Physics Exam – Format  Section A – Experiments – 120 marks  Answer 3 of 4  Section B – Theory  Answer 5 of 8

Physics Exam – Timing

Section A  Q1 – mechanics  Q4 – electricity  Usually 1 waves question  Heat or second mechanics/waves question  Usually two graphs total.  What doesn’t come up here will probably come up in the theory section!

Section A  Learn 3 precautions, sources of error, and improvements for each experiment.  Precautions – things you need to do in advance to get good results.  Sources of error – things that may throw your results off that you can account for.  Improvements – things you can do to get better results.

Section A  Know your graphs (use the log tables if you get stuck).  Be able to answer:  Why is it important for X to be as large as possible?  Why is it important to keep X constant throughout the experiment?  All answers need context, for example:  “parallax error” may not get marks.  “parallax error associated with measuring the [quantity] from the [instrument]” will.

Section B  Q5 – short questions – answer 8 of 10*  Q6-9 – 1/2 topics per question  Q10 – Applied electricity / particle physics *  Q11 – Reading comprehension question  Q12 – Half questions – answer 2 of 4 *  * do these ones

Section B  Non-experiment sections pretty much guaranteed:  Electromagnetism  Electron  Modern Physics  Any topic that didn’t appear in experiments will likely come up here.

Section B  Questions consist of:  Definitions  Derivations  Calculations  Demonstrations  Explanations  Applications

General Tips  Marking Scheme every year:  “In many instances only key words are given – words that must appear in the correct context in the candidate’s answer in order to merit the assigned marks.” - use proper English!  “For omission of appropriate units, or incorrect units, one mark is deducted, when indicated”  “Each time an arithmetical slip occurs in a calculation, one mark is deducted”  Don’t lose marks for these.

General Tips  Highlight key words in questions.  Open your formula and tables book to the right page when you identify the section of the course.

General Tips – Group Study  Having something explained by a peer can help.  Any teacher will tell you you only really know something when you can explain it to someone else.  Workshopping problems helps understanding.