This page is about general tips and advice on studying physics.
Sorry. There are no shortcuts.
The advice given here you will have heard many times. I have tried to distill it to the minimum in order to help.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." (Richard Feynman)
This quote should be taken to heart - not just in physics but in life as well.
1) Make sure you understand the physics.
This means you want to develop some sort of feeling about physics. The best way to know if you understand or not is to try questions. Do some questions and ask yourself if you are confident in your answer. Does the result make sense? If it does make sense and you have solved it correctly and got the right answer then you can be confident that you understand this principle.
If you got it right but you don't know why then you need to do some more work on this.
If you got it wrong but you felt confident that you know the material then check your work and try to find your mistake. It may be obvious.
Be honest with yourself.
2) Make sure you see the connections between different concepts.
All of physics work together. There is a connection between electricity and magnetism called electromagnetism. This was not known at the beginning.
When you connect different concepts you are working in the way that your brain works. Different neurons fire and it is the connection between these that grows. Maybe between millions of neurons. The growth in these connections is learning.
We can try to do this by using mindmaps. Mindmaps connect concepts together to make it easy to see how one idea relates to another.
Sorry. There are no shortcuts.
The advice given here you will have heard many times. I have tried to distill it to the minimum in order to help.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." (Richard Feynman)
This quote should be taken to heart - not just in physics but in life as well.
1) Make sure you understand the physics.
This means you want to develop some sort of feeling about physics. The best way to know if you understand or not is to try questions. Do some questions and ask yourself if you are confident in your answer. Does the result make sense? If it does make sense and you have solved it correctly and got the right answer then you can be confident that you understand this principle.
If you got it right but you don't know why then you need to do some more work on this.
If you got it wrong but you felt confident that you know the material then check your work and try to find your mistake. It may be obvious.
Be honest with yourself.
2) Make sure you see the connections between different concepts.
All of physics work together. There is a connection between electricity and magnetism called electromagnetism. This was not known at the beginning.
When you connect different concepts you are working in the way that your brain works. Different neurons fire and it is the connection between these that grows. Maybe between millions of neurons. The growth in these connections is learning.
We can try to do this by using mindmaps. Mindmaps connect concepts together to make it easy to see how one idea relates to another.
The above example not only links the basic concepts of gravitational potential energy but also provides a very useful summary that can remind you quickly of what you have learnt. It is important that you make your own mindmaps.
3) Be active in your own learning and take full responsibility for it. The best way to learn is by teaching others as shown in the pyramid below. Just by listening to a teacher you will only retain 5%. Practicing questions is 75%.
3) Be active in your own learning and take full responsibility for it. The best way to learn is by teaching others as shown in the pyramid below. Just by listening to a teacher you will only retain 5%. Practicing questions is 75%.
4) Don't blame or relay on the teacher.
Some teachers are better than others. Some of them you will understand, some you will not.
This could depend on different teaching and learning styles.
If you get a teacher you don't understand so well then you may need to do more work by yourself.
5) Hints on answering questions
Some teachers are better than others. Some of them you will understand, some you will not.
This could depend on different teaching and learning styles.
If you get a teacher you don't understand so well then you may need to do more work by yourself.
5) Hints on answering questions
- Do I understand the question?
- Have I written down all the variables or sketched a diagram?
- Are they in the correct units?
- Do I know what I need to find out?
- Do I have an equation that lets me calculate the answer?
- If I don't have all the variables for that equation can I find them from other equations?
- Does the answer I have make sense?