Ways to Polish Your Physics

If you think physics is a hard nut to crack, don’t worry, you’ve landed in the right place. Each one of us has instilled this common notion in our minds that physics is not our forte and that is why we’re pursuing medicine! What if I tell you that Physics isn’t as difficult as it seems and we just need to fix our approach? A tiny push is all you need, and MedAngle Premed has gotcha, like always!

###Step 1: Embrace it.

Whether it's with tears or smiles, you need to make peace with the fact that Physics is a subject that you HAVE to study. You chose this path and thus it is time that you make each one of these 54 marks count!

Now that we’ve established that, let’s head to the next step!

Step 2: Formula Sheet - Physics Formulae Sheet by MedAngle.pdf

The most daunting thing about physics is “How will I know which formula to use?” and “What if I forget the basic-est of all formulas?

Well, don’t waste time compiling all the formulas manually, because we already did that for you! Your task is to download MedAngle Premed’s Physics Formula Sheet from the drive, print it, and paste it on your wall or wherever you find it easy to read. Just keep it somewhere before your eyes. Because as you know out of sight out of mind! We don’t want that, do we?

Revise the formulas from the sheet for 30 minutes everyday. If you commit to this practice even for a month, the formulas will have settled quite well within your memory. Repeat this practice for two months and voila, 25% of physics stress is reduced. Foolproof isn’t it?

There are three types of students, gouge out your type, stick to it, and do not underestimate the power of studying in your comfort zone!

• Visual learners: They work well with visuals, so find websites that offer simulations for physics practicals (eg. phet). Some YouTube channels are doing a great job explaining concepts through diagrams, so explore those.

• Text (read/write) learners: Read your province textbook and highlight important points or make notes. If stuck, try clearing out your concepts through videos and then get back to your textbook. Reading out aloud helps a lot in retaining information.

• Auditory learners: These are the most common ones and 3-5 hour lectures from YouTube are always to their rescue! They practice, comprehend, and listen all at once

Remember! Physics is nothing without concepts. Hence,

###Step 3: Concepts

Use your method of studying and start grasping concepts before you jump onto questions. Physics primarily involves conceptual learning and numerical-based questions that can’t be conquered without a thorough understanding of that specific topic. Many students tend to memorise the answer if they don't understand a question, which of course may give you a mark in case of repetition, but will not make you capable of solving absolutely any question thrown at you and your confidence will go down tenfold.

Then comes the most nightmarish part!

###Step 4: The questions

Students’ fear is rooted in their inability to understand topics. If you do a topic conceptually, you’ll ultimately know how to solve a question. Certain questions are repeatedly tested in your exam and you must learn how to solve those first, and then learn short tricks to save time. Once you get a hold of the most interesting yet the most difficult questions and understand how to solve them, physics will certainly become easier to conquer. There are a lot of resources available for practice, and too many cooks spoil the broth. Hence, choose ONE authentic resource and stick to it. For me, MedAngle Premed’s topic-wise question bank, and review guides were of great help in strengthening my concepts and identifying my weaknesses. This helped me go back and analyse where I went wrong.

Humans are bound to make mistakes and, naturally, a new type of question will confuse you but that doesn’t mean you are incapable of doing it! Learn to think, solve, and then mark the answer.

Pro-tip: Do not forget to make a separate notebook where you put in all sorts of different numerical-based questions you did wrong while practicing. Just keep revising those every other day, so that you don’t forget how to do questions as well as how to apply your knowledge and formulas. Make sure to practice Past Paper questions as well from MedAngle Premed and you’re good to go.

Best of Luck!