[refref]

Is anyone else taking this course?

Does anyone else have the red books with the burning sun on the front?

Is anyone else finding this course to be a pile of....

This Physics course is the hardest out of all my A levels (physics, computing, maths, further maths). Not because its A level, its because:

1. The book lacks practise questions
2. The book lacks enough answers (some questions dont have answers)
3. Some of the answers are wrong
4. The exam in Janurary was an hour long, and I barely had enough time to finish all the questions
5. Most of the questions are worded EXTREMELY badly, so much so that they cant be answered
6. The course still covers things from GCSE (such as car safety)

The list goes on.

I am having ALOT of trouble now, as we are doing the electronics part (circuits, waves, quantum physics) and I am getting very few questions right.

To top it all off, our 2 teachers lack the ability to teach. One of the teachers (the female one) pulls formulas out of thin air, assumes we already know them then starts talking about herself. The other one likes to let us do practicles on our own, teach very little and ask us how we would explain concepts to a year 7.

Am I the only one crying in agony here? (I am enjoying my 3 other courses, I just hope I get A's them them to make up for physics).

[Muppety_Kid]

Originally Posted by ShortRef

Is anyone else taking this course?

Does anyone else have the red books with the burning sun on the front?

Is anyone else finding this course to be a pile of....

This Physics course is the hardest out of all my A levels (physics, computing, maths, further maths). Not because its A level, its because:

1. The book lacks practise questions
2. The book lacks enough answers (some questions dont have answers)
3. Some of the answers are wrong
4. The exam in Janurary was an hour long, and I barely had enough time to finish all the questions
5. Most of the questions are worded EXTREMELY badly, so much so that they cant be answered
6. The course still covers things from GCSE (such as car safety)

The list goes on.

I am having ALOT of trouble now, as we are doing the electronics part (circuits, waves, quantum physics) and I am getting very few questions right.

To top it all off, our 2 teachers lack the ability to teach. One of the teachers (the female one) pulls formulas out of thin air, assumes we already know them then starts talking about herself. The other one likes to let us do practicles on our own, teach very little and ask us how we would explain concepts to a year 7.

Am I the only one crying in agony here? (I am enjoying my 3 other courses, I just hope I get A's them them to make up for physics).

We're not using that book, although the description could easily apply! Ours is the blue "Advancing Physics AS" one - possibly endorsed by OCR/the Institute of Physics...

I know you've probably got loads of additional learning to do to compensate for the lack of guidance from the book, but you are aware that there's a Section C on this paper, aren't you? Out of interest, did you do OCR Twenty First Century Science? If so, it looks like an "Ideas In Context" format...although we haven't made a start on it yet - we've only just started looking at speed, vectors etc.!

EDIT: When you say "the course still covers things from GCSE (such as car safety)", are we talking about the same course? I'm on OCR Physics B: Advancing Physics. I suspect they're two different things, which would explain why we're not using the same book.

[NCIShippo]

HEY

Yeah I'm doing this course as well - and your post may as well have been from me - *sighs*. I basically taught myself the Unit 1 - Mechanics, but as for Unit 2 - you can't even teach yourself with the rubbish textbook and zero notes!

As for the practicles - my school lets us do one of each and that's it! Where as other schools let you do three of each! NOT FAIR!

Those Further Questions in the book we got set as HW, and I was 1 mark into the E grade, mate got an F, and we were the 2 that got As in the Unit 1 - hate to think what the rest of the class got! This was followed by a 45 min lecture on how the class is not "pulling its weight". If we don't get it, then we don't get it!

I could go on and on, but I won't.

[cyborg]

Get the Cambridge Advanced Science Book (Physics 1 for OCR). It's for the new spec and it's much better than the red book with the sun on the front cover.

[yoshio-takeuchi]

This sounds all too familiar. At least it's not just my college with **** teachers. The blue Advancing Physics book is by far the worst text book I have ever seen. Completely fails to explain key concepts. It's more like a history novel! Ah well...looks like I'm going to have to enjoy teaching myself Physics.

[CaroBoo]

Originally Posted by yoshio-takeuchi

This sounds all too familiar. At least it's not just my college with **** teachers. The blue Advancing Physics book is by far the worst text book I have ever seen. Completely fails to explain key concepts. It's more like a history novel! Ah well...looks like I'm going to have to enjoy teaching myself Physics.

I agree the blue books are all about the history, theres hardly anythng else in there.... It also doesnt help when all the teacher does is powerpoints, and all we ever do is copy the slides down, its pretty pointless.

[chippyminton91]

Yet again, the post sounds like it could have been from me! I exactly agree with everything that's been said, and will definitely look into that other book - thank you!
Also, does anyone know of any vaguely relevant past papers - obviously a different course, but if there's anything slightly comparable, I definitely want to use it!

[MathsHamster]

My teachers are not bad, however the book is rubbish, I agree with all your points and I have now got a massive textbook from 2000 out of the library which explains things much better. Past papers from the old physics spec can be found online (but this unit used to be two units, with two short exams not one long one). What I don't get is how some of the book's questions are impossible because they have neglected to put into plain english some basic fact needed to solve the question.

[rick4236]

I have a dreadul teacher too, thankfully I have a really good private tutor. These books are really good.
OCR revise Physics - (Same cover as crap book given to you by school but much better content) ISBN 978-0-435583-72-9
CGP AS level Physics OCR A ISBN 9781847621313

[shyammi12456]

Can any1 get hold of the JAN 2009 paper here?