Help needed in AS level Physics

[DarkEclipse]

I got a C in the last exam, so I'm retaking it to improve my grade.

My main difficulty is in Paper 1 (the MCQ one). My mind just goes blank when I read the questions, as they aren't even remotely similar to what I'm used to.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Please don't tell me to cover up the answers and solve the question first, because I already do that.

 

[DarkEclipse]

Bump.

 

[M.Fazy]

Listen, the reason is that you're not good with the current syllabus. MCQs are not difficult it's just that, you can't understand that " The piano notes until you're thoroughly familiar with them, no matter you know it's the paino's notes. "

Meaning, here's what you do.

1. Download CIE Physics syllabus.
2. Search for " AS Physics notes " on xtremepapers and google. Search for " Video tutorials " on youtube.
3. Make your own note ( THROUGH SYLLABUS ) after you've gathered all the sources you're gonna use.
4. Go through all the notes which should be around 150-250 register pages if I'm not mistaken. ** DO NOT RELY ON KEYPOINTS ONLY, ALevel is all about details. **

By this time, half an year should be passed. If you're gonna try to attempt it before doing the above things, like in upcoming oct/nov, then you should not hope for a clear A which can be grown to A* unless you're some sort of genius.

5. After you've gone through all the notes by understanding and learning them, pick a MCQ paper and aim for 15 marks first.
6. Once you get easy 15 marks which you should after you've learnt basics aim for 20, then 25. By this time, you should've done around 30 MCQ papers atleast in which you've achieved all the aims you've set for yourself.

7. Now this one is upto you. Tbh, I relied on P2 and P3 for the A and I could never myself got 27+ which is an A in most cases,

( pretty sure I got B in these exams in MCQs, but overall I got A. A solid A, why ? because I was very familiar with the syllabus and had deep knowledge about core things which I applied in practical and theory paper. )

so what you can do is either work on your theory enough so that by bringing 22-26 marks in MCQs you can get an A or work hard enough on your MCQs anyway if you feel like you're getting the hang of it.

AFTER writing all that, I must tell you one great thing.

I got a D , D , E in Phy , maths and Chem last year. So i decided to repeat As by doing the utmost hardwork and after carefully planning stuff and doing the NECESSARY HARDWORK. It's NECESSARY. I got
A , B , A in Phy , maths and chem this year. Which I'm very happy about. I hope you can do the same and the most important thing is sources for notes, the more sources you have the better your notes and thus you can't be surprised by examiner in most of the cases let alone inferior usual stuff you see in paper every year.

GOODLUCK !

 

[DarkEclipse]

Thanks M.Fazy!

I've already done/am doing what you've suggested in the first four points. Unfortunately, I don't have half a year, my exams are in Oct/Nov. I don't want an A which can be grown into an A*, I just want an A, and I want it to stay an A, or at least a high B. I'm always stuck in the 22-26 range in MCQs, and it never goes beyond that. I mostly struggle with the Mechanics part of the syllabus in P1 (Kinematics, Dynamics, etc.) and the Electricity part in P1 as well.

Congratulations on your great improvement!

Thank you for all the amazing advice!

 

[amerfarooq]

Thanks M.Fazy!

I've already done/am doing what you've suggested in the first four points. Unfortunately, I don't have half a year, my exams are in Oct/Nov. I don't want an A which can be grown into an A*, I just want an A, and I want it to stay an A, or at least a high B. I'm always stuck in the 22-26 range in MCQs, and it never goes beyond that. I mostly struggle with the Mechanics part of the syllabus in P1 (Kinematics, Dynamics, etc.) and the Electricity part in P1 as well.

Congratulations on your great improvement!

Thank you for all the amazing advice!

The absolute best resource on the Internet for A-Level Physics is http://physics-ref.blogspot.com. Literally thousands of MCQ's and theory questions thoroughly explained. The sites admin is also very active and if you're having trouble, he'll go out of his way to help you out. I fully credit this site for the A I got this year. Definitely do check it out!

 

[DarkEclipse]

Thanks for sharing!

 

[M.Fazy]

Um, sorry for replying very late. I was away from computer for sometime.

Anyway, listen. Seriously, if you're getting 22-26 then you're NOT doing anything wrong. It's just that you're not genius and you lie within 90% of the population of the world

Now then, why you got C or B and not A ? Because you need to work on the sections that you are weak in and show your performance in theory paper not MCQs. Believe me, 22-26 is a good range to get an A. All you need to work on is the theory paper and practical too. Practical is mostly easy if you're active on xtremepapers and you've got adequate amount of friends because let's be honest here, you might be the only one standing in practical room that didn't " already knew about it ". So ye, be active before practical paper and hear stuff out that you shouldn't

Well, that's it.

TL;DR Work hard for theory paper and be sly for practical paper.

 

[ahmedish]

Um, sorry for replying very late. I was away from computer for sometime.

Anyway, listen. Seriously, if you're getting 22-26 then you're NOT doing anything wrong. It's just that you're not genius and you lie within 90% of the population of the world

Now then, why you got C or B and not A ? Because you need to work on the sections that you are weak in and show your performance in theory paper not MCQs. Believe me, 22-26 is a good range to get an A. All you need to work on is the theory paper and practical too. Practical is mostly easy if you're active on xtremepapers and you've got adequate amount of friends because let's be honest here, you might be the only one standing in practical room that didn't " already knew about it ". So ye, be active before practical paper and hear stuff out that you shouldn't

Well, that's it.

TL;DR Work hard for theory paper and be sly for practical paper.

I dont understand the practical part

 

[DarkEclipse]

Um, sorry for replying very late. I was away from computer for sometime.

Anyway, listen. Seriously, if you're getting 22-26 then you're NOT doing anything wrong. It's just that you're not genius and you lie within 90% of the population of the world

Now then, why you got C or B and not A ? Because you need to work on the sections that you are weak in and show your performance in theory paper not MCQs. Believe me, 22-26 is a good range to get an A. All you need to work on is the theory paper and practical too. Practical is mostly easy if you're active on xtremepapers and you've got adequate amount of friends because let's be honest here, you might be the only one standing in practical room that didn't " already knew about it ". So ye, be active before practical paper and hear stuff out that you shouldn't

Well, that's it.

TL;DR Work hard for theory paper and be sly for practical paper.

Haha thank you

Could you please tell me what I can use to study for the practical paper? Aside from the textbook, any notes?
Thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it.

 

[M.Fazy]

I dont understand the practical part

Could you please tell me what I can use to study for the practical paper? Aside from the textbook, any notes?

Answer to ahmedish

Well, like i said above that i did As 2 times in a row. So basically what I'm trying to say is both the times I knew what is coming in practical exactly
Thanks to my mischievous friends, xtremepaper and my curiosity

It doesn't happen with any other paper but with phy and chem practical it does happen. Also, once you know what's coming you can go on youtube like i did and search for that practical and find a video tutorial as to how to do it perfectly. Last year a new type of practical which was related to lenses came and tbh, not only my class fellows, but I saw alot of people in waiting room talking about "4 errors and improvements on lenses question " and as you can see exact part came so the rumor wasn't wrong after all.

Answer to DarkEclipse

And no sorry but I don't exactly know any textbook but if you search google for notes for " As phy/chem practical paper notes " you should get some. You can also easily get them near exams because people are mostly active at that time and I always study for practical 2 days before exams and believe me, i didn't attended alot of practical classes in my school, thanks to my grumpy lab teacher
my point is that they give all the instructions as to how you need to do the practical and for the part that is hidden and is tricky you can find some notes in which people tell you the tricks you need to follow
e.g "write in s.f related to your old answer and not just 3 s.f bluntly "
so you don't need to be alot more concerned about actually " studying " about it even if you do not know the practial. Both the times I found out that the only help I get from knowing the practical was in the question where you have to make a graph and the question where you have to notify 4 problems and improvements. If you follow the notes given online correctly they even tell you how to tackle that problem so there's that.

I know this comment is not specifically of any help to you but if you're gonna be active near exams, find and study a little from notes and BE ATTENTIVE at the time of practical you should get an easy A in practical, Hands down !

 

[DarkEclipse]

Thanks for taking the time to answer my queries. You're the best!

 

[22shimmer22girly]

Um, sorry for replying very late. I was away from computer for sometime.

Anyway, listen. Seriously, if you're getting 22-26 then you're NOT doing anything wrong. It's just that you're not genius and you lie within 90% of the population of the world

Now then, why you got C or B and not A ? Because you need to work on the sections that you are weak in and show your performance in theory paper not MCQs. Believe me, 22-26 is a good range to get an A. All you need to work on is the theory paper and practical too. Practical is mostly easy if you're active on xtremepapers and you've got adequate amount of friends because let's be honest here, you might be the only one standing in practical room that didn't " already knew about it ". So ye, be active before practical paper and hear stuff out that you shouldn't

Well, that's it.

TL;DR Work hard for theory paper and be sly for practical paper.

Congrats on ur grades!!! Btw I need help wid paper 4 and 5 can u help me wid them? (I don't have a teacher as so many probs as I can't find a centre near my home in karachi so xpc and me studying is the only thing I have) can u help me?

 

[M.Fazy]

Congrats on ur grades!!! Btw I need help wid paper 4 and 5 can u help me wid them? (I don't have a teacher as so many probs as I can't find a centre near my home in karachi so xpc and me studying is the only thing I have) can u help me?

Well, I'm giving A2 this year myself, so far i'm kind of getting the hang of syllabus but I am not good enough to help others i'm afraid.

But here are some tips.

For chemistry :
Chemguide.co.uk ( My primary source )
Search xtremepapers for " chemistry notes guide " and download any notes no matter if they're not updated for 2016 syllabus because you'll be making notes topic by topic and you have to be sly to pick out what you need and ignore irrelevant stuff.
Buy the cambridge book if you're not short on money. I won't buy it as I'm taking coaching from " Sir farhan ".
And make notes from these sources. chapter by chapter, don't forget to make it through syllabus. Mean whatever the syllabus asks you to learn, make notes of that topic. You can also refer to inter books because for e.g " Gas Laws " are same everywhere.

For Maths :
http://www.examsolutions.net/maths-revision/syllabuses/CIE/period-1/specification.php ( My primary source )
my school teacher is also a good one so he's the other source.

For Physics :
Searching myself ! ( ; _ ; " )

And don't forget to practice alot of past papers for each of em. Also, tell me if you find any physics source.

Lastly check out youtube for great teachers who teach through vids, and tell me too if you find a teacher that teaches good. I remember a phy teacher from whom I learnt " ideal gases " of physics, unfortunately I don't remember his name and didn't noted it so i'll try to find that vid and will update you if I find any.

 

[22shimmer22girly]

Well, I'm giving A2 this year myself, so far i'm kind of getting the hang of syllabus but I am not good enough to help others i'm afraid.

But here are some tips.

For chemistry :
Chemguide.co.uk ( My primary source )
Search xtremepapers for " chemistry notes guide " and download any notes no matter if they're not updated for 2016 syllabus because you'll be making notes topic by topic and you have to be sly to pick out what you need and ignore irrelevant stuff.
Buy the cambridge book if you're not short on money. I won't buy it as I'm taking coaching from " Sir farhan ".
And make notes from these sources. chapter by chapter, don't forget to make it through syllabus. Mean whatever the syllabus asks you to learn, make notes of that topic. You can also refer to inter books because for e.g " Gas Laws " are same everywhere.

For Maths :
http://www.examsolutions.net/maths-revision/syllabuses/CIE/period-1/specification.php ( My primary source )
my school teacher is also a good one so he's the other source.

For Physics :
Searching myself ! ( ; _ ; " )

And don't forget to practice alot of past papers for each of em. Also, tell me if you find any physics source.

Lastly check out youtube for great teachers who teach through vids, and tell me too if you find a teacher that teaches good. I remember a phy teacher from whom I learnt " ideal gases " of physics, unfortunately I don't remember his name and didn't noted it so i'll try to find that vid and will update you if I find any.

M.Fazy thank you for the utmost awesome reply but I regret to inform you that u have to help me no matter what....

(I'm a very stubborn person lol u can't beat me heheheh okay now back to the subject lol) you wouldn't believe why I'm so happy at the moment I solved the most difficult question in a2 chem right nowwww heheheh yupp I'm crazy

Thank you for the great reply but ur helping me no mater what...(most people ask help in a kind way....sorry I'm not that type of person lol)


I know it's an honour to meet me...thank you in advance XD

 

[M.Fazy]

I regret to inform you that u have to help me no matter what....

Guess, I don't have much of a choice, i'm scared :'(

Well, ok we can kind of study together ^^ , share your confusions and queries with me i'll try my best to clear them if I have knowledge of the particular topic but you'll have to do the same k ? Also, if you find any source for physics please reply me in pm.

gl hf ! ^^

 

[22shimmer22girly]

Guess, I don't have much of a choice, i'm scared :'(

Well, ok we can kind of study together ^^ , share your confusions and queries with me i'll try my best to clear them if I have knowledge of the particular topic but you'll have to do the same k ? Also, if you find any source for physics please reply me in pm.

gl hf ! ^^

Yupp tank uuuuuuuu XD ...for physics I use the textbook and past papers it the best way