How to get a 5/5 on AP Physics 1? Can it be done, and if so, how? Well, that’s what I’m going to cover today.
First of all, WHO CARES?
You may not think you need a 5 in Physics 1 for your transcript or college applications, but the reality is: most colleges don’t care that much about AP grades, especially for early-mid level courses. A 5/5 will look good for anyone applying to engineering programs, but other than that, it won’t matter too much on your transcript. Of course, if you got a 1/5 in Physics 1 and then went on to get killer 99s in your upper-level classes, colleges will know you’ve got the ability to perform at a high level – but how many students actually do this?
Second, WHY DO PEOPLE CARE SO MUCH ABOUT 5S?
This is easy: because 5s look awesome on your transcript and college applications. If everyone gets 4s and then one person gets a 5, that one person looks way better than anyone else who got 4s. Colleges don’t particularly care about 99% of other AP grades (and neither should you), so if it’s an option to get a higher score in any class, people typically go for it. While 5/5 isn’t generally considered “easy,” it definitely seems like less work than studying for six full-length exams…so people do it.
For those of you who care about getting a 5 in Physics 1 but don’t know where to start: this is the article for you.
Today I’m going to share with you everything I know that may help get you that 5/5 on AP Physics 1.
Okay, got it? no more jokes and just 4 minutes of reading time left – let’s go 😀
The overall key to doing well on the exam is not so much about how many individual questions you get right, but rather whether or not your missed questions are concentrated in low-yield topics (this will be explained later). This means that if someone misses 8 out of 40 free-response questions AND all 8 of these missed questions fall into a single topic area; this person will most likely have a score below 5/5.
Now, if someone misses 8 out of 40 free-response questions but instead all 8 missed questions fall into EIGHT different topic areas, the person will most likely have a 5/5 since they didn’t miss any low-yield questions.
This is why I do not recommend simply going for “all” or “nothing” when studying for AP Physics 1.
You should go for topics that are important enough
to potentially show up less frequently on the exam while leaving yourself some extra room in case you get lucky and guess on one of your weaker topic areas. Just missing one question each in eight different topic areas isn’t enough – to keep track of what you’re getting wrong and what topic areas these questions are coming from, if necessary, re-study those topics to make sure your knowledge is strong.
In this way, it will not be a big deal if you only get 3/5 on the Physics 1 exam – as long as all of your missed questions come from low-yield topics! In fact, I would rather have a 4/5 with no missed questions in my high-yield topic areas to get 5/5 in AP Physics 1 with one or more missed questions in a low-yield topic area.
So how do we actually go about doing this? Well, let’s tackle each portion of the AP Physics 1 course individually:
Part A: Conceptual Questions
What is the best way to study conceptual questions? The short answer is: you can’t. What I mean by this is that you can not simply memorize the formulas and equations of physics and expect to get 5/5 on AP Physics 1 – there is too much information. Instead, the best thing to do when studying for conceptual physics questions is to understand the main ideas of what’s going on in a situation.
This may seem like common sense, but look at some exam free-response questions from previous years, and you will notice that a lot of them are very “vocab-y” rather than drawing upon a student’s conceptual knowledge. Of course, this doesn’t mean that vocab isn’t important, but students should focus more on spending time on the conceptual understanding of a topic rather than memorizing vocab words.
Also, I want to remind you that this article is not meant to be a replacement for your physics teacher – please get all of your questions answered by your instructor or an online physics tutor!
However, if between AP classes and physics class you still find yourself struggling with free-response questions, this article may help.
In addition to studying from scratch, here are some things to do which could prove helpful:
1) Look over old exams and make a list of vocab words that show up frequently. You should know this cold going into the exam 2) For each topic/formula/equation listed in the syllabus, try writing out what it means. If it’s just a bunch of mathematical symbols and you can’t correlate them to anything in the real world, that’s a sign that you should study this topic more 3) For every topic/formula/equation listed in the syllabus, try to find at least one example problem for each equation.
Go through older exams and make sure your teacher reviews all of these (if they don’t, fire them.). It can certainly help you get 5/5 in AP Physics 1.
Part B: Multiple Choice Questions
The multiple-choice section is an area where most students tend to get stuck. A lot of times, “questions” on AP Physics 1 come down to whether or not the student knows vocab words and HOW they work rather than having any conceptual understanding (which is what we’ve been working on so far).
*I’m going to say this again because it’s important enough for a box:
The best thing students can do to prepare for AP Physics 1 multiple choice is to have a very strong understanding of the vocab words and how they work.
Some resources:
There are far too many topics for me to go through in detail on each question type so that I will link you to some resources instead. In addition to those resources, here are some things that have worked for me as well as my students:
1) Go overall practice tests/questions from previous years – that way, you can predict what types of questions will show up as well as what vocab words may come up 2) Annotate old exams with notes whenever necessary 3) Identify what type of question is being asked (“word” problems, calculator work, etc.) then determine how the problem can be solved 4) Look up words you don’t know and make flashcards for them 5) When in doubt on a question, pick C 6) If there are 3 questions left at the end of the section, guess. You may get all three right, or you might miss one based on luck. Either way, you are better off taking this chance than wasting your time trying to come up with intricate calculations, which may not even help if it turns out that the only problem you didn’t solve was one of those last few.
Part C: Free Response Questions (FRQs)
Now we finally get to the good stuff – free-response questions. Here you get to show your conceptual knowledge of a topic, so if you’ve been studying up until now, you should be more than ready for this section.
For the most part, free-response questions are not “vocab-y” and don’t require a lot of new or difficult vocabulary words. FRQs require that students have an understanding of concepts and fundamental relationships in physics rather than just being familiar with certain terms. In fact, I believe that many excellent AP Physics 1 students could do very well on this section without even looking at the vocab from previous exams.
In order to do well on free-response questions, students have to know how physics problems work.
A great way to study this is to make a list of common physics terms such as those listed here. With this list, make a list of what types of problems use these words. For example, if you see the word “energy” on your vocab list, it might be helpful to draw a line next to that word and write down a few phrases below which contain the word “energy,” such as work done by force, kinetic energy, etc. Once you have finished with this exercise for just one term from your vocab sheet, try going through the whole list – making up examples for each type of problem. If this seems too difficult at first, don’t worry about it – focus on one or two terms from your vocab sheet at a time.
In addition to being familiar with physics terms, students must also have a solid understanding of the fundamental physics relationships that are presented in AP Physics 1. Some useful resources for practice questions are here and here.
Part D: Putting It All Together
And now to finish this up with some helpful tips on what I call “the other AP Physics.” This is all about “the big picture” of multiple-choice exams. The most important thing to keep in mind when taking any standardized test is to relax, take it one question at a time, and do your best. Studying the vocab words will help you tremendously because by knowing how they work, you can save time on many types of questions. Even if you don’t know an answer away, stay calm – sometimes the best answer is actually C, and as long as you know why the other answers are incorrect, you should be okay. In addition to relaxing and thinking positively, here are some additional tips for studying so that you can get 5/5 in AP Physics 1:
1) Make a schedule of when to study each subject –
AP Physics is no different from any others tests in that there will always come a night before where you cram. Don’t fall into this trap! Instead, make a plan for what you need to do and when it need to complete it. If you have been preparing up until now, then there is no reason that your level of knowledge can’t equal that of most college students taking their first physics class.
2) Make a calendar with key dates
such as test dates, due dates for assignments, and any other important exams or papers.
3) Keep a positive attitude about the test –
No matter how hard it may seems at first, don’t panic! Again, as long as you have been studying up until now, there is no reason why you can’t do your best on this exam. Online tutoring can also help.
4) Learn Calculus
Learn calculus by doing calculus homework with full dedication. If you get stuck get help online but do not skip your homework/assignment.
4) Finally, if all else fails, then go over some practice problems from the class itself.
Outside of what you’ve done for homework problems, these are always a safe bet to study with because they will almost always contain topics that appear on the AP Exam.
Good luck to everyone taking their AP Physics 1 exam. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below, and I wish you all the best!
