Physics.. last minute tips

[nicK] · 15-06-2003 5:21pm #1

ok, me being the smart guy that i am n' all has gone and left studying physics to the last night..

my plan of studying physics throughout the long, weekend break has miserably failed and im now left with the daunting task of covering the whole physics course in one night, tonight.

i know there isn't really much to go on as far as tips are concerned, this only being the 2nd year of the course n' all.....

but... i need opinions as to what you people think MAY come up or the parts of the course that you think that i should spend most time at tonight

of course i will be covering all of the experiment questions in great detail, leaving out the experiments that came up last year, and also studying most of the definitions BUT for the long question, section B .. what parts of the course should most of my time be directed at? ... any help/hints/tips at all?

Boston · 15-06-2003 5:28pm

Your ****ed, pure and simple, best advise is to do pass on the day. other then that i wouldn't leave out mechanics up to 33% after that optics after that electricity, A smart man would do the option, as its relatively short and you can really predict what they will ask and it will come up.

Tazzle · 15-06-2003 5:33pm

Pssh, learning the course in a day is quite possible, I'm doing it right now.

[nicK] · 15-06-2003 5:45pm

Originally posted by Boston
Your ****ed, pure and simple, best advise is to do pass on the day. other then that i wouldn't leave out mechanics up to 33% after that optics after that electricity, A smart man would do the option, as its relatively short and you can really predict what they will ask and it will come up.

well when i say ill be "covering the course in one night", it's not like ive never heard of "Physics" before.. i should have really said, "revising the course in one night" - and no, i won't be taking the pass paper, i need a B in the higher one.

i'll be doing:
3 experiments which will be learned off perfectly;
question 5 which i will hopefully get 100% in;
the option question which i know every aspect of;
question 11 if it comes up nicely for me;
question 12 which will hopefully be on circular motion and the doppler effect;

so all going well i will hopefully only have to do 2 "big" questions...

so, while a lot of tonight will be spent studying the above really well, what do you think i should spend the rest of the night covering in ordering to complete these 2/3 big questions?
any tips/hints/help?

[nicK] · 15-06-2003 5:48pm

Originally posted by Boston
mechanics up to 33% after that optics after that electricity

thx for that... i'll start mechanics now in half an hour

ella minnow pea · 15-06-2003 6:05pm

ur grand nick, no worries! u sound smart enough not to have to learn eevrything off - and anyway theres several thousand of us just revising today...im only just done with mechanics..:eek: ah well, theres always 6am tomorrow
if ur in any way intelligent u'll get the course done, no bother, but dont even look at the physix thread, it'll just scare you...some people take it waaaaay too seriously...:rolleyes:

dosser · 15-06-2003 6:06pm

Leaving Cert physics is so simple. I have hardly looked at the book all the year long and tonight I'm going to have it done in like two hours. All the other subjects you have to work a lot at but Physics is just the easiest thing. I thought I was dead for my pre until I actually opened the book and saw what was there. I would say it's possibly the easiest of all Leaving Cert subjects.

As regards exam strategy I'm going to leave out the option. If you are good at maths and doing stuff without studying it's just too complicated and you should stick to the things with less information in them. I don't care about 'accuracy' in the experiments. If your way produces a result as easily as the one in the book you have to get full marks, no questions asked. Some physics teachers will mark you down a lot like that for school exams but for the leaving cert they will have to prove that you're wrong.

pseudonym · 15-06-2003 6:51pm

the option (part a) was the best answered q on last years paper, with an average mark of 70-sumthing %. Also its the easiest, and theers very little they can ask. Know your baryons from ur leptons and ur fine, also good to know cockcroft/walton and rutherfords experiments. Then learn radioactivity and the mass defect equations, and the halflife, ln2 crap, then look over most of the experiments. Most of the questions asked on the paper dont require huge detail. If uv done the experiment it shud come back to you.

What else? Optics, mechanics (circular motion i feel strongly for) and the dreaded electricity section.

Remember, uv less than 20 minutes for each experiment question, so dont go spendin an hour on q1, whatever it is.

Sev · 15-06-2003 7:10pm

Originally posted by ella minnow pea
dont even look at the physix thread, it'll just scare you...some people take it waaaaay too seriously...:rolleyes:

Ha.. ha

dosser · 15-06-2003 7:10pm

Well the electricity option was the only one we did, I don't know about the other one. Wow.... i'd better go and study!

Boston · 15-06-2003 7:19pm

Originally posted by Scrappy]-[Nick
thx for that... i'll start mechanics now in half an hour

Keep in mind im saying up to 33%

electricty as far as a recall is only a max of 14%, thought that is taking magnetise as a separate topic.

dosser you only have to do one option, doing them both is very stupid, and yes particle physics is simple beyound belief.

eirebhoy · 15-06-2003 8:54pm

Originally posted by pseudonym
the option (part a) was the best answered q on last years paper, with an average mark of 70-sumthing %.

Did you see lasts year 10c, it was so easy. I have never heard of anything in particle physics until a few hours ago and the easiest parts of this section came up last year which means we get the hard parts. Doh!

pseudonym · 15-06-2003 9:03pm

Originally posted by eireboy
Did you see lasts year 10c, it was so easy. I have never heard of anything in particle physics until a few hours ago and the easiest parts of this section came up last year which means we get the hard parts. Doh!

Hard parts? in particle physics? Where?

[nicK] · 15-06-2003 9:22pm

there hasn't been much about magnets and magnetic fields being mentioned....

i don't think it came up last year.. so, i'm assuming the odds on it coming up this year would be likely... or is it too small for a full question to be asked.. opinions?

PHB · 15-06-2003 9:24pm

A personal prediction of mine would be electromagetism.

eirebhoy · 15-06-2003 9:24pm

Originally posted by pseudonym
Hard parts? in particle physics? Where?

Well, if you have Real World Physics look at pages 371 and 372. I've just been reading them and they don't make any sense to me. Do we need to know these two pages off by heart?

The reason why I am so crap at this is because I've never looked at this section before, all I've ever looked at was the first 18 chapters, (Light, Mech, Heat and sound).

The reason why I'm doind Particle Physics is because there is never going to be 5 questions in section B on all of the above topics and Particle Physics is the quickest to learn.

Am I safe?

qwertyup · 15-06-2003 10:31pm

Well, having read through the book again cover to cover over the last month, I spent today reading through my notes for the entire course, and followed that up with reading through all the practicals.

45 double sided flash-cards worth of notes have left my head spinning, but on the plus side I think I can now see through time!

Here's to a slightly less "unusual" paper than last years.

Physics.. last minute tips

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