardry and just follow the teacher's advise that one should study up their equation sheet and know the equations so one can easily connect a seemingly random variable with concrete equations. But do give respect to the students that are AP Calculus AB/BC, they might just give you enough tricks to make your physics test a whole lot easier without trying.

(This is considered a core concept since many questions and many variables can easily be explained away with just reshuffling equations to fit the overall problem in the first place.)

- Concrete -

Withal, this post should be remembered as a guide that is a living document and not the Absolute Law on this subject. As of 2019 Anno Domini, these are relevant and have been taught in this way. Yet in 2020 all of this could drastically change. But in consideration of practicality and the fact that "why to change it if ain't broken?" line seems to apply to the AP College Board, this post should serve well for the following years.

- Footnotes -

*Mysticism: purposeful vagueness, indirection and usage of red herrings that makes it difficult, but not impossible, to analyze the question correctly with all the statements listed in the problem/scenario.

Withal: "Even so" in the Middle English Context.

Calculus: A discipline of math dealing with the Dialectical (ever-changing and dynamic) progress of everything mathematical down to the Dialectical double of differentiation and integration as the core concept of such.

- Useful sites -

1. AP College Board site (of course requires a sign-up, once done just go to the AP Physics section to print off questions and answers to practice for the tests)
2. Flipping Physics YT page
3. Flipping Physics page
4. Khan Academy: Physics page