#sat physics

NOTES

ok so first off, some more photos of my notes to give you a better sense of what i included for some of the topics i reviewed. here are some of my “final summary sheets” that i made in a graph composition notebook

As you can see, with each concept I used a different color to make the heading stand out (partially because it made this process more fun, but also because it’s quicker for me to see the topics when I flip through the notebook).

I went through the material and essentially outlined the content, but I really condensed the information, and I only included things that I didn’t already know. If I already knew the information before I started studying, then maybe I’d make a note or something on the side, but I didn’t spend too much time writing down things I was already confident with.

How I made these condensed summary sheets was by first taking notes in my other notebook from various sources  (Barrons prep book, old AP Physics textbooks, online resources, etc.).

Those are some examples of the notes I took on my first pass through the content. You can kind of see what my “setup” looks like while doing this step in this or this photo I posted last year! So after finishing this part on normal binder paper, I would look over these notes and condense it further on the graph paper I showed in the first part of this post.

Also, I find that for me repetition  and rewriting things works the best in helping me retain information. So for this reason, I would then take my summary sheet and go through it topic by topic, vocab word by vocab word, and create:

INDEX CARDS

NOTE: These things are different from flashcards. Whereas flashcards typically only have one vocab word + a quick definition, my index cards were essentially either copies, or even more condensed versions of, my summary sheets/notes. 

I would have around 1-2 concepts per index card (depending on the amount of information that went with each concept), and I would color code the index cards by topic so it would be easier for me to distinguish which part I was studying at that moment.

The things I put on the back of the index card would include anything from definitions/formulas, tricks to help me remember the concepts (usually written in more colloquial terms, because if I read/write the way that I think, it’s more likely that I will remember the material), and also just any important key points for that concept. I made some markings in the pictures in my photoset to kind of indicate how I format my index cards.

Also, not pictured above (because I forgot to point it out/take photos of it ;u;) are the markings I made on top of the index cards! I colored the top of each index card with the corresponding color to make it easier for me to separate them when they were all stacked together. I think you might be able to see a little bit of that when you look at my old layout photos.