Advanced Physics for High School Students

About the Book

A perception exists that physics is a sophisticated discipline accessible only to the brightest students. To dispel this notion, the authors created a program that makes college-level physics attainable to average high school students. Additionally, its distinctive concept-building approach allows high performing student to flourish. Regardless of experience, all physics teachers can confidently prepare students for success with this product. The unique program design also makes it ideal for the home-schooled student.

This program has proven, through field-testing, that upon successful completion, students are rewarded with genuine conceptual understanding, a real sense of accomplishment, and the tangible benefit of college credit.

What makes this program unique?

As opposed to chapter-by-chapter formats of traditional textbooks, it integrates concepts and employs constant review, allowing students to strengthen understanding over time. The 100-lesson format develops concepts in a progressive, spiraling manner. Concepts are introduced at a fundamental level developing further in later lessons, encouraging incremental learning.

Problem sets that accompany each lesson represent an important feature that promotes confidence and understanding. Each set includes topics from current and previous lessons, making each set comprehensive. As the course progresses, the problems increase in complexity and depth, enabling students to master and connect concepts.

All tests are comprehensive and include multiple choice and free response sections. The tests continuously increase in difficulty, building to AP-level rigor. The scoring rubrics and alternate forms of each test allow teachers and students to diagnose weaknesses and focus learning.

The program also includes a set of ten descriptive physics questions after every fifth lesson, which promotes thought and expose misconceptions, while requiring consideration of concepts from a qualitative and conceptual perspective. The Teacher Resource CD contains detailed keys for problem sets, quizzes and tests.

About the Author

Mark McVicker holds Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from the University of Northern Iowa in Science Education. He has been teaching high school science at public high schools for 25 years and has 18 years of Advanced Placement Physics experience and 16 years of Advanced Placement Chemistry experience. His students have achieved a 95% pass rate (a score of 3 or better) in Physics B and 85% pass rate in Chemistry.