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← Extra Practice / Strategies

Your quizzes and other problems you worked on in this course are the best resources. Below are some group quizzes I have given before, they may prove useful for extra practice for this midterm.
Straight-line, constant acceleration motion. Will the driver stop before hitting the deer?

Answer Key (pdf)

General motion in a plane. What is the velocity and acceleration given the path it takes?

Answer Key (pdf)

Coefficient of Kinetic Friction. Box on incline & box pulled by hanging weight.

Answer Key (pdf)

Strategies

If you jump into the middle of a problem and try to plug numbers into a random formula, there is a real chance you will miss something. Sometimes that is possible, but if you systematically apply these procedures, even partially, you will have a better chance at solving the problem.

Kinematics: The general strategy for working with a context-rich problem in one-dimension with constant acceleration might include:

  1. Sketch a Pictorial Representation.
  2. Construct Motion Diagram[s].
  3. Construct Axes.
  4. Tabulate the kinematic knowns and unknowns.
  5. Set up kinematic equations, all three if you don't know which one: \begin{align} &(\Delta x) = v_0\, t + \tfrac12 a\,t^2 \\[2ex] & v = v_0 + a\,t \\[2ex] & v^2 = v_0^2 + 2\,a\,(\Delta x) \end{align}
  6. Solve for the requested unknown[s].

Projectile Motion: The general strategy uses kinematics (above), but the special case where a projectile lands at the same elevation it is launched, we have special formulas: \begin{align} \mbox{[Horizontal] Range} \qquad &R = \frac{v_0^2\,\sin(2\theta)}{g} \\[2ex] \mbox{Time of Flight} \qquad &T = \frac{2\,v_{y0}}{g} \\[2ex] \mbox{Maximum Height}\qquad &H = \frac{v_{y0}^2}{2\,g} \end{align}

Newton's Laws: The general strategy for working with forces might include:

  1. Sketch a Pictorial Representation.
  2. Construct Motion Diagram[s].
  3. Construct Free Body Diagram[s].
  4. Construct Axes.
  5. Set up Newton's Second Law in component form, $(\Sigma F)_x = ma_x$.
  6. (If you have two objects interacting, use Newton's Third Law, $F(\mbox{A on B})=F(\mbox{B on A})$).
  7. Use relevant special formulas: $W=mg$, $F_g=GMm/d^2=mg$, $F_k=\mu_k N$, $F_s\le\mu_s N$, $F_e=-kx$, $\cdots$
  8. Solve for the requested unknown[s].

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jones.3 (R Jones)
Last Modified 23:19:38 20-Feb-2022