HSC Physics is a fun and interesting course to do, and often gives you the best in-class experiments. Physics is often chosen by students who achieve 99+ ATAR due to its relatively high scaling. This course is recommended for students with an inclination towards technical / mathematical / engineering pursuits, and is a great introduction to the physical phenomena of our universe.
Dux College offers the following Option topics for Term 4:
Each week, there will be a 2 hour interactive class which will cover a section of the course in detail. In each class, students will receive a theory booklet which contains all the notes they need for that week's content. The notes are exam-ready and sufficiently detailed, so students can concentrate and simply listen in class, instead of frantically jotting down everything being dictated.
View sample of Physics theory notes
The theory materials will cover 2 - 3 syllabus dot points per week in good detail. Our Physics teachers will patiently teach every week's content from first principles, ensuring a good fundamental knowledge base for each dot-point. For the dot-points dealing with First-hand investigations, we will sometimes conduct experiments in class. Our sciences courses (including HSC Chemistry) are timed such that we expect to finish the whole term module in the first 7-8 weeks, leaving the remainder of the term for revision and exam technique. We split the term's weeks into approximately 75% theory, 25% exam technique. The latter part is during the last few weeks of each school term, where practice exams are given as revision homework, to allow students to practice their accumulated knowledge under HSC exam conditions.
We do live-demonstrations in class for important experiment dot-points so students don't miss out on these important syllabus dot-points that will be assessed in practical exams. The experiments most likely to come up as a practical exam at school are chosen to be demonstrated in class. For example, in just the Space module, we demonstrate the following: constructing a pendulum and measuring g, demonstrating projectile motion, and demonstrating inertial vs. non-inertial frames of reference.
The most effective procedures are summarised for students, giving them useful revision tools before exams. Students are also shown the most common sources of error and what safety issues need to be identified so that HSC exam questions regarding experiments will be easy.
View sample of Physics homework
Each week's booklet will have a homework section which contains questions covering all the dot-points covered in that week. The questions are presented in exact HSC exam format, complete with the amount of marks each question is worth. All homework is marked according to a marking criteria, so teachers can explain to students the exact break-down of the marks allocation and give accurate feedback for improvement.
