AP PHYSICS – SUMMER ASSIGNMENT This assignment is intended to get you ready to begin our study of physics when we return in the fall. Keep in mind that there is a lot of material to cover – and then to review – before the AP Physics exam next May. As such, there are some skills I want to assume you already will have, and there are certain techniques and tools that can help you learn how to learn physics. To prepare yourself, please follow the guidelines outlined below. Get to know your textbook. Look through the table of contents. Notice the useful info on the inside back and front covers. Read the preface, pgs. XVIII through XXIII. Look over the structure of a typical chapter (like Chapter 1). Find out which chapter questions and problems have answers supplied in the back of the text. Become familiar with the textbook’s website. We will need to wait until next fall before I can help you do this. Become familiar with the topics covered in a physics course. Refer to the “Contents”, again in the front of your textbook. Note that there are some basic groupings of chapters and topics: Basic Math Review (Chapter 1); Newtonian Mechanics (Chapters 2-10); Fluids, Heat, Gas Laws, and Thermodynamics (Chapters 11-15); Waves, Sound, and Light (Chapters 16, 17, 24-27); Electricity and Magnetism (Chapters 18-23); and Modern Physics topics (Chapters 28-32). We won’t cover all the chapters, since they are not all covered by the AP Exam. More on that next year. Review and improve your mathematics skills. Remember that this is a trig-based physics course, so you should begin the school year with a good grip on your trig skills. At a minimum, you should know how to use sine, cosine, and tangent to solve right triangles. You should also know how to use the Law of Sines and the Law of Cosines to solve triangles that are not right triangles. You will find Chapter 1 is helpful in this review. More of Chapter 1. Also, other topics found in the beginning of Chapter 1 should be reviewed – units and measurements, using units to help solve problems, the metric system which we refer to as the SI system or the MKS system. Quiz when you come back in the fall. On the second day of school next fall, I intend to give you a quiz in class dealing with math skills, particularly those mentioned above. This info will be found in Chapter 1, Sections #1-4. Be sure to do at least the odd problems at the end of Chapter 1 for these sections. If you need some help, see me after school on Day 1 for a help session. If you do not do well with this first quiz, then we’ll know you will need to find a way to improve your math skills. After the quiz. We will begin the course with a study of vectors, by covering the rest of Chapter 1. We will learn about what vectors are, how and when we use them in physics, how to use them to solve problems in the real world, and so forth. That’s it for now. No assignments to turn in. You are on your own to make yourself as ready as possible. Then come next fall, we’ll get right to it. Have a great summer. Cros. 360-521-2874.