How Will the AP Physics B Exam Change in May 2015

How Will the AP Physics B Exam Change in May 2015 In May 2015, the Advanced Placement (AP) Physics B exam will undergo some change. Reviewing the breakdown of these changes below will help students to ensure readiness for the new exam when it premieres. The need for change The National Research Council (NRC) recently determined that the AP Physics B course covered too wide a breadth of material so wide that students were not developing a deep enough understanding of concepts. To improve exploration of such materials, and to expand the scope of knowledge covered, the NRC made a recommendation that AP Physics B be divided into a two-year course, effectively doubling its length. Content is now divided across two years, the first of which is the equivalent of a first college semester of algebra-based physics. The class will cover: Newtonian mechanics; work, energy, and power; electronic circuits; and mechanical waves and sound, with an emphasis in inquiry labs and physics state standards. The second course will serve as a second semester college-equivalent course and will cover fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, optics, and atomic and nuclear physics. Splitting the course into two separate entities will provide for more hands-on learning, as well as a greater overall understanding of the curriculum. These are some great tips on how to ace your AP courses. Changes in learning objectives When the AP Physics B course becomes two courses, the learning objectives will also change to reflect the new organization. These objectives will now fall under seven categories, which outline the framework of introductory physics. The learning objectives are presented as a checklist that provide exactly what a student is responsible for knowing and demonstrating in order to receive college credit. The learning objectives also define what will be on the exam; questions that do not match up with one or more objectives will not be on either test. Each objective is associated with both knowledge of physics and basic foundational science principles. Course vs. test While the AP Physics course is recommended to be taught as two courses, each lasting the duration of one year, each school is responsible for setting their own AP schedule. Students who do not take AP courses are still eligible to take AP exams. This means that the exam can be taken, no matter how you have prepared for it. While it is recommended that students and teachers follow the approved exam schedule, a student has the opportunity to try their hand at the test under any circumstances. To be more prepared for the exam, it is recommended that students take Physics over two years, on the same lines as the AP Physics course. Here are 3 questions to ask yourself before taking an AP course. The test The AP Physics exam will be offered in two exams: one for AP Physics 1 and the other for AP Physics 2. Each exam requires three hours, and both can be taken in one year. Like the previous exam, the two will require students to complete both multiple choice and free response questions. Questions on the new tests will assess how well students understand physics conceptually, which means test takers will be required to demonstrate understanding by applying science practices. This involves more writing in free response sections, though the tests will contain fewer of these questions. The free response questions will focus heavily on qualitative and quantitative explanations, reasoning, and justification of answers given. The changed tests will also include a question focusing on experimental design. This question will require students to demonstrate a full range of knowledge in order to explain the various steps of an experiment. Also, while the old test emphasized the use of mathematics to solve problems, the new test will be more cumulative in its approach, asking students to rely on a breadth of knowledge involving math, reasoning, knowledge of the scientific method, and so on. These are 3 common mistakes to avoid on AP exams. Test format The former AP Physics B exam involved 70 multiple-choice questions over a 90-minute time period and six or seven free response questions over a 90-minute time period. Now, the AP Physics 1 exam will have 50 multiple-choice questions over 90 minutes and five free response questions over 90 minutes. One free response question will deal with experimental design, another will deal with qualitative/quantitative translation, and the remaining three will take the style of short answer. The AP Physics 2 exam will follow the same format, but will limit the number of free response questions to four, cutting out the third short answer question. While these changes may seem significant, they will ultimately leave students better prepared for college physics. Working with AP Physics B tutors can be of great help in this process as well. By spreading the acquisition of knowledge over two years, students will be more knowledgeable, prepared, and confident in their abilities to perform advanced physics.

Boost Your Guitar Sound With Dynamics

Boost Your Guitar Sound With Dynamics Maile Proctor When youre learning guitar its important to master the basics, but there are also some tricks you can use to boost your guitar sound. Musical dynamics affect the way you play notes on your guitar. Understanding how to use them can help you sound like a more experienced guitarist. In this guest post from  Will B. from GuitarFella.com, youll learn about dynamics and how you can start using them to boost your guitar sound Guitar dynamics are like a big secret that everyone knows, but never talks about. We could dare to say that playing guitar dynamics is what makes us sound like pros.  All our guitar idols are masters of dynamics and have complete control over this valuable technique. Whats really cool about dynamics, is that with proper application and use, beginner/intermediate players can start to sound like pros. What Are Guitar Dynamics? We define guitar dynamics as the way we perform a certain piece. The attentive way we choose to pick each and every note. Dynamics are essentially the foundation for what everyone calls the feeling. The most common and basic concept of dynamics is how loud or soft we play. If we pick a certain note with more force, it will come out loud and angry. On the other hand, when we pick a note gently, the note will be soft, like a whisper. Imagine that youre having a conversation with someone, you would not speak completely flat. Instead, you might speak softly or yell if you’re angry. We naturally accent certain words and letters by increasing the intensity of speech; the way we do it depends on what were talking about. We whisper when we wish to make a certain statement more mysterious, unofficial, or confidential. The way we talk with others in terms of dynamics, and how loud or soft we speak and which words we accent, is as important as the words we  say. Having said this, imagine that the words are replaced by notes on the guitar. Our playing dynamics define how loud or soft we’ll pick those notes. We get to choose to accent certain notes by playing them louder in comparison to other notes. Dynamics boost guitar sound help us sound more natural. How to Incorporate Dynamics in Your Playing When youre a beginner or intermediate guitar player, you may not play with dynamics, and you may be completely unaware of the issue. If your playing sounds flat, or fellow musician friends comment that you should try playing with more attitude or feeling, what theyre really trying to say is that you should incorporate playing with dynamics into your performance. Exercise 1 The first exercise starts by choosing a single note. Once you have chosen a note, start picking it in any rhythm you find interesting. For example, try picking that note in straight 8th notes. As you pick the note, focus on picking it extra soft. The note should be barely audible. While still picking a single note, try to increase the intensity of your picking hand, and slowly start playing the same note louder and louder. Bring it all the way up, in terms of volume. To do this, you need to pick furiously. Don’t worry, you won’t break the string. The goal of this exercise is to become aware of the volume range in which you pick notes on the fretboard. This range depends on your picking hand technique and the force you apply. Exercise 2 In this exercise, take your favorite scale and play it the way you usually do, probably by going up and back down the scale. Next, try to accent every other note by playing it louder than the notes in between. The pattern should go like this: 1-2-1-2; where 1 is always a loud note and 2 is always a soft sounding note. Once youre able to do this, try playing two notes aggressively and two notes softly. In this case, our pattern is: 1-1-2-2. The goal of this exercise is to practice control over dynamics. Sometimes, we concentrate too hard on which notes are being played, and we completely disregard all the possibilities of how we can play each of those notes in terms of expression. Exercise 3 In terms of playing loud or soft, dynamics can be applied to both rhythm and lead playing. For the sake of this exercise, try to focus on the dynamics aspect when you play your favorite song. Play the song and try picking certain notes or sections louder or softer. Concentrate on incorporating the dynamics, and don’t worry if it feels weird at first. Moving your focus from what needs to be played to how it should be played will be a major milestone in your guitar skills development. Have fun and rock out! Phrasing Dynamics This is an interesting concept thats a bit more advanced, but it’s still important to be familiar with the essentials when starting out. When we play our first improvised solos, we may play all the notes in the same note duration, which is a common mistake for beginners. For example, we might concentrate so much on which notes from the scale we fret in order to play a lick, that we almost automatically pick all those notes in quarter, eighth or sixteenth notes. Usually, we just go back to playing the licks, riffs, and solos in the note duration patterns that feel comfortable. If we want to incorporate phrasing dynamics in our  playing, we need to mix up the note durations in our solo. For example, try to break up a quarter note into two, eighth notes to make it more interesting. Then, we can follow up with four, sixteenth notes instead of playing another pair of eighth notes. This concept follows the same rules we talked about earlier  when we mentioned picking dynamics (picking loud or soft). In order to make our phrases interesting and natural, we need to combine note durations in intricate ways when we compose our licks and solos. If we don’t do that, our solo will just sound like we’re playing an exercise. Conclusion Playing with dynamics should be one of your primary goals from the very beginning. If you consider yourself to be a beginner player, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to think about dynamics just yet. On the contrary, utilizing the power of dynamics early on will help you boost your guitar sound, even if you don’t have the amazing chops yet. Dynamics are the secret sauce, this is what usually comes with years of experience and practice. Over time, we naturally start incorporating dynamics intuitively, but theres no excuse to just skip practicing dynamics altogether. Epic sounding single-note solos, like the ones by John Frusciante, inspire us to work on our own playing dynamics. Playing with expressive dynamics is so rewarding, and once you get the chops down, you’ll be amazed at how tremendously different your playing will sound. Guest Post Author: Will Buckler Will is a part-time guitar tutor in music school. He loves writing instructional articles on how to learn guitar in a fast and effective manner. Will has been a writer and reviewer for GuitarFella for the last year and a half. GuitarFella is a great place to find the latest guitar reviews including electric, acoustic, bass, effects, amps etc. Interested in Private Lessons? Search thousands of teachers for local and live, online lessons. Sign up for convenient, affordable private lessons today! Search for Your Teacher