What Makes MIPT's Distance Learning School different?

You can buy many interesting and useful self-study guides on College and High School Physics and Mathematics in the USA. They are good indeed, but they are more on the side of the a reference manual and definitely not intended for those who make this or that particular subject his or her life choice. For one, an average study guide will not teach you how to derive more complex formulae on the basis of the simpler ones. For another, the level of difficulty of the problems that are considered in a mass-market study guide is mediocre. By the 'level of difficulty' we do not mean anything like three-pages of formulae needed to get to the point. No, and no again! It is the physical intricacies that make the problem in General Physics difficult, interesting and instructive (General Physics is what you do in high School and during the first year of a college). The ability to solve such a problem hinges on the operational ability of your imagination applied to the physical world and deep understanding of simple physical concepts introduced at high school. It is intensive brainwork, not extensive. By 'instructive' we mean something in the problem, which creates steady and useful paths in your approach to thinking about Physics in your attempt attempt to solve this problem. These paths must be more or less generic and applicable to a greater variety of tasks, not necessary similar-looking.