What is the Hardest thing in M2?

joyoustele

19

What is the hardest topic in M2?

-moments seem to be very hard at the 'moment'
Bdum Tssss

Original post by joyoustele

What is the hardest topic in M2? moments seem to be very hard at the 'moment'
Bdum Tssss

Subjective, though most people tend to struggle with vertical/horizontal circular motion, I'd think. Personally I found Hooke's Law to be a more annoying topic when I was doing M2.

Reply 2

joyoustele

OP

19

Original post by RDKGames

Subjective, though most people tend to struggle with vertical/horizontal circular motion, I'd think. Personally I found Hooke's Law to be a more annoying topic when I was doing M2.

Well, we did hookes law in physics, i guess it goes into more detail in Mechanics, then.

Original post by joyoustele

Well, we did hookes law in physics, i guess it goes into more detail in Mechanics, then.

Wouldn't say so, I just didn't take Physics so I didn't encounter it in any other subject.

Reply 4

black1blade

19

Original post by RDKGames

Wouldn't say so, I just didn't take Physics so I didn't encounter it in any other subject.

All the elasticity and simple harmonic motion stuff is m3 luckily for us!

Reply 5

black1blade

19

Yeah circular motion is probably the hardest topic after looking at a past paper because diagrams kinda hard to interpret and a couple fairly hard equations that you have to memorise (in physics we have em all in the formula book).

Reply 6

joyoustele

OP

19

Original post by RDKGames

Wouldn't say so, I just didn't take Physics so I didn't encounter it in any other subject.

Damn. A lot of Physics is basically M2.

Reply 7

AspiringUnderdog

21

Original post by RDKGames

Subjective, though most people tend to struggle with vertical/horizontal circular motion, I'd think. Personally I found Hooke's Law to be a more annoying topic when I was doing M2.

Original post by joyoustele

Well, we did hookes law in physics, i guess it goes into more detail in Mechanics, then.

A different equation is used for Hooke's Law in M2 to physics. Instead of spring constant you use the modulus of elasticity. Never really told what that is and they usually give you a value so if you know the equation realistically you don't need to know. I think the higher the value the stiffer the string is though.

Also, I found energy the hardest topic, which usually but not always includes Hooke's law. Moments can be really hard depending on how unlucky you are but usually it's just a simple ladder question.

Reply 8

black1blade

19

But yeah m2 isn't actually too hard tbh. Moments can be annoying sometimes I guess but when you are dealing with things that aren't rods, generally perpendicular distance methods makes it work. M2 counts as an a2 unit for further maths but it doesn't feel further maths difficult if that makes sense (expecting fp2 and 3 to raise to that bar for me). At least m3 and 4 are where the mechanics seems to get legitimately hard, for ocr to get an A last year you needed just over 40/72! M3 and 4 have much longer and more complex questions with more complicated physical scenarios so kinda glad school ain't teaching me those although tbh, I would have enjoyed the challenge compared to d1 and I would have been honestly v happy (the rest of my class would hate it) if we did fp1-3 and m2-4 this year.

Reply 9

old_engineer

11

Completely subjective from me, but I reckon ladder/wall questions where both the ladder and the wall are rough are about as hard as it gets in Edexcel M2. Some projectile questions are moderately hard too.

For Edexcel, circular motion and Hooke’s law actually fall into M3, but I guess it may be different for other boards.

Reply 10

black1blade

19

Original post by old_engineer

Completely subjective from me, but I reckon ladder/wall questions where both the ladder and the wall are rough are about as hard as it gets in Edexcel M2. Some projectile questions are moderately hard too.

For Edexcel, circular motion and Hooke’s law actually fall into M3, but I guess it may be different for other boards.

Yeah basic circular motion is m2 for ocr but your variable acceleration circular motion and all the kinematics differential equations is m3.

Reply 11

K-Man_PhysCheM

17

Original post by AspiringUnderdog

A different equation is used for Hooke's Law in M2 to physics. Instead of spring constant you use the modulus of elasticity. Never really told what that is and they usually give you a value so if you know the equation realistically you don't need to know. I think the higher the value the stiffer the string is though.

Also, I found energy the hardest topic, which usually but not always includes Hooke's law. Moments can be really hard depending on how unlucky you are but usually it's just a simple ladder question.

The modulus of elasticity

\lambda

is a much better measure than the stiffness constant (or "spring constant" in physics)

k

, since

\lambda

is an inherent value for a particular material, independent of length, whereas

k

changes for different-length strings/springs which are otherwise the same material.

Reply 12

Notnek

21

For Edexcel, students often find moments the hardest topic. Also work/energy can often be tough for students if they don’t practice it enough.

For the exam, you can get some very hard collisions questions.