The Guide to AP Physics C: Mechanics

By Mia Hanuska

Buckle your seatbelt, strap your arms in the straightjacket, and prepare yourself for disappointment. If you’re aiming for an A in this class, mentally prepare yourself to get at least a B. This class will make you regret ever complaining about the difficulty of other classes. If you haven’t taken AP Physics 1 before, I would not recommend going blindly into this course. You will struggle. You will fight demons. This class is majority self-led, and requires hours outside of class to properly understand the topics. 

Overview

AP Physics C: Mechanics has seven units, and each one is fairly separate—there are some topics that will carry over between units, but for the most part, each unit has completely new information. Which is good if you don’t understand one unit, because the next unit will be completely different! Unit tests are every two weeks (owie!) so you need to stay on top of work. 

General Study Resources

  • Watch the AP classroom videos, they teach the basics of all the topics you’ll need to know. They also help you understand what will/won’t be on the test
  • Complete the AP classroom quizzes, they have important questions that will prepare you for the unit tests. Tandon sometimes skips over information or skills that appear on tests, and it’s good to get experience with the type of conceptual questions CollegeBoard asks
  • Youtube videos will be your best friend, but some channels are better than others. These are the ones I found most helpful:
  • For example questions: APStudy.net

Unit 1: Kinematics

This unit is very similar to AP Physics 1 (or so I’m told). All new content is simply applying calculus principles (derivatives of particle motion) to regular kinematics. 

Topic of Importance: Motions in two dimensions

  • Splitting motion into multiple components
  • Basic derivatives and integral applications

Study Help:

Practice Problems

  • 2018 FRQ Question 1

Unit 2: Force and Translational Dynamics

This is the one most important unit. Put as much time as you need into understanding force, because if you don’t know how to create free body diagrams or solve for net forces, you won’t understand future units. Unfortunately, this unit is also SO LONG with every topic imaginable, and you don’t get lots of time to learn. You’ll need to spend lots of time studying this unit outside of class.

Topic of Importance: Forces and free body diagrams

  • How to solve for net force (what forces to include, etc)
  • Components of force on a block on an incline
  • Banked curves

Study Help:

Tips:
  • Mass of a weight can be found by setting multiple forces equal to each other
  • An object with more mass will require more time to reach terminal velocity 

Practice Problems

  • 2015 FRQ Question 1
  • 2018 FRQ Question 1
  • 2022 FRQ Set 1 Question 1 (a) – (c)
  • 2024 FRQ Set 1 Question 2 
  • 2024 FRQ Set 2 Question 2

Unit 3: Work, Energy, and Power

This unit is short (time-wise) but significant. As long as you know basic energy principles, you’ll be fine.

Topic of Importance: Energy

  • Conservation of energy (initial energy = final energy)
  • Gravitational potential energy

Study Help:

Tips:
  • Work is the integral of the X-component
  • Non-uniform external force → non-uniform kinetic energy

Practice Problems

  • 2022 FRQ Set 1 Question 1 (d) – (e)
  • 2022 FRQ Set 1 Question 2 (a)
  • 2023 FRQ Set 1 Question 1
  • 2024 FRQ Set 1 Question 1 (a) – (b)

Unit 4: Linear Momentum

This unit is very short and has only a few things to remember, making it fairly simple. However, don’t use it as an excuse to sort of “slack off” on physics—use any extra time to review past units and stay on top of work. 

Topic of Importance: Conservation of linear momentum

  • How to calculate center of mass & center of velocity
  • Splitting motion into 2D components

Study Help:

Tips:
  • Anytime you see force & time, use impulse
  • Elastic collisions = conserved kinetic energy

Practice Problems

  • 2015 FRQ Question 2 (a) – (d) & (f) [i]
  • 2018 FRQ Question 2
  • 2022 FRQ Set 1 Question 2 
  • 2023 FRQ Set 2 Question 3 (a) – (b)

Units 5 & 6: Torque and Rotational Dynamics & Energy and Momentum of Rotating Systems

This unit will suck so much. Units 5 and 6 are combined into only a few (like 1.5) weeks, and the content is pretty complicated—flesh out hours to spend on practicing these problems. There is always at least one FRQ from this unit on the AP test.

Topics of Importance: Torque

  • Relationship to inertia
  • Equilibrium
  • Dot product
  • Angular Momentum

Study Help:

Tips:
  • You can use torque to find angular velocity & acceleration
  • Longer lever arm → larger torque
  • The tension holding a rope relies on torque
  • When in doubt, you can probably use torque

Practice Problems

  • 2015 FRQ Question 3
  • 2018 FRQ Question 3
  • 2022 FRQ Set 1 Question 3
  • 2023 FRQ Set 1 Question 2 (b) – (d)
  • 2023 FRQ Set 1 Question 3
  • 2023 FRQ Set 2 Question 3 (c) – (e)
  • 2024 FRQ Set 1 Question 3 
  • 2024 FRQ Set 2 Question 3

Unit 7: Oscillations

Oscillations are probably one of the simplest topics covered in this course. Majority of it is simply understanding which calculus skills you need for the problem and once you have that down, you can solve pretty much any problem fairly easily. This unit is covered in Tandon’s class as Unit 3 and also includes simple harmonic motion and pendulums. 

Topic of Importance: Gravitation

  • Inside & outside of solid and hollow spheres
  • Escape velocity
  • Kepler’s 3rd Law
  • Centripetal acceleration

Study Help:

Tips:
  • Amplitude is max displacement
  • When potential energy is at a max, velocity is 0
  • Phase angle is not typically super important
  • You only need to know Kepler’s 3rd law, the other two aren’t very useful

Practice Problems

  • 2015 FRQ Question 2 (e)
  • 2023 FRQ Set 1 Question 2 (a)
  • 2024 FRQ Set 1 Question 1 
  • 2024 FRQ Set 2 Question 1

AP Test Cram/Review Videos

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