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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is it okay to take AP Physics in Sophomore year.?
My DS wants to lessen his AP's in Junior and Senior year and has decided to take AP Physics next year (Sophomore year).
 Do colleges look at what year students take courses? Is this something we should worry about?  He is gearing towards pre med . So, has to take AP Chem, AP Bio and AP Physics and AP Calculus.
Possibly, looking at direct med programs. So, junior and senior year will be intense. To ease the load, he decided to take AP Physics Sophmore year. Prereq. for that is Algebra 2.

Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
[/quote]
Physics teacher here. I would recommend taking AP Physics C the same year as AP BC Calculus. The 1st quarters of each are parallel and reinforce each other.  AP Physics C is more consistent for students in advanced math to earn a 5.

AP Physics 1 isn’t “easier”. [b]It’s actually very rigorous conceptually[/b], which is harder for younger teens whose brains aren’t as developed for abstract reasoning. I think it is a great course STEM bound students to take as seniors, if they aren’t at calculus yet. Otherwise, I think AP Physics C is the better course for high school students.[/quote]
How can it be conceptually rigorous, did you mean to say conceptually demanding? All physics is built up from mathematics, so saying it's rigorous conceptually seems contradictory unless it's also rigorous mathematically.[/quote]
This is a common misunderstanding from how physics is often taught. It would be better to say mathematics is the language used to describe physics.  Newton invented calculus as a mathematical process to explain physical concepts.

All physics is built up from experimentation and using the results to determine relationships between various variables. Those relationships are where the physics equations come from. Many courses teach physics from the perspective of providing the equations and then plug-and-chug away with word problems. Not AP Physics 1. It has kids analyze new situations and explain how to determine something in a multi-step process linking several physics concepts, without a number crunch. Or kids describe an experiment, or analyze given data, or tell what else would change in an experiment if something was changed.

Go look at the released free response questions - they aren’t simple.[/quote]

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