Professor Pang's Study Guide

Professor Pang's General Physics Study Guide

What to do when you have difficulties:

When you have difficulties during a lecture, stop the instructor and ask questions, or just simply state that you cannot follow.
When you have difficulties with the text or related materials during reading, or have difficulties with the homework assignments, see the instructor during the next scheduled office hour, or make an appointment right away if you are not free for the office hour.
Have your precalculus textbook nearby when you start each your homework assignment, so you can look up relevant materials when you need them.

How to allocate your time:
Assuming that there is a total of fourteen to fifteen weeks, approximately ten hours (laboratory work included) per week are recommended for a four-credit general physics course. Here is the suggested allocation:

Three hours for the lectures.
Three hours for the experiment.
Two hours for reading and reviewing the materials in the textbook, class notes, and laboratory manual. These two hours can be further divided as:
- Ten to fifteen minutes to glance through the materials to be covered right before each lecture;
- Fifteen minutes to read the related materials in the laboratory manual right before each experiment;
- Fifteen minutes to review the data obtained and the related materials in the laboratory manual before writing each laboratory report;
- An hour to review the related materials in the textbook and class notes before working on a homework assignment.
Two hours for working out the homework and completing the laboratory report.

Other efforts:

Have a good precalculus mathematics book (for example, "Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell: Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry," by George F. Simmons) available during reading or working on homework.
Work with the simulations, tutorials, study guide, and other text-related materials on a computer or on the web.
Work out extra problems.
Carry out extra learning activities, for example, read the recommended reading materials or popular books such as "The Physics of Baseball" by R.K. Adair or "A Brief History of Time" by S. Hawking. A video version of Hawking's book is also available from the UNLV library.