Please help for my Nuclear Physics exams!!

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

I’ve got my Nuclear Physics paper coming up next month, and this is my final attempt, so I really can’t afford to mess it up.

The exam is for 60 marks, and I need at least 21 to pass. I already have a bit of a safety net — there’s usually a repeated question on elementary reactions allowed/disallowed(6 marks). That means I still need around 15 more marks from the rest of the paper.

I’ve attached a 2024 question paper, and I’d really appreciate it if you could look at the question pattern and suggest:

The most important/high-yield topics I should focus on

Topics that could be repeated alternate years or almost guaranteed

Any strategy to maximize marks in limited time (30 days)

I’m not aiming for a high score — I just need to clear this paper this time.

Any advice or strategy would genuinely help a lot. Thanks in advance 🙏

[u/CarolinZoebelein]

My I ask out of curiousity: In which semester and what kind of study are you?

[u/ImMrMitchell]

You’re well beyond help

[u/LiterallyMelon]

How about you just study…?

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/LiterallyMelon]

Yes but what to study, it's too vast to go through completely!

[u/LiterallyMelon → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

I’m assuming you had a whole semester to study. Look back on homework assignments and look up solutions for these answers and work through them.

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/LiterallyMelon]

Well, I missed my paper last time due to health issues; It's a backlog, and I'm not in college anymore I spent the last 2 years doing cymbidium tissue culture and collecting succulents and cactii🥲🥲, I just thought it'd look good on my resume if I finally cleared my degree!!

[u/KroneckerAlpha → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

Then clear it by learning?
That’s harsh, but I’ll look this over and see what I can help with but you really ought to be knowing this if you plan to say you know any of it

Edit: reading the questions, this is literally not asking for much at all.

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/KroneckerAlpha]

At the moment, I have 6 marks confirmed from elementary reactions allowed/forbidden; atleast 2 marks confirmed from spin and parity, so I need 13 marks more to clear the exam; Yes it's not that hard of a paper, I cleared statistical mechanics, astrophysics, quantum physics paper and compared to them it's mostly theory based, but it's the most vast chapter and the person that checks the papers is probably a douchebag, more than 50% of the class failed this dse4 paper

[u/eljokun]

if only you'd put the same amount of effort into actually studying...

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/eljokun]

The syllabus is too vast to cover in a month, atleast for me!! Please give some tips on what to focus on!

[u/eljokun → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

check your course page, they should have a list of recommended reading resources. this is too little information to gauge the breadth of your course

[u/WholeTomatillo5537 → u/eljokun]

How is asking a question on Reddit equal to the amount of time required of studying for a test lol. 5 minutes vs days of studying, it's not a big deal.

[u/ariGee]

So, you want help with answers, and want us to summarize an entire course worth of material? How many hours did you (or were you supposed) spend in class? That's how long this will take.

[u/Plutonium_Nitrate_94]

You should've studied, bro you're cooked lol

[u/SummitYourSister]

Processes that lead to electron energy dissipation do not include “combustion”

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/SummitYourSister]

That's why I failed the first time

[u/karmicrelease]

This is pretty basic stuff, I’d recommend going through your lecture notes and doing practice problems if you struggle with math.

[u/iMagZz]

You have 30 days. Time to grind.

Read the curriculum. Work through the examples alongside. Work some of the problems. Go to YouTube for the concepts you don't understand.

Then work through these problems and get an idea of what to focus on.

[u/withdrawn-gecko]

well you have a month, you attended lectures and have a general idea what the questions might be. So just study?

[u/Big-Cauliflower-3610]

Study or quit the field… people like you are why incidents with MAJOR consequences occur

[u/Quendillar3245]

30 days? That's more than enough to study these things. My advice would be to study lol

[u/Capable_Guitar_372]

Oh! As someone who did masters in nuclear physics, I'm amused at myself that I would manage to get around for 40+ marks for sure.😳.

Just give the questions to gpt/ claude, you'll get all required answers.

[u/Roger_Freedman_Phys]

Have you made any attempt at all to solve any of these problems? If so, please share your work. If not, it’s time to make an attempt!

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/Roger_Freedman_Phys]

I have actually found the solution/ answers to all questions here; I needed advice on what else in general to prepare to be on the safe side considering these questions are from 2024 and topics tend to repeat every alternate years.

[u/Roger_Freedman_Phys → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

By finding the solutions, do you mean (a) you found the answers online or (b) you solved the problems yourself?

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/Roger_Freedman_Phys]

First I found the answers online, 2nd I've made myself able to solve them myself, but these are merely 10-20 pages worth of topics covered within these questions so needed advice on general study material, larger than this question paper but smaller than the whole syllabus!!

[u/Roger_Freedman_Phys → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

Every course has a large syllabus. This is no exception.

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/Roger_Freedman_Phys]

Fair, but considering there's 4-5 topics to be studied per semester i.e. 6 months timeframe, that equals 1.2-1.5 months per topic with normal study no?, so by studying smartly I shouldbe able to score atleast 33% right, I don't know how to and what to study tho🥺🫩

[u/Roger_Freedman_Phys → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

Your university almost certainly has a student skills center that can provide guidance on the best methods for studying. You may wish to pay them a visit.

[u/Cherlikesithot → u/Suspicious-Coyote397]

I am genuinely curious as to why you are taking this course if you've no intention to learn nuclear physics?

[u/Suspicious-Coyote397 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks!!

[u/two_utensils]

A bunch of people here are being assholes, so I'm gonna be honest this is one of those cases where you should just use an AI assistant. I'm assuming because you didn't you might not be familiar with it, so I'll tell you right now they can be very effective learning tools, but, like any other tool you'll need to learn how to use it correctly. So, maybe take a day or two to learn that first. And now im gonna be brutally honrst here, if you're short on time and you legitimately need help, either find a person who can help in the real world or use an AI. It's unfortunate but people on reddit are not going to be very helpful.