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AP Physics C: With 4 Practice Tests, 5th Edition (2020)

Gain insights into exam patterns with AP Physics C: With 4 Practice Tests, 5th Edition (2020), an invaluable resource for test-day preparation.

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    The Trusted Name in Test Prep Physics C HW For 2021 & 2022 exams ed \ BM Comprehensive content review 1 .“ . 7 \ W ONLINE PRACTICE 9 7 Robert A. Pelcovits, Ph.D. pn —— =] and Joshua Farkas, M.D. * AP" istered trademark of the College Board, which was not - 7 voto the prt of and cos nc encrae, tis Brodat TT + StudyXxy EE

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    Downloaded from StudyXY.com ® + StudyXY Sd Ye. o> \ | iF ’ pr E \ 3 S Stu dy Anything This ContentHas been Posted On StudyXY.com as supplementary learning material. StudyXY does not endrose any university, college or publisher. Allmaterials posted are under the liability of the contributors. wv 8) www.studyxy.com

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    WITH 4 PRACTICE TESTS FIFTH EDITION Robert A. Pelcovits, Ph.D. Professor of Physics Brown University Providence, Rhode Island Joshua Farkas, M.D. Assistant Professor of Medicine University of Vermont Burlington, Vermont AP* is a registered trademark of the College Board, which was not involved in the production of, and does not endorse, this product. Study.

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    Prepare with Online Practice BARRON’S

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    Acknowledgments I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my coauthor, Joshua Farkas, an exceptionally gifted former student of mine. Josh contributed the lion’s share of work to the first edition, developing most of the examples and problems (especially the novel and creative ones), and offering numerous ideas and suggestions as to the best way to present difficult concepts and useful problem-solving strategies. I am very grateful for all he has done in making our book a success. While preparing the fifth edition, I was helped by yet another superb Brown undergraduate, Adam Scherlis. Adam reviewed all of the examples, problems, and practice tests, catching many errors and making many suggestions for improvements. I am very grateful for his expert help. —RAP I would first of all like to thank Robert Pelcovits for coauthoring this book with me and for his valiant efforts in its revision. To work with a man of his stature, both as a physicist and as a person, is indeed a privilege. This book never could have been possible without him. I would also like to thank Esta Farkas for heroically reviewing the initial drafts of this book for both content and English. —IJDF

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    About the Authors Robert Pelcovits is a professor of physics at Brown University, where he has taught since 1979. He earned his B.A. and M.S. degrees at the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. at Harvard University. The author of over 80 publications in theoretical condensed matter physics, he has lectured on his research at many universities throughout the world. He has taught a wide range of courses at Brown, from introductory to advanced graduate level. In 1999 he was awarded the Philip J. Bray Award for Teaching Excellence in the Physical Sciences by Brown. In 2008 he was named a Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence at Brown, and in 2011 the university awarded him the Harriet Sheridan Award for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning. Having earned both Sc.B. and M.S. degrees from Brown University and an M.D. degree from Cornell University, Joshua Farkas is currently an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Vermont. He was also a National Merit Scholar, a Goldwater Scholar, and a Faculty Scholar at Brown University, with experience teaching college-level calculus and calculus- based physics. Having scored 5s on AP exams in BC Calculus, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics C, as well as 800s in SAT I Math and on SAT II exams in Math IIC, Chemistry, and Physics, he brought a student’s perspective to this book.

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    © Copyright 2020, 2016, 2012, 2008 by Kaplan, Inc., d/b/a Barron’s Educational Series Prior edition © Copyright 2002 by Barron’s Educational Series, Inc., under the title How to Prepare for the AP Physics C Advanced Placement Examination. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this eBook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. Published by Kaplan, Inc., d/b/a Barron’s Educational Series 750 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017 www.barronseduc.com ISBN: 978-1-5062-7424-9 10987654321 Kaplan, Inc., d/b/a Barron’s Educational Series print books are available at special quantity discounts to use for sales promotions, employee premiums, or educational purposes. For more information or to purchase books, please call the Simon & Schuster special sales department at 866-506-1949.

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    Contents Barron’s Essential 5 Introduction Diagnostic Test 1 Background 2 One-Dimensional Kinematics 3 Two-Dimensional Kinematics 4 Newton’s Laws 5 Work, Energy, and Power 6 Linear Momentum and Center of Mass 7 Rotation I: Kinematics, Force, Work, and Energy 8 Rotation II: Inertia, Equilibrium, and Combined Rotation/Translation 9 Simple Harmonic Motion l0 Universal Gravitation [1 Coulomb’s Law and Electric Fields Due to Point Charges 2 Calculating Electric Fields and Potentials Due to Continuous Charge Distributions 13 Gauss’s Law 4 Analysis of Circuits Containing Batteries and Resistors 5 Capacitors l6 RC Circuits

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    7 Magnetic Fields 8 Faraday’s Law and Lenz’s Law 9 Inductors 20 Maxwell’s Equations Practice Test 1 Practice Test 2 Appendix: Physics C Equations and Constants

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    > . Barron’s Essential 5 As you review the content in this book to work toward earning that 5 on your AP PHYSICS C exam, here are five things that you MUST know above everything else: 1 Dimensional Analysis. Many AP Physics multiple-choice questions can be answered or have the number of possibly correct answers significantly reduced by using dimensional analysis to check the units of the answers. « Even for free-response questions you should check your units. You may discover a mistake in your work by doing so. * Whenever you solve a practice or homework problem, always check the units; this is a great habit to develop while mastering physics. 2 Vectors. Vectors are key quantities in physics, whether Newtonian mechanics or electricity and magnetism. * Review the addition and subtraction laws for vectors in Chapter 1. « Most important, review how to resolve vectors into components, including the relevant trigonometry. 3 Graphs. The AP exam will test your ability to understand physical information in graphical form, such as displacement of a moving object vs. time. You will need to draw graphs in the free-response questions and select correct graphs in the multiple- choice section. « Review the use of graphs in the free-response questions. Also read “Graphical Analysis of Data” in Chapter 1. 4 Newton’s Laws. Physics C Mechanics is all about the application of Newton's three laws of motion to mechanical systems. Review Chapter 4, paying close attention to the correct drawing of free-body diagrams and the proper application of Newton's third law to a pair of interacting objects. 5 Practice! Practice! Practice! The best (and maybe only) way to learn physics is to do practice problems. Reading a practice book or textbook over and over will not help you. Do as many practice problems as you can in this book, your textbook, and any online resources. + StudyXy

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    Introduction HOW TO REVIEW FOR THE AP PHYSICS EXAM Solving physics problems is like mastering any sport or musical instrument: If you want to do it well, you have to practice. Do not expect to understand everything immediately and do not be frustrated by the effort required to master some concepts and techniques. Contrary to popular conceptions of a vast divide between physics geniuses who can immediately solve problems and other people who simply cannot, learning physics requires hard work. However, a mastery of calculus-based physics will teach you analytical and mathematical skills that will prove extremely useful in a broad range of other disciplines. GUIDE TO THIS REVIEW BOOK Text The text of the chapters works from the ground up without assuming extensive knowledge of physics on your part. Therefore, the text is appropriate at any stage of your mastery of AP physics. You may find it helpful to read the text along with your textbook when you are first learning the material and studying for course exams, or you may choose to read the chapters together as a review after you have completed most of your AP Physics course. Questions Because of space limitations, it is impossible for the questions to work from the ground up (i.e., start with very easy questions and progress to more

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    difficult ones). Therefore, the questions are generally near the AP level and assume that you have some problem-solving experience. The questions are designed to raise you from a competent problem solver to an expert with extensive experience in solving AP problems. If you have difficulty with the questions, you may want to go back and solve some problems in your introductory physics textbook or AP physics textbook, as well as consider the advice in the next paragraph. Difficulty of the Questions The problems in this review book are generally slightly more difficult than actual AP exam questions. In order to maximize the amount that you learn from this book and your degree of comfort with AP physics questions, we have designed the questions to cover the material and problem-solving techniques of the AP Physics exam while being more challenging than questions you are actually likely to encounter on the exam. For example, our problems generally have more parts than standard AP problems in order to exhaustively explore various hypothetical situations. Therefore, we strongly urge you not to become discouraged if you are not able to solve all the problems on your first attempt. Instead, the best approach is to make your best effort at the problems, read (and study) the solutions of problems you got wrong, and later return to these problems and try them again. Because we have attempted to include all the common problem types that appear on the AP exam, after you have worked through all the problems in this guide correctly (even if not on your first or second attempt), you will probably be in excellent shape. Another approach that you might find useful for multistep problems is to do each part individually and check the answer before proceeding to the next part. This allows you to avoid wasting time by making a mistake in one part and then propagating it through the rest of the problem. The advantage to this difficulty level is that after you obtain experience solving the problems in this book, you will be comfortable solving the problems on the AP exam. Distribution of the Questions

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    Not all AP topics are created equal. Some topics (such as Gauss’s and Faraday’s laws) are tested extensively and are frequently the subject of entire free-response questions. Other topics (such as circuit analysis) are central to solving a range of questions but are generally not the sole topic of a free- response question. Finally, some topics (such as Maxwell’s equations) are not tested very extensively. The distribution of questions in this review book is based on a careful review of decades of AP examinations. Topics that have been tested frequently in the past are reviewed thoroughly, and topics tested infrequently are not reviewed as extensively. Additionally, more attention is paid to topics requiring more practice than others. (For example, although rotational kinematics is frequently tested, extensive practice with rotational kinematics is not crucial because of its similarity to linear kinematics.) We appreciate that the time you have to review for this exam is limited, so we have worked hard to provide you with exactly the material and questions you need to do well on the AP exam. Derivations From introductory physics courses, you may have received the impression that derivations aren’t very important but rather that only the final results are relevant. This is not the case in Physics C, where the level of sophistication is high enough to require the derivation of most of the important equations. Since these derivations illustrate important principles and problem-solving approaches, we have included them here and urge you to make sure you understand them. Problem-Solving Strategies to Watch For As multiple-choice and free-response questions are presented and explained, we have tried to show, often in multiple approaches to the same problem, how various strategies can be applied. A quick way to answer a multiple- choice question, for example, often involves elimination of incorrect choices based on such considerations as dimensional analysis, behavior at extreme

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    values of the system parameters, results of eliminating certain parameters, and the absence of parameters that by the nature of the problem must be included. In the free-response questions, results from previous parts frequently are used in later, more involved, parts; thus, notice how you can get valuable clues as to how to approach part (d) by rereading (and probably using results from) parts (a), (b), and (c). Remember the value of getting a good grasp of the situation described in a problem; using sketches, diagrams, and graphs; thinking of the relationships between given quantities; and relating situations to concepts that might be more familiar (as in rotational and linear motion, in electrical and gravitational fields, and in conservation of elastic and gravitational energy). As you carefully study our solutions, be sure to watch for these and the many other approaches that will improve your abilities to analyze and to understand physics problems and to develop your “physics intuition.” GRAPHICAL ANALYSIS OF DATA The free-response section of the exam typically includes a question involving a lab experiment and data analysis. We have included such questions in this edition. Here are some general tips for successfully solving these questions. 1 You will usually be asked to plot a relationship between quantities that is expected to be linear. You may need to evaluate a suitable function of one of the quantities in order to obtain a linear relation. For an example, see “Mechanics III” of the Diagnostic Test (page 19). 1 If you are asked to plot quantity A as a function of quantity B, then A is on the vertical axis and B is on the horizontal axis. On the other hand, the problem may simply say to plot the data to test a linear relationship. In that case, it is your choice as to which quantity goes on which axis. 1 You will need to examine the range of data points to determine the correct scale on the axes. Your data points should cover at least half of the grid. Your scale must be uniform along the axis; i.e., if neighboring major gridlines differ by 4 units, then this must be true of all neighboring major gridlines. 1 Label the axes with the quantity plotted, and be sure to include the units.

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