Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Mid term

I didn't think the mid term was too difficult, but I thought I had done better than my grade reflected, still I think I did pretty well. The review packets that Mr. Wirth gave us were really helpful, since some of the problems on the mid term were similar. Something that would have made those packets even better would be if the answer key showed how to get an answer instead of just idnetifing that it was A,B,C or D. That way we could learn from our mistakes.

Midterm Exam

I thought that the midterm exam was a little bit harder than i expected. However, it was still a pretty descent test. One way i could have increased my grade was to study the packets that we were given. Mr. Wirth really couldn't have done anything differently. Overall i think i did pretty good on the midterm.

Mid-term reflection

i thought that the midterm was more difficult than i expected. i don't think that i did enough problem preparation for the test. I reviewed the summary packets and memorized concepts but they wern't terribly useful without knowing how to use them on actual problems. I also thought that some of the problems on the midterm were somewhat new material (i.e. we had not gone over in class). I could have made more of an effort to come in and practice problems instead of just reviewing the packets.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Mid-term

i found the midterm to be harder than i expected because the questions seemed more difficult than the ones i was used to doing in class. i think i could have prevented that by doing the practice problems in the review packets instead of just going over my notes and the summaries in the packets and by studying more in advance so if i had any questions i could have came in and asked questions on the topics i had more trouble in

Mid-term reflection

Before i went into the exam i felt pretty confident since i had gone through all the packets Mr. Wirth gave us and did pretty well on them, so I felt prepared. After I took the midterm I thought i didn't really well because it didn't seem to hard however my grade was a little different than I expected. To have improve I could of put more work into studying for physics and paying better attention in class. The only thing I think Mr. Wirth could have done better is give all of our tests as regents type questions to better prepare us for the format of the test.
I thought I was prepared and had a full grasp of the material. However I thought I did better than my actual grade indicated. One suggestion for improving my grade would be to have a small study group before the test. I don't think Mr. Wirth could have done anything different and I think because I've missed a month of school my grade was lower than it otherwise could have been. I think it would be beneficial to have updated physics videos or remove them completely on the other hand if the physics classes don't want to learn it won't matter what videos are used

Monday, January 14, 2008

1/10/08-Work and Energy

Today in class we learned about work and energy. Work is a force acting through a distance. It is also an energy relationship. The formula for work is Work= Force x Distance, or W=FD. Work is also equal to the change in total energy.
We were also introduced to a new formula for total energy: Et=KE+PE+Q. Therefore, Work equals change in PE+ change in KE+ change in Q.
Q is the symbol for internal energy. This is the total kinetic energy and the total potential energy of all the individual molecules and atoms. This includes chemical potential energy and nuclear potential energy.
I think that we need to spend less time in class on definitions and more time on problem examples, particularly the more challenging ones. I feel that we spend too much time going over similar easy problems and not concentrating on moderate to more difficult examples that appear on our quizzes.