How to Prepare for AP Physics 2 and AP Physics C: Mechanics

AP Physics 1 is the usual first course. After it, students split. Some take AP Physics 2, which stays algebra-based and covers the physics AP Physics 1 leaves out. Others take AP Physics C: Mechanics, which covers mechanics again with calculus. A few take both. This guide covers both exams, because the choice between them is the first thing to settle.

Physics Zen has an AP Physics 2 path and an AP Physics C: Mechanics path. Both are independent exam-style practice. They are not official College Board material, and the app is not affiliated with College Board. If you are still on the first course, start with the AP Physics 1 guide.

Which One Are You Taking?

College Board describes the two courses like this:

If you want physics or engineering at university, C: Mechanics matches the first semester you will meet there. If you want the rest of introductory physics (heat, electricity, light, atoms), AP Physics 2 is the course that covers it. Neither is a harder version of the other. They cover different material.

The Exam Format Both Share

From May 2027, both papers have the same shape:

• Section I. 42 multiple-choice questions in 85 minutes, half the score. Some questions stand alone, others come in sets that share a stimulus or data.
• Section II. 4 free-response questions in 95 minutes, the other half. One of each type: mathematical routines; translation between representations; experimental design and analysis; qualitative/quantitative translation.

A calculator is allowed and reference materials are provided. The exams are hybrid digital: multiple-choice answers go into the Bluebook app, and free-response answers are handwritten in a paper booklet.

Older review books and practice tests show 40 questions in 80 minutes and 100 minutes of free response. College Board changed those numbers for May 2027. The course content did not change, but your timing practice should use the new numbers. At 85 minutes for 42 questions you have about two minutes per item.

AP Physics 2: Units, Weights and What to Drill

The weights are the multiple-choice percentages from the official course page. The skills column counts what the Physics Zen path drills for each unit.

The first three units are almost half the multiple-choice section. Electrostatics and circuits are also where the algebra is longest, so spend the first weeks there. The Circuits topic is the place to start. The Kirchhoff's laws guide works through loop signs in full.

Boundaries That Save Time

The course description sets limits, and knowing them stops you from drilling things that will not be asked:

• The first law uses the work done on the gas. The convention is $\Delta U = Q + W$. A textbook that writes $\Delta U = Q - W$ counts the work done by the gas. Pick the AP sign and keep it.
• The second law is qualitative. Entropy increases in an isolated system; no engine is perfect. You will not compute $\Delta S$.
• RC circuits stop at the ends. You find the current at the moment the switch closes and the charge after a long time. You are not expected to model the charge as a function of time.
• Doppler is qualitative. Higher or lower frequency, and why. No Doppler formula.

The Physics Zen path follows these limits. Its first-law problems use the AP convention, and it leaves out the RC exponentials, numeric entropy and quantitative Doppler that its general curriculum contains.

AP Physics C: Mechanics: Units, Weights and What to Drill

The units have the same names as the first seven units of AP Physics 1. There is no fluids unit. The difference is the mathematics.

Unit 2 is the heaviest, and it is where calculus first changes the physics. Topic 2.9 of the course description covers a resistive force that depends on velocity, such as $F_r = -kv$. Newton's second law then becomes a differential equation for velocity, which you solve by separating variables. The terminal speed $v_t = \frac{mg}{k}$ comes out of it without any integration.

Where the Calculus Actually Goes

Most C: Mechanics questions still start from ideas you met in AP Physics 1. The calculus is in a few recurring moves:

• Differentiate position to get velocity and acceleration, or integrate $a(t)$ back.
• Find force from potential energy with $F = -\frac{dU}{dx}$, and read equilibrium where the slope is zero.
• Compute work as $W = \int F\,dx$ and impulse as $J = \int F\,dt$ when the force changes.
• Write $m\frac{d^2x}{dt^2} = -kx$ and read the angular frequency $\omega = \sqrt{k/m}$ from it.

These are the forms the Physics Zen C: Mechanics path adds on top of the algebra-based skills, mostly from level 3. The Rotational Motion topic carries the parallel-axis and rolling items. If force diagrams are still slow for you, the free-body diagram guide comes first.

A Twelve-Week Plan for Either Course

Weeks 1 to 4: the heavy units. AP Physics 2: thermodynamics, electrostatics and circuits. C: Mechanics: kinematics with calculus, then force and translational dynamics. Practise every day with fresh problems rather than one long session a week.

Weeks 5 to 8: the middle units. AP Physics 2: magnetism, optics and waves. C: Mechanics: energy, momentum and the first rotation unit. Revisit any earlier skill you got wrong in the same week.

Weeks 9 to 10: the last units. AP Physics 2: modern physics. C: Mechanics: rotating systems and oscillations.

Weeks 11 to 12: free response and timing. Write one full free-response answer a day by hand, with labelled parts and derivations. Do at least one timed multiple-choice block at 42 questions in 85 minutes.

What the App Does Not Cover

Generated problems are graded as numbers, so the app cannot mark a written explanation, a sketch or a symbolic derivation. Practise those on paper. There are also specific gaps, from the app's own coverage audits:

• AP Physics 2. No qualitative Doppler questions. No plane mirrors or law-of-reflection items. Converging lenses only, no diverging lenses. No questions on magnetic dipoles or field lines. Compton scattering only at the top level.
• AP Physics C: Mechanics. No work done by a torque as an integral, no angular impulse, no reading of position-time or acceleration-time graphs, and no graphs of simple harmonic motion yet.
• AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism is a separate exam, on May 5, 2027, and Physics Zen has no path for it.

What the paths do give you is steady practice on the skills listed above, with the AP value $g = 9.8\,\mathrm{m/s}^2$ already set and a worked solution after each problem. Open the AP Physics 2 path or the AP Physics C: Mechanics path, start with the heaviest unit, and leave the last two weeks for writing free-response answers under time.