Physics 121C Midterm 1 Information

Where:

• All students in PAB A102
• Check Tycho for your seat assignment.
  

When:

• Monday, October 13  10:30-11:20 am
  

Coverage:

• Lecture/Text material: Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4.1,2,3,7
  
• Tutorials 1. one dimensional acceleration
  
• Lab 1.one dimensional kinematics
  
• Homework:  First 2 Tycho Assignments, First Tutorial Assignments, review (WebAssign) problems listed on syllabus through  October 6.  You are not responsible for the most complex problems on the Tycho assignment due Oct. 9 (e.g., multiple masses on pulleys, friction blocks, fictitious forces). 
  

Important Lecture Concepts:

• Chapter 1:  Basics of Units, Measurement, Vectors
  
• vectors:  magnitude, direction, addition, subtraction, decomposition into components
• units:  MKS units (meter, kilogram, second)
• significant figures and reasonableness of answers  -- you will be expected to notice if your answer does not make physical sense, like accelerations of 1000 m/s when sliding down a ramp, etc.
  
• Chapter 2:  Motion in One Dimension
  
• displacement, distance
• velocity, speed, acceleration
• average vs. instantaneous velocity and acceleration
  
• motion under constant acceleration
• understanding and generating graphs of position, velocity and acceleration vs. time
  
• Chapter 3:  Motion in Two and Three Dimensions
  
• Vector displacement, velocity and acceleration
  
• Tangential and Centripetal Acceleration and its effect on Velocity
  
• Projectile Motion
• Circular Motion
• Chapter 4:  Newton's Laws
• First Law -- Inertia
• Second Law -- F = ma
• Third Law -- Action/Reaction Force Pairs
• Application of Newton's Laws to simple systems (no pulleys or friction).
  

Format:

• Total of 100 points, distributed as:
• 55 points multiple choice (2 problems with multiple sections)
• 25 point short answer lecture question
• 20 point short answer tutorial question

You Must Bring:

Scan-Tron Form for Multiple-choice part of exam

Dark Pencil that marks scan-tron form so that it can easily be read by a scanner.

You May Bring:

• Calculator
• one 8.5x11 page of notes (both sides)
You will be expected to know (or have on your notes) basic formulas for 1D kinematics, projectile motion and circular motion.  You should also include basic math facts such as sine, cosine, quadratic formula, etc.  You should also know the important constants.

You May NOT Bring (or at least they must be turned off and not taken out of your backpack):

• Wireless devices, including laptops, blackberries, cell phones, etc.
  

Advice on Exam Preparation:

Review on your own.  I reccomend making a list of questions about the points you don't understand, discussing it with your classmates, and asking me (or any of the other instructors at the Study Center) during my office hours about any questions that you can't answer.  Make sure you understand how to do all the Tycho, supplemental, and tutorial problems, as well as understanding the material covered in the text, lecture, tutorial, and lab.  Work through additional problems from the book or practice exams.  Finally, your goal in this class should be to understand the physics, not to get a good grade on the exam.  I know it's hard to believe, but you will actually do better on the exam if you approach it with the goal of understanding physics.

Material important enough to show up more than once in lecture, homework, tutorial and/or lab is more likely to appear on the exam than something just mentioned briefly in the text or during lecture.

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