Attention: my final run-through of the numbers on the Compound Pendulum were compared to a grading spreadsheet that has an error in it! (Honest math mistake by me!) So if I told you that you didn't match the key, that statement needs to be challenged. It is possible that you still matched the key. Now I've already fixed this in the gradebook, by adding points back to anybody who got dinged a little for the mismatch, so nobody is being cheated out of any credit points, but if you see this message and are interested in knowing the accurate physics, you may come to my room if you'd like to assure that your final answer on your lab report was done correctly by you. To reiterate: the only reason to come and check this out would be for the conceptual satisfaction. The grade has already been taken care of. All students who did the assignment have had their score corrected so that it's now as if their answer matched the key. (I've given the benefit of the doubt to each student, because all the lab write-ups were nicely solved on paper with clarity. And it had been only a very minor deduction anyway for an answer that didn't match the key. All those points were added back in. And I boosted the assignment to be worth 20 instead of 15!)

 

And most importantly, Alana and Carly still won the contest.

6 Flags Magic Mountain Field Trip is Tuesday, May 28. Attending this trip is optional.

 

Students, to get cleared by your parents to go on this trip, you must direct them to this site:

 

 

where they will take action to clear you.

 

Students, once your parents have cleared you, to go on the trip, you must bring me the F-602 Form and payment (check payable to PVHS) together no later than Wednesday, May 22. The cost will be $85*. I will only accept the complete F-602 Form and the payment at the same time.

 

The trip is not officially happening until there are enough students to fill at least one bus. (Two are ordered.) If not enough students sign up to go, both buses get cancelled on May 22, and the checks are all returned to students/families to be destroyed. If there are enough students for one bus but not two, then one bus will be cancelled. Suppose the bus can only take 50 students, but 70 students get cleared, hand in their forms, and hand in their payment. In such an event, 50 students will go, and the other 20 will not. The 50 who go will be determined by First-Come-First-Served Priority. Priority for attending the trip will be given to the first 50 who got cleared (via the link above), handed in the F-602, and handed in the payment. This means that when students hand in the F-602 and check, I will put a number on the form with lowest number meaning earliest handed in. F-602 forms are available as hard copy directly from Mr. Warren and there is also an electronic version on the link above. (But the copy directly from Mr. Warren is preferable, because of information he wrote on it.)

 

*The $85 figure was arrived at from a calculated budget that I will share in class. For the trip to come in just under budget (meaning it will not be cancelled) there needs to be a minimum of 48 students signed up to go. (At 48 students, the projected cost comes out to $84.80 per student.)

 

Assuming the test has 50 points (40 MC and 10 points of showing work on rotation),

 

The lowest score to earn a 5 is 39.

The lowest score to earn a 4 is 30.

The lowest score to a 3 is 23.

 

Extra points for putting names on documents, etc, do not add into the raw score in determining 3, 4, 5 scores. From the raw test score alone, a final exam score of 4 or higher makes a student eligible for a letter grade bump. (Completion of all other assignments and not lying, cheating, or stealing are required as well to be eligible.)

 

The lowest 5 goes into the gradebook the way a test 90% would. The lowest 4 goes into the gradebook the way a test 80% would. And the lowest 3 would correspond to a 70% score. Points for following directions, etc. will be added to these gradebook scores only after the 3's, 4's, and 5's have already been determined.

 

Final Exam/AP Exam Study Tools:

 

The pdf is a big practice test from the college board. The multiple choice has 50 questions.

I'll post another multiple choice soon.

The topic list was written by me.

Another set of random problems was compiled by me.

 

Instructions for Free Response Practicing:

 

1. Go to this site:

 

2. Pick a year. Open the file. Do the full test by yourself, undistracted, IN TEST-LIKE CONDITIONS. Set a time-limit. Write the solutions out as if a stranger were going to grade them for quality work-showing.

 

3. Sometime soon after taking the test, open the Scoring Guidelines. Use the rubric to score how you did.

 

4. Do two such years BEFORE the end of the week that ends on 4/26. And do at least one of the multiple choice mock tests I provide. From this, make a list of topics you want me to refresh.

 

It's crucial that you don't wait to get to this stuff until the week of April 28th. Do meaningful things from the above list before Thursday of the week before that.

 

Use the rest (the later pages) to check your answers.

 

This attached thing. Requires internet simulation. Open it early, and if the simulator doesn't work at home, make plans to do it on an on-campus computer. For most people, it works at home.

 

 

About the 2018 Sample Free Response questions: Here is my assessment:

1) I never saw the problem before in my life until 5 PM on 3/14/19, about 5.5 hours after you did it.

2) The main idea in all the arrow indicators asked for was to see how strongly you stick to your guns on the following idea: The mechanical wave transports NO MATTER in the direction of energy propagation. The direction of energy propagation is in the direction of wave velocity. Waves transport energy but not matter.

3) How tempted were you to make the vector responses of part a complicated by not sticking to your guns about the concept I just highlighted in 2 above.

4) As usual, the AP test demands simple responses that are specific and tied to fundamental principles that you have heard stated or seen written. But how strongly do you adhere to them in order to answer exactly what's asked and not take a long time doing it.

5) I haven't looked at the Scoring Guidelines rubric yet. When I do, I expect the answer to show for part (a) that particle Q at the instant shown is to have ONLY a purely vertical velocity vector. I believe this strongly, because I believe strongly that the matter particles of the rope (the medium) cannot be transported horizontally. (And I believe that P's velocity is zero.

6) Because I know the definitions in basic kinematics and Newton's Laws, I believe that P's acceleration at the instant shown is maximum upward while P is instantaneously at rest. I apply what I know about elastically driven motion. I see points P and Q as having a vertical behavior as identical to what I would see for a mass on the end of a Hooke's Law spring. I say that Q has maximum vertical velcocity only and therefore an instantaneous acceleration of zero at the instant shown. And I find a way to check my logic. Zero acceleration corresponding to zero displacement at the instant completely what matches what one would say from Hooke's Law: F = -kx so Ma = -kx which leads to a = -(k/M)x. x is instantaneously zero, so a is as well. (It's not a literal spring. It's like a spring.)

7) When I do part (c), I see how simple it is by sticking to my guns. By knowing that P only has vertical motion, I see how easy it is to answer 32 cm just be being observant and being precise with my definitions. I might even be tempted to say, "Why are they putting something this easy on an AP test." Well, a lot of people write irrelevant nonsense, because their studying doesn't involve reading and prioritizing physical facts. Many people miss these easy questions because of that. Maybe I missed some. I still haven't checked the key.

 

The Scoring Guideline is at the link below, along with all the rest for several years:

 

 

There will be a short quiz Monday to make sure people are practicing and reading. The big full Wave test (Chapters 13 and 14) is Friday, March 22.