D845 General Physics I, catalog number PHYS 1011, is the three-CU course covering Newton's laws, forces and motion, energy, waves, electricity and magnetism, with a look at relativity and quantum ideas at the end. The competency it builds is a habit, not a stock of facts: represent the situation before calculating anything. Students who draw the picture, label the forces and choose the axes before touching a formula pass this course. Students who search their notes for an equation containing the right letters do not, however hard they work.
Represent first, calculate last
Physics problems are solved in four moves, and only the last one involves arithmetic. Draw the situation. Mark every force acting on the object with an arrow whose direction you can defend. Choose axes that make the motion simple, usually one along the direction of travel or along the slope. Only then write the relationship and solve it symbolically before any number is entered. Students who reverse this order spend their time hunting for formulas, which is why physics feels like memorisation to them and like reasoning to everyone else.
The conceptual traps in this course are famous because they are natural. Motion does not require a continuing force, so an object coasting has no forward arrow on its diagram. Weight and mass are different quantities with different units. Acceleration is a change in velocity, which includes changing direction at constant speed. Energy is conserved but not always in the form you were watching, which is why a friction problem needs a thermal term. Each of these is corrected by drawing rather than by rereading, and each shows up repeatedly in assessment.
The final segment of the course, where relativity and quantum ideas appear, is graded on understanding rather than computation for most students. What matters there is knowing which classical assumption each idea breaks: that time intervals are shared by all observers, that energy is continuous, that a particle has a definite position and momentum at once. Framed as broken assumptions rather than as strange facts, this material becomes learnable in a fraction of the time.
Planning the work from your Course of Study
The scoring detail lives in your Course of Study rather than in the public catalog. Open it first, because the plan for a written physics deliverable and the plan for a proctored exam differ completely. Where written work is scored, each aspect stands alone and needs a 2, with no averaging between them.
The word budget, worked. Take a written task with five scored aspects and directions asking for about 1,400 words. Reserve 100 for the setup and 80 for a close, leaving roughly 1,220, or 245 an aspect. Move 50 words from each descriptive aspect into whichever aspects ask you to interpret a result or justify a method, because in physics the calculation occupies almost no word count and the reasoning around it carries the score. Diagrams and worked lines of algebra buy back more space than they consume.
The study budget, worked. Three competency units of introductory physics runs to sixty hours or more for students without a mathematics-heavy background. Spend the first hour on a diagnostic across mechanics, energy, waves and electromagnetism, then allocate: thirty-five percent to forces and motion because everything later leans on it, twenty percent to energy and momentum, twenty percent to electricity and magnetism, fifteen percent to waves, and ten percent to modern physics concepts. Inside every block, spend at least half the time solving problems rather than reading, because physics is only learnable by doing.
A study structure that fits introductory physics
This sequence works whether your course is assessed by submitted work, by a proctored objective assessment or by both.
| Stage | The move | What it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| Draw before you write | Sketch the situation and mark every force, velocity and distance | Solving a problem you have not actually understood |
| Name the system | Decide what is inside your system boundary and what acts on it from outside | Double counting forces or losing energy that left the system |
| Choose the principle | Ask whether this is a forces problem, an energy problem or a momentum problem | Reaching for kinematics when conservation would solve it in two lines |
| Solve with symbols | Isolate the unknown algebraically, then substitute numbers once | Arithmetic errors buried in the middle where nobody can find them |
| Check dimensions | Confirm the units of your expression before evaluating it | Answers in the wrong quantity, which dimensional analysis catches instantly |
| Test the extremes | Ask what the formula gives at zero, at very large values and in the frictionless case | Accepting an expression that is wrong in an obvious limit |
| Explain it aloud | Say why the answer makes physical sense to someone without physics | Symbol manipulation standing in for understanding |
| Mix the practice | Work problems shuffled across topics with no chapter heading | Recognising a method only from the page it appeared on |
Keep a page of your own errors as you work. In physics they repeat with unusual reliability: a sign convention, a missed component, a forgotten unit conversion. Six lines of personal error history beats any published summary sheet.
Evidence craft when you write about physics
A written physics deliverable is judged on whether a reader can reconstruct your reasoning without repeating your work.
- State the principle you are applying before the equation, in a clause. Conservation of energy applies here because no external work is done on the system.
- Define every symbol you use, including the direction you treat as positive.
- Keep units attached throughout and convert once, early, rather than mid-calculation.
- Give the answer to a precision the data support, and say what governed the choice.
- Interpret the result physically. A number with no sentence after it leaves an interpretation aspect unmet.
- Cite any constants, data tables or published values you used, in APA where the directions require it.
Where the deliverable asks you to explain a phenomenon rather than compute, resist the urge to include an equation as decoration. An explanation that traces cause to effect in words, then supports one step with a relationship, scores better than a page of algebra with no narrative through it.
What separates Competent from a return or a retake
Aspects are scored independently, so a physics return usually names one thing: a method used without justification, or a result reported without meaning.
- The chosen principle is named and the reason it applies is stated.
- Symbols and sign conventions are defined before use.
- Algebra is visible and the substitution happens once, near the end.
- Units are carried and the final unit is correct.
- The answer is checked against a limit or an expectation.
- Every number is followed by a sentence saying what it means physically.
Performance assessment work at WGU can be revised and resubmitted without a grade penalty, so a return costs time rather than standing. In a six-month flat-rate term, closing courses is the measure, and physics is a subject where an extra four hours of problem practice early prevents two weeks of struggle later. Where any part of this course is assessed by a proctored objective assessment, that exam is yours to sit. We prepare only, with diagnostics, worked problems and an honest readiness call, and we never ask for portal credentials.
Six mistakes that cost time in D845
- Formula hunting. Searching for an equation with the right letters skips the representation step where the physics actually happens.
- Drawing forces that are not there. A coasting object has no forward force, and the diagram with a phantom arrow produces a confident wrong answer.
- Confusing mass and weight. Different quantities, different units, and the confusion propagates through every later calculation.
- Substituting numbers immediately. Early numbers hide errors and make the algebra impossible to check.
- Ignoring direction. Vectors have components, and a problem on a slope is solved by choosing axes rather than by working harder.
- Reading instead of solving. Watching a worked problem builds recognition; producing one builds the skill being assessed.
How support works on this course
Send your topic list or task directions along with whatever your Course of Study says about scoring. What comes back is a diagnostic that identifies whether the blockage is mathematical, conceptual or procedural, worked problems that show the representation step explicitly, and practice targeted at the traps that are costing you rather than at the topics you already hold.
For teacher candidates in particular, the way you learn to represent a problem here becomes the way you will teach it later, which is a second reason to build the habit properly rather than passing the course on formula recall.
Questions students ask about D845
Is D845 the same course as PHYS 1011?
How much mathematics does D845 require?
Should I take the physics lab alongside it?
Physics problems that will not start themselves?
Send your topic list or task directions. You get a diagnostic, worked problems that show the representation step, and practice aimed at the traps costing you marks.
Where D845 sits in WGU's programs
The July 2026 catalog places this code in 9 current WGU programs. Open a program page for the complete standard path and term positions. The live Degree Plan remains authoritative after transfer credit, substitutions, and mentor planning.
The assessments, one by one
The public catalog does not publish this course's PA/OA identity or task count. WGU Tutors publishes at most one PA manual per course and only from a WGU-controlled public rubric. Until that source exists, PA help begins from the student's real Course of Study and OA support remains preparation only.