Course

Course Summary

Credit Type:

Exam

ACE ID:

CBAP-0039

Organization:

College Board Advanced Placement^® (AP^®) Examinations

Dates Offered:

Credit Recommendation & Competencies

Level	Credits (SH)	Subject
Lower-Division Baccalaureate	4	Calculus Based Physics: Electricity and Magnetism

Credit is recommended for examinees with a minimum score of 3 in a score range of 1-5. Credit may be granted as 4 semester hours in calculus-based physics: electricity and magnetism OR as 3 semester hours in calculus-based physics: electricity and magnetism AND 1 semester hour in calculus-based physics: electricity and magnetism lab.

Description

Objective:

This examination is a one-semester, calculus-based, college-level physics course, especially appropriate for students planning to specialize or major in physical science or engineering. The course explores topics such as electrostatics; conductors, capacitors, and dielectrics; electric circuits; magnetic fields; and electromagnetism. Introductory differential and integral calculus is used throughout the course. Includes a hands-on laboratory component comparable to a semester-long introductory college-level physics laboratory. Students should spend a minimum of 20 percent of instructional time engaged in hands-on laboratory work. Students ask questions, make observations and predictions, design experiments, analyze data, and construct arguments in a collaborative setting, where they direct and monitor their progress. Each student should complete a lab notebook or portfolio of lab reports. The AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Exam includes questions posed in a laboratory or experimental setting. Questions assess understanding of content as well as experimental skills. The exam may also include questions that overlap several major topical areas or questions on miscellaneous topics such as identification of vectors and scalars, vector mathematics, or graphs of functions. Students will be allowed to use a calculator on the entire AP Physics C: Mechanics and AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism Exams, including both the multiple-choice and free-response sections. Scientific or graphing calculators, including the approved graphing calculators listed at www.collegeboard.org/ap/calculators, may be used, provided that they do not have any unapproved features or capabilities.

Skills Measured:

The skills measured include both differential and integral calculus, and builds upon the AP Physics C: Mechanics course by providing instruction in each of the following five content areas: electrostatics, conductors, capacitors, and dielectrics; electric circuits; magnetic fields; and electromagnetism. Students establish lines of evidence and use them to develop and refine testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena. Focusing on these disciplinary practices and experimental skills enables teachers to use the principles of scientific inquiry to promote a more engaging and rigorous experience for AP Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism students. Such practices or skills require students to design experiments; observe and measure real phenomena; organize, display, and critically analyze data; analyze sources of error and determine uncertainties in measurement; draw inferences from observations and data; and communicate results, including suggested ways to improve experiments and proposed questions for further study A minimum of 20 percent of instructional time is devoted to hands-on and inquiry-based laboratory investigations.

Instruction & Assessment