Frist the bad news: organic. I made a 70 on the first test, which is more or less what everyone else made. It’s a genuine bell curve. However, there was a 100, and a 105. There were plenty of very low F’s, so all in all, things could’ve been very bad.
The good news is that I made a 95 on my college algebra exam.
A good day overall. Now I’m off to physics homework. Acceleration? Who cares! 
Congrats on your grades. I'm sure you'll do better on the next exam. My first math test was postponed b/c of the hurricane. I so wanted to get it over with…
Love,
Stacy
good luck in Physics Ash -
hope you can successfully drop the supplies to those hikers from your airplane and/or kick the football over the uprights and/or shoot the arrow so it lands at a 30 degree angle into the ground from off of that cliff
| QUOTE (Ash-O-Rama @ Sep 22 2003, 12:02 PM) |
| Frist the bad news: organic. I made a 70 on the first test, which is more or less what everyone else made. It's a genuine bell curve. However, there was a 100, and a 105. There were plenty of very low F's, so all in all, things could've been very bad. The good news is that I made a 95 on my college algebra exam. A good day overall. Now I'm off to physics homework. Acceleration? Who cares! |
Hey Ash,
Well you did better than I did. I got a 69. Unfortunately the instructor doesn't curve.
Good thing we get to drop two tests!Physics is killing me! It’s killing everyone in our class. Nobody in class understands constant acceleration. We’re all scratching our heads.
A fellow student asked the prof why he had to take physics. The prof said, “Physics keeps the morons out of medical school.” Nice.
I’m struggling a lot in physics. I was doing fine until we started acceleration. I hope things get easier when we get to the next chapter (fat chance, right?)
Ash - PM me if you need help with acceleration - it is one thing I understood and still understand in physics - I think. at least I think I can explain the concepts and/or point you to web animations that do.
Physics can really bite sometimes. My textbook was icky, and a person would be hard pressed to actually use it to learn something they didn’t already know. I kicked myself often for not taking it in High School.
I found the book “Physics the Easy Way” (Barron’s) very helpful in explaining the concepts, though the class/text usually took each concept a step further (probably geared more to HS Physics, but sold in college bookstores too). It was like having someone explain the idea in different words or easier to understand language. Physics concepts are fun and fairly useful. They make you feel smart!
We also had access to the answers to the homework questions, I used them heavily to help me through the algebraic tar pits, as a second instructor who helped me see where I went wrong.
Be prepared to use your alg/pre calc skills. My exams never asked a Physics theory question. Never. And I would have killed for a few now and then! Each question was a glorified story problem requiring fancy algebraic footwork with the formula. My instructor was merciful, he gave partial points for having the right idea even though the final answer was wrong. Saved my not-algebra-gifted behind.
Wmkayak
I'm really starting to panic here over this physics crap. I just don't think I have what it takes. For the first time, I really think this is the end. I'm not looking for sympathy or words of encouragement; I'm just simply stating the facts. I may be down this time. For good.
I can’t help you much with physics; but I can say that your professor really did a psychological number on you. It is not true that physics is really a filter. In fact, as a medical student I use physics principles all the time. I also found that as soon as I started working in an immunology lab I had to use physics to understand what I ended up doing all year: flow cytometry, which uses a laser to bounce light off cells that are tagged with microscopic flourescent markers, and then registers the light bouncing back. To make sense of the data, and to “tune” the instrument properly, I had to know the physics of light and fluids.
Understanding radiology requires physics; and understanding radiology is obviously essential to understanding some key pieces of data about your patients’ well-being.
Physics of acceleration–well, it’s true that I don’t do the calculations. But an intuitive understanding of acceleration (and more to the point, the results of the sudden lack of it) is essential to understanding a great deal of what happens in the emergency department–and coming to that intuitive understanding requires working through some equations. You forget the equations but you understand things differently after working through them–your “common sense” changes.
I don’t know whether you’re really down and out; but I can say that there is hope that this is not simply a useless hoop to jump through. The above are just a few examples: I use physics all the time. Your professor is ignorant about medicine.
Good luck.
joe
Joewright - you said that as a medical student you use physics principles all the time, but that physics is not a filter. It seem that is a contradiction.
I read in the exit interviews that 26% of medical students thought physics was not very helpful in medical school, but about 60% thought it somewhat important to very important - which confirms your experience. It seem that physics is weighed pretty heavy - hence why it is tested on the MCAT. Do you think admissions committees do not weigh physics as heavy as other subjects, like ochem?
Reason I ask is that I did real well in physics (A, A-), but not so well in ochem (C+, B-). It would be nice to think that one would offset the other.
Physics is killing me, too. Just took exam 1. It was postponed due to my appendectomy over the weekend. And my house has no power.
There, I have whined enough for the week.
I started a physics study group. Collectively, we all know more than we do singly. I also did some Web searching and found the solutions manual for my text and hopefully that will throw light where there had previously been darkness.
Organic has quickly usurped Physics as the bane of my existence. In class, we are all galloping in a C+ pack, except for the two super-fast lions resting a mile ahead of us, licking their teeth, just waiting. One has already had organic once, and the other is some sort of Satan-spawn who happens to be a chemistry major and (I suspect) goes home each night, burns up pages of his numerous chemistry book in a spoon, and injects them into his veins for that “great chemistry rush” he keeps blathering on about. I hate him. 
I’ve also started a organic study group. We met last night and whipped ourselves into a frenzy over hybridization. We had it cold. The quiz didn’t even ask a single question about it.
What textbook are you using? What subjects are you on now?
My first orgo test is Monday. I almost wrote 'tomorrow.'
Am very scared.
Thanks Joe,
My physics 1 exam is Tuesday. It helps me to think about relevance in medicine. Force, projectile motion and acceleration are my themes for the weekend! I am trying to thin out what surely must be glue in my CSF. Biology is sooo much more interesting.
For Physics, we're using Physics: Algebra/Trig (third edition) by Eugene Hecht.
Organic is Wade's fifth edition of Organic Chemistry.
We are using the same orgo text but Serway’s (I think) “Principles of Physics, a Calculus Based text.”
You do not need physics with calculus, so if you do not like physics to begin with, and your not really good a calculus, take College Physics. The material is the same, the only difference is the type of math you use to solve the problem.
For those wanting a study aid, especially for the MCAT, I will be parting with my Examkracker Audio Osmosis - a 12 CD set that includes Physics and Organic chemistry. I'm just waiting to see how I did on the beast before I commit to parting with them.
Georgetown doesn't offer a non-calculus version but there has been very little calc in the class. Some limits and derivatives but that has been it.
I think that version of Serway is the same one I had - there is calc in the text as the various formulas are dervived - and calc background allows you to see where 1/2at^2 comes from - but the problems themselves only needed trig and algebra to solve.
In the bookstore, I remember seeing that Serway has another engineering-oriented calc-intensive text as well.
I used Serway back in the dark ages (1992) and loved it. I thought understanding the calculus behind the formula derivations helped clarify the concepts. But then, I was a math major and that was right in my comfort zone. Enjoy!!
Tara