Recommended Textbooks for Advanced Level Physics Part 1 : United Kingdom Text - Physics by Robert Hutchings

Somehow, after 3 months into the Pre-university Physics course, many students would find themselves struggling in the course and approach the tutors for a recommended text.  We usually make a list of a few texts that we use but till date for the Singapore curriculum, we do not have a single text that can satisfy the needs of the Singapore A-level Physics.  As teachers, we ourselves refer to a few texts.  My suggestion is therefore as such.  Pick a textbook that you find readible....you may want to start off borrowing from the library and use it for a few chapters, see if you find it easy to read and understand. before buying it  Supplement with other textbooks from the library when needed.

In this series I will look at a few textbooks that I use in my teaching and preparation of lecture notes and my comments on them.

Basically, there are two types of textbooks that I use - the British Textbooks for A-levels and the US Textbooks. 

The key strength of the British Textbooks are:

• They are very targeted towards the A-levels.  Afterall, the Singapore A-level Physics students are sitting for the Cambridge paper.
• The language is written in a very British style, which is rather formal and precise.  Reading them helps to hone the skills in writing scientifically in a formal manner.
• The definitions are very precise, much more in my opinion to the US texts.  Therefore, they are the key source when I need to look for definitions to put in my lectures.
• There is great emphasis on the experiments that verifies the laws and concepts.  So detailed descriptions with setups are given.  This is great for design experiment questions when sitting for the examinations.
• Contains end of chapter questions that are from the UK examination board.

The key thing that puts me off is the organisation.  Somehow, it may not be very readible, lines after lines after lines of words which you have to go back many times to understand.  Many books are also monochrome with little diagrams and diagrams that are in black-and-white do not appeal to me.  Questions are usually just examination style questions, they do not scaffold learning and are usually not arranged in a manner which follows the sequence the concepts were introduced.

Book 1: Physics (Bath Advanced Science) by Robert Hutchings

This is the textbook that many Physics tutors would refer to for definitions especially when there are disputes amongst ourselves on how much is needed in the definition.  It can a simple argument as to whether "gravitational field strength can be defined as force on a unit charge", which by the way is not accepted by many tutors - it should be "force per unit charge" which conveys a different meaning.

It is mainly the key text as Hutching has been one of the Chief Examiners for the Cambridge A-level Physics paper that Singapore students have been taking for many years.

The book was first published when I was a student and I could not fully appreciate the text.  After reading the topic I often found it lacking in sufficient depth nor scaffolding enough for me to attempt the tutorial questions given to me.   

However, one particular advantage that this text had over others were that there was almost a Data Analysis (DA) question at the end of every topic.  At that time the DA question was relatively new, and very and almost no books carried them and yet we were to be assessed.   For those of you not familiar with what DA questions are, they are questions that gives a set of real life information of and allows you to make analysis on the relationships.  The question itself is very long with alot of information given as figures, charts graphs and the students are given a set of questions which they are expected to decipher and pick out only the relevant data to solve the question at hand.  Questions are very authetic e.g.  apply Conservation of Linear Momentum to the various ball games like cricket, tennis, golf etc.

As a teacher, this is still the key source of reference which I go to for definitions and DA questions.  I have learnt to appreciate some of the intermediate examples set by Hutchings e.g. the long question (which I think contains part (a) to (j)) on the use of indicator diagrams in gas law...doing that question alone helps student really familiarise with the use of First Law of Thermodynamics and the different thermal processes like isothermal, isobaric and isochoric processes.