AP Physics C: Mechanics Tutoring for the May Exam
AP Physics C: Mechanics covers familiar ground — motion, forces, energy, momentum, rotation and oscillations — but treats it with calculus, so forces that change with speed or position become differential equations rather than formulas to look up. The step that defeats strong students is usually not the mathematics itself but turning a physical description into the right derivative or integral.
Short answer
AP Physics C: Mechanics is offered online, one-to-one or in a group class.
A private lesson runs 90 minutes and starts at USD 65 per lesson; the group course runs 50 lessons of 90 minutes for USD 1,755, and a class never takes more than 6 students.
Group classes next begin on 18 September 2027.
From USD 65 per lesson
Your lessons are taught by Ali Ertan, who teaches AP Physics C: Mechanics.
- 2 scored components, from AP Central
- Live online lessons of 90 minutes
- From USD 65 per lesson
How AP Physics C: Mechanics is assessed
Set and scored by College Board and reported on the 1–5 AP scale. Each university sets its own rule on which scores earn credit or placement. Component names are as College Board prints them.
College Board
AP Physics C: Mechanics · AP Central exam page
| Component | Share of score | Length | What it involves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section I: Multiple Choice | 50% | 1 hour 25 min | 42 questions in 85 minutes (from May 2027; previously 40 in 80), either standalone or in sets built on a shared stimulus or data set. A four-function, scientific or graphing calculator is allowed, as is the Desmos calculator in Bluebook, and College Board’s equation tables are provided. |
| Section II: Free Response | 50% | 1 hour 35 min | 4 questions in 95 minutes (previously 100), one of each type: mathematical routines, translation between representations, experimental design and analysis, and qualitative/quantitative translation, with calculus used where the physics calls for it. Answers are handwritten in a paper booklet. |
- Hybrid exam: answers are entered in Bluebook for multiple choice and handwritten in a paper booklet for free response.
- 2027 exam date: 3 May 2027.
Checked on 8 October 2026
College Board revises individual exams between years. The exam page linked above is the authority for your sitting.
The AP Physics C: Mechanics syllabus
Topic names are left in English, as they appear on the paper and in the mark scheme.
Unit 1: Kinematics (10–15%)
Scalars and Vectors · Displacement, Velocity, and Acceleration · Representing Motion · Reference Frames and Relative Motion · Motion in Two or Three Dimensions
Unit 2: Force and Translational Dynamics (20–25%)
Systems and Center of Mass · Forces and Free-Body Diagrams · Newton’s Second Law · Kinetic and Static Friction · Resistive Forces · Circular Motion
Unit 3: Work, Energy, and Power (15–25%)
Translational Kinetic Energy · Work · Potential Energy · Conservation of Energy · Power
Unit 4: Linear Momentum (10–20%)
Linear Momentum · Change in Momentum and Impulse · Conservation of Linear Momentum · Elastic and Inelastic Collisions
Unit 5: Torque and Rotational Dynamics (10–15%)
Rotational Kinematics · Connecting Linear and Rotational Motion · Torque · Rotational Inertia · Rotational Equilibrium and Newton’s First Law in Rotational Form · Newton’s Second Law in Rotational Form
Unit 6: Energy and Momentum of Rotating Systems (10–15%)
Rotational Kinetic Energy · Torque and Work · Angular Momentum and Angular Impulse · Conservation of Angular Momentum · Rolling · Motion of Orbiting Satellites
Unit 7: Oscillations (10–15%)
Defining Simple Harmonic Motion (SHM) · Frequency and Period of SHM · Representing and Analyzing SHM · Energy of Simple Harmonic Oscillators · Simple and Physical Pendulums
Where AP Physics C: Mechanics marks are usually lost
An energy equation missing a term
Energy problems in Mechanics often combine gravity, springs and rotation, and points disappear when one form of energy is left out. Readers found in 2025 that answers which first named every type of energy in the initial and final states were generally successful with the whole derivation; fewer answers accounted for both springs. Some gave spring energy a sign depending on compression or stretching, but it is never negative.
Data that is never linearised
The experimental question can ask students to plot data so that the slope of a straight line gives an unknown, such as the acceleration due to gravity or a coefficient of friction. In 2025 many responses plotted speed rather than speed squared against height, which gives no straight line, and some planned measurements the listed equipment could not make. Choosing the axes is the physics.
A claim with no reasoning attached
In 2025 the qualitative/quantitative translation question, about objects rolling with friction, asked for claims backed by physical reasoning. Many responses identified the right evidence, such as differing rotational inertias, but did not use it to justify the claim, and many assumed static friction was equal for both objects. A justification should name the law at work, such as Newton’s second law in rotational form, and say what it implies here.
How we teach AP Physics C: Mechanics
A tutor teaches Mechanics as calculus-based physics from the start: velocity and acceleration as derivatives, displacement and impulse as integrals, and work as the integral of force along a path. Problems with changing forces — drag that depends on speed, a spring’s restoring force, simple harmonic motion — are set up as differential equations, solved or matched to their known solution, and then checked against limiting cases. Rotation is built carefully from torque and rotational inertia, including the integrals for rods, shells and discs that the course expects students to derive. Energy and momentum statements are always written out in full before any substitution. Released free-response questions are marked against College Board’s scoring guidelines, and experimental questions are practised with real or recorded data until choosing a linearised graph becomes routine.
There is no separate diagnostic, because there is no single test that stands in for two years of a school syllabus. The first lesson is the assessment: the tutor works through your recent marked work, past-paper questions from your own specification, and the units your school has already covered, and reads current level, gaps, exam technique and where school work stands. It is a normal paid lesson and it teaches as it assesses.
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