<p>I registered to take Gen Physics 2 my first semester, as I had taken Gen Physics I (passed with an A) the summer after my junior year of high school. I don’t remember much of the material covered in the class, as i had to play catch up the whole semester.</p>
<p>The thought of Gen Physics 2 has been troubling me lately, as I don’t remember the material covered in Gen Physics I as well as I should. Does Gen Physics 2 build on top of the material covered in 1? I know Gen Physics 2 covers electricity and magnetism, but how much of the material of Gen Physics 1 is covered?</p>
<p>I have the book I’ll use this Fall, would it be better to review and reteach myself the material covered in Gen Physics 1 or should I read ahead and go over parts of what I’ll see in the fall?</p>
<p>If you took Physics 1 during high school, and you don’t remember it that well, and it will appear on the MCAT…I think it’s in your best interest to take Physics 1 again.</p>
<p>You’ll need a year of physics plus labs to apply to medical school. Did your high school dual enrollment physics class include credit for a lab? If it didn’t, you’d need to take an additional physics class with a lab–which could prove to be challenging.</p>
<p>But to answer your original question, the content of physics 2 (electricity, magnetism, optics, relativity, circuits, radioactivity…what am I forgetting?) does not build directly on physics 1.</p>
<p>^ Depending on the college, some professors may include wave (including sound) before optics, and atomic structure and a little bit quantum in addition to nuclear radioactivity toward the end of the class, idk.</p>
<p>Likely only the energy-related topic in mechanics (e.g., kinetics and potential energy) may be used in the first part of electricity. For this kind of topics, if you learn it well the first time, it is not easy to forget it completely. So I would think it is very easy to refresh the few related topics in a short time when needed.</p>
<p>Boy…I must have been drilled too much in high school and in my freshmen physics class. (Engineering students often take physics class in freshmen.) I should have forgotten this stuff a long time ago if I am “normal”. (When DS was in high school, he probably thought I was nut because I still remembered many topics I learned a generation ago.)</p>