All practicals iGCSE

Question 1

practical: investigate the motion of everyday objects such as a toy car or tennis ball

Answer 1

Place a ramp at a height and use a stopwatch and meter ruler to measure time and distance of ramp to calculate speed of toy car. Start timer and simultaneously front the car and when it reaches the end stop it

Question 2

practical: investigate how extension varies with applied force for helical springs, metal wires and rubber bands

Answer 2

Use a clamp, spring, mases, ruler. Place a spring on a clamp and add mass gradually and each time measure length of spring

Question 3

practical: investigate the refraction of light, using rectangular blocks, semi-circular blocks and triangular prisms

Answer 3

Use a rectangular block, shine the light ray and use crosses to make the path of the ray. Join crosses with a ruler, draw a normal where the ray enters the glassblock. Measure angle i and angle r. Repeat for different angles i and r and different glass prisms

Question 4

practical: investigate the refractive index of glass, using a glass block

Answer 4

Use a rectangular block, shine the light ray and use crosses to make the path of the ray. Join crosses with a ruler, draw a normal where the ray enters the glassblock. Measure angle i and angle r. Calculate refractive index (sin i / sin r)

Question 5

practical: investigate thermal energy transfer by conduction, convection and radiation

Answer 5

• Use metal rods, drawing pings stuck to the rods, bunsen burner. Heat metal rod by the end and you can compare which metal is beter for conduction.
• Use beaker of water, crystals of potassium permanganate. When water is heated below the crystals potassium permanganate will dissolve in the heated water and rise along with the warmed water, showing convection current
• Use 2 identical thermometers and a filament bulb. Paint the bulb 50% matt and 50% shiny white. When bulb is turned on you can see how temperature rises faster in black side. Thermometers must be at the same height and distance from bulb

Question 6

practical: investigate density using direct measurements of mass and volume

Answer 6

The density of an object can be found by measuring the mass and volume and applying the formula to calculate density. For a regular object measure lengths to determine volume. For an irregular object submerge it in water and measure the displaced volume (eureka can). Measure the mass with balance

Question 7

practical: investigate the magnetic field pattern for a permanent bar magnet and between two bar magnets

Answer 7

• Place your bar magnet in the centre of the next page and draw around it
• Place a compass at one pole of the bar magnet
• Draw a dot to show where the compass is pointing
• Move the compass so the opposite end of the needle is pointing to the dot and repeat it
• Join up your dots to create the field line plots

Question 8

practical: investigate the penetration powers of different types of radiation using either radioactive sources or simulations

Answer 8

• Detect using a geiger Müller tube.
• Try 3 different materials in order, paper, aluminium, lead
• Count rate will significantly decrease if radiation is stopped