[swati_1994]

[Curlyben]

Study harder.

[jcaron2]

Well, recognizing that this Mathematics forum is not the same as a Physics forum would be a start. :)

Seriously, though, the best way to score well in Physics is to understand the concepts, not just memorize formulas. The nice thing about Physics is that much of what you learn in the first course or two is stuff that you can easily and intuitively picture in your head or experience in real life. Baseballs flying through the air, carts sliding down inclined planes, and billiard balls bumping into each other are things whose behavior most people, even young children, can predict to some extent without ever knowing any mathematical formulas or laws of motion. That makes it much, much easier to understand and remember the mathematical formulas as long as you take the time and effort to think about them and practice using them. It also makes it possible to apply the "common sense" test to the answers you come up with on tests and homework. For example, if you have a test question about how high a ball travels when a person throws it, and you get an answer of 6,400 meters, common sense tells you that you must have made a mistake in the calculation - nobody on the planet can throw a ball anywhere near that high!

That example brings up another piece of advice: take the time to observe, feel, or otherwise realistically picture, familiarize yourself, and understand the different units of measurement that you come across. If you're unsure how big a meter is, find out! Physics is much, much easier when you can close your eyes (or hold out your hands) and picture a meter - or a kilometer, or a centimeter. Likewise with inches, feet, pounds, tons, grams, kilograms, Newtons, etc. That last one (Newtons) is a good example of one that you might not already be familiar with before beginning a Physics course. Whenever you come across a new concept or new unit of measurement like that, you should try to relate it to something you're already familiar with. Using the Newton example, first consider that a Newton is a unit of force. What's the most familiar way to think about force? For me it's to think about weight (after all, weight is just the force of gravity acting on an object). A Newton turns out to be about a tenth of a kg. That's about the same as the weight of a deck of playing cards. So with that simple comparison, I now have an intuitive feel in my head of how much 1 Newton of force is. Without ever doing any math, for example, now I can tell you that if I try to push my car up a hill with a force of 1 Newton, the car isn't going anywhere!

Finally, if there's a concept or formula that you just can't seem to understand no matter how much you think about it, ask your teacher or somebody here (but preferably in the Physics forum :) ). Most of the stuff you'll learn in Physics can be explained quite intuitively.

[eawoodall]

physics is formulas, with an understanding of mathematics.

you memorize the formulas.

you manipulate the mathematics.

you can do better.

example:
r=d/t
if you know that someone went for one hour at 60 miles per hour, then plugging in the values
gives you t = 1 hour, r = 60 miles/ 1 hour, and so you solve for d. 60 miles per hour = d/1 hour. Multiply through by 1 hour gives (60 miles times 1 hour)/1 hour = d (1 hour)/(1 hour) which becomes as the 1 hour cancels on both sides 60 miles = d miles, so the distance is 60.

you can similarly do any physics question by knowing the formulas, and knowing how to manipulate the mathematics involved.