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Name: Tutor Group:

A Level Physics

Student Handbook

September 2016

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Introduction

Welcome to Physics

This handbook contains a great deal of useful information on the A Level Physics course - so write your name on it and keep it in your file. There is also a copy on the DEPARTMENTAL WEBSITE with extra information (www.aquinasphysics.com >> year 1 >> induction period). This word file will by hyperlinked to relevant resources, websites and applications mentioned in this handbook. The Physics course you will study at Aquinas College is the OCR Advancing Physics course (specification: H557, Physics B). See the website for the full course outline. Physics is one of the first set of subjects to be changed by the government reforms to a linear course. What this means for you is:

To obtain the full A level qualification, you will have to complete the whole two years of the course.

You will be examined at the end of the second year, with 100 % of the marks counting towards your A level qualification coming from 3 exams in June 2017.

Each exam can test knowledge from any part of the course covered over the two years.

There are two written papers (both 2 hours 15 mins), each worth about 40 % of your final marks, and a shorter (1 hour 30 mins) written exam focusing on practical skills and data handling, worth 20 %.

We may also suggest we enter you for AS exams at the end of the first year. Whilst the scores you obtain for this will not count towards your final A level, it will give you a qualification to bank after your first year with us, and a good indication of your progress throughout the year.

A good pass in this is a pre-requisite for progression to the second year of the A level – so it is vital that you revise and prepare as well as possible.

It is examined with two 1 hour 30 mins exams in May / June 2017.

The Practical Endorsement

As part of the A level reforms, practical coursework has been removed from the assessment regime. However, practical skills are fundamental to good physics work, and we will undertake practical activities regularly in lesson. Over your two years with us, you will also complete a Practical Endorsement Qualification, a separate pass/fail qualification that will be expected of you by Universities and Employers if you wish to continue in a scientific course or career after college.

Completing and recording all practicals throughout the course will ensure you pass the practical endorsement qualification.

You will have to keep and maintain a practical folder that is kept in college. It is vital that this is kept in a neat and organised manner. This is because 1) it may be requested for moderation purposes by the exam board, and 2) it will be a fundamental resource for revision for your written practical exam at the end of year 2.

We will provide handouts for each practical that will support you in your record keeping.

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A brief overview of the course in Year 1

We will aim to follow the approximate timetable for topics as shown below. However, this will be subject to change as the course progresses.

Autumn Term Half term 1: 3.1.2 Sensing (Electric Circuits)

Half term 2: 3.2 Materials

Spring Term Half Term 1: 4.2 Space, Time & Motion

Half Term 2: 4.1 Waves & Quantum

Summer Term Half Term 1: 3.1.1 Imaging & Signalling

Half Term 2: Research Projects & Introduction to Year 2

Expectations

What we expect from you In order to be successful at A level physics you should:

display a positive attitude and participate fully in lessons.

arrive promptly to ALL lessons.

hand in ALL assignments on time.

give advance notice of any unavoidable planned absence.

copy up missing work if you have been absent, and find out what assignments have been set and hand them in by the due date.

seek assistance from Physics staff when you have problems with set work or any other aspect of the course.

make sure you are aware of all the resources that are available in the department and the College to help you succeed in the course.

regularly read through and supplement your notes.

use any technology in lessons reasonably and responsibly during lessons.

spend AT LEAST FOUR hours physics study time per week in addition to lessons.

We cannot emphasise this last point enough. A level Physics is a massive step up from GCSE. Without your full commitment, you will not achieve a score to be proud of.

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What you can expect from us We will ensure that we:

provide a friendly and supportive atmosphere for study.

give well-planned, interesting and informative lessons that encompass a range of learning activities, ample use of ILT and chances to work with your colleagues and independently.

set regular assignments which will be marked and returned promptly.

give you enough time to complete assignments so that you can discuss any difficulties before the deadline.

give you feedback on your progress via written comments, conversation, regular tests and assessment reviews.

ensure that a member of the department is available at specific times for support sessions.

provide a wide range of resources, making them all accessible on the department website, to aid your learning and advise you on the best ways to use them.

Provide support and guidance for keeping appropriate records to allow you to pass the practical endorsement qualification.

Assessment We will set you a number of different forms of assessment to allow both us and you to track your progress through the year. This will include:

A weekly pack of exam questions on the topic you are studying, to be completed within a deadline of about a week.

Online assessments, usually in the form of multiple choice questions, that will be useful for revision and also for preparation for the exams.

At the end of each unit, end-of-topic tests that will take place in exam conditions.

It is vital you complete all these assessment tasks to the best of your ability, doing all necessary preparation to ensure you do yourself justice. Hard work throughout the year will be pay dividends when it comes to the end-of-year formal exams.

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Resources

Items of equipment you need to provide

1) An A4 ring binder for all of your notes.

2) Calculator – should be “Natural Display”, and have a 10x (or EXP ) and ENG keys. It should also have a logx key. For example, Casio FX-83 (about £8).

3) A4 Paper.

4) Pen, pencil, ruler and protractor.

You will need these for all your physics lessons.

Note-taking and handouts One of the biggest challenges facing many students is that taking your own notes and keeping them organised is something you have not had to do in as great a quantity before. However, it is vital that you remain organised and that your notes will make sense to you when you return to them a year or more after you initially wrote them. One way to achieve this is to take electronic notes (see below). In many lessons you will be expected to take your own notes. In some lessons you will be provided with handouts and activity sheets. Most handouts you will be given are on A4 paper, which can be put in your ring file.

Technology & ICT During the course, you will be expected to make presentations, complete written reports and process data using ICT. You should be competent at using Office 365 suites such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Help will be provided to you as you go along as needed. Your teacher may be amenable to you bringing in your own laptops and tablets to work with in lesson. You are expected to use these devices maturely and responsibly if doing so. Any unsuitable use of such technology will result in you being banned from bringing them into lesson immediately. Some useful applications are discussed below:

Edmodo (iOS and Android) Your teacher will set homework deadlines, send notices and links to resources using this application, as well as communicating them in lesson. You will also be able to communicate with your peers in order to share ideas and help each other. The application will also remind you of upcoming deadlines.

Evernote (https://evernote.com/) (iOS and Android) Type up your notes as you go, and tag them with topic area to allow you to search through them later. Your notes will be stored to your account online, so you can access them from a number of different devices. It is also possible to use the camera function of your device to record any vital diagrams/graphs etc. that you have drawn, or anything from the whiteboard that may be useful with your notes.

MyScript SmartNote (iOS and Android) Similar to evernote, but this app allows you to write notes onto you tablet using a stylus, draw free-hand diagrams, and also add images / photos etc from the internet or your device’s camera. The

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app has a fairly decent text recognition feature, which means you can search for your hand-written terms in different notebooks that you create.

Cram (iOS and Android) Create flashcards and revision aids as you go along, which are then stored for you to look back on before tests and exams. Ideal for learning key definitions, diagrams and explanations, as well as practicing key equations. You can share your flashcards with colleagues in order to build a large bank of revision sources.

Course Resources There are a number of resources you will have to access regularly in order to be successful

1. Departmental Website www.aquinasphysics.com

This contains links to all presentations, homework and exercises used in lesson, and will be your primary source for information relevant to the course. Electronic copies of handouts will also be available here to use with iPads and tablets.

Any important notices will be placed on the front page of the website.

There are also sections for further reading, videos and podcasts to expand your physics and general science knowledge, university and careers, and a forum for help and discussion on different topics.

2. Textbook & Kerboodle

You will have free access to an electronic version of the textbook through Kerboodle. A number of activities will be set throughout the year requiring you to specifically use this resource. You can access this through the departmental website www.aquinasphysics.com/kerboodle

We also have a number of hard copies of the textbook in the department and in the learning resource centre. If you borrow one, it is your responsibility to returned promptly and in good condition. The textbook for the whole two-year course can be bought online through Oxford University Press for about £45 (goo.gl/lkNKso), although we may be able to arrange a discount through bulk purchase if enough people are interested.

3. CGP Revision Guides

This is a guide specifically for the OCR Advancing Physics course (published by CGP) and contains the key points and worked examples (goo.gl/a9HrT2). We will sell copies of these (price to be determined), less than you will be charged buying it from a bookstore or online (about £20).

4. Learning Centre Resources

The LC contains a wide range of books, magazines, videos and on-line resources for you to use. Below are listed some of the resources. For more information you should read the leaflets produced by the LC or ask the LC staff.

Magazines

Physics Review – available on line – see the posters for details.

Physics World – you can also join the IOP – see www.iop.org

New Scientist

Scientific American

Economist (has a weekly science feature) …

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Textbooks As well as the textbook written specifically for the Advancing Physics course, there are many other good books which you may want to read to get an alternative view on a particular topic, for example. You should have a look at some of these books and see which suits you and your styles of learning. For example:

Advanced Physics – Adams, Allday: good modern textbook, good diagrams, covers all topics, each topic on a two page spread, in colour!

Advanced Physics – Duncan: very good textbook for both AS and A2 when you want to read about a topic in more depth – use the index to find the topic you want!

Advanced Physics for You – Johnson: in the same cartoon style + lots of worked examples that is used in the GCSE version you may have used last year. Good for starting a topic, but doesn’t go into any depth.

5. More reading, videos and podcasts

On the departmental website, there is a list of just some of the books in the LC which provide interesting views of the physics in the course, its background and the people involved. You should try to read at least one book during the course!

More regularly, you should be looking to extend your knowledge of physics and general science by listening to podcasts and watching videos on Youtube. This can be as simple as listening on the bus in to college, or whilst going to the gym or for a walk.

6. Online articles

There are many interesting articles constantly being updated. Links to these can be found on the department’s daily newspaper (https://paper.li/AquinasPhysics/1429166188) and also its Flipboard magazine (http://flip.it/FBMfB). If you discover something interesting on the web, and would like to add it to the Flipboard magazine, then you can do so by visiting the following link: http://flip.it/WCHdI.

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Working safely

Taking responsibility With every laboratory activity you can build up a background of sensible experience. Add to this the increasing understanding of physics, and the safety features built into school laboratories, and you are unlikely to go wrong if you have a few guidelines.

Actions

Most hazards in physics can be minimised by taking appropriate action. Safety precautions are built into Advancing Physics, so that you can acquire sound habits of thought and action. Each icon has a meaning, as shown in this chart, allowing you to minimise hazards.

Working independently In a number of areas you will be designing your own experiments. In this you will have guidance, but taking account of the standard actions above, allied to careful thinking about the physics behind the experiment, will allow you to assess the risks and minimise their possible impact.

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Greek Alphabet

Many different symbols are used to represent different quantities in A level physics. Many of these source from the Greek alphabet. Important letters (upper and lower case) are shown below. You will be very familiar with many of these by the end of the course.

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Decimal Prefixes and Multiples, Powers of Ten

Physics deals over a vast range of scales. At the smallest, we look at Planck lengths, strings and Quantum foams (10-34 m); at the biggest, we investigate the size of the known universe (1027 m). To keep track of and make sense of these contrasting scales, we use a number of prefixes that tell us how large a number is. These prefixes generally (with the exception of centi- and deci- etc.) go up and down in factors of 1000, or

103 e.g. A millijoule, mJ (10-3 J) is a 1000 times larger than a microjoule, J (10-6 J) which in turn is 1000 times larger than a nanojoule, nJ (10-9 J). It is vital that you commit these prefixes to memory, they will not be given to you in an exam.

Multiple Prefix Symbol Common Name

1024 yotta Y heptillion

1021 zetta Z hexillion

1018 exa E quintillion

1015 peta P quadrillion

1012 tera T trillion

109 giga G billion

106 mega M million

103 kilo k thousand

10-3 milli m thousandth

10-6 micro (Greek mu) millionth

10-9 nano n billionth

10-12 pico p trillionth

10-15 femto f quadrillionth

10-18 atto a quintillionth

10-21 zepto z hexillionth

10-24 yocto y heptillionth

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Key Skills Practice I: Prefixes

Convert the figures into the prefixes required. Use standard form where needed.

time (s) time (ms) time (μs) time (ns) time (ps)

134.6

96.21

0.773

distance (m) distance (km) distance (mm) distance (Mm) distance (Gm)

12873

0.295

57.23

mass (kg) mass (Mg) mass (mg) mass (g) mass (Gg)

94.76

0.000765

823.46

current (A) current (mA) current (μA) current (nA) current (kA)

0.000000678

3.56

0.00092

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Key Skills Practice II: Significant Figures

For each value state how many significant figures it is stated to.

Value Sig

Figs Value

Sig

Figs Value

Sig

Figs Value

Sig

Figs

2 1066 1800.45 0.07

2.0 82.42 2.483 x 104 69324.8

2.00 750000 2.483 0.0063

0.136 310 5906.4291 9.81 x 104

When doing a calculation, we always state the final answer to the same number of significant figures as the input value with the least significant figures – we can never be more precise than our least precise input parameter!

Add the values below then write the answer to the appropriate number of significant figures

Value 1 Value 2 Value 3 Total Value Total to correct sig

figs

51.4 1.67 3.23

7146 –32.54 12.8

20.8 18.72 0.851

1.4693 10.18 –1.062

9.07 0.56 3.14

739762 26017 2.058

Multiply the values below then write the answer to the appropriate number of significant figures Value 1 Value 2 Total Value Total to correct sig figs

0.91 1.23

8.764 7.63

2.6 31.7

937 40.01

Divide value 1 by value 2 then write the answer to the appropriate number of significant figures Value 1 Value 2 Total Value Total to correct sig figs

5.3 748

3781 6.434

91 x 102 180

5.56 22 x 10-3

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Key Skills Practice III: Re-arranging formulae

Maths is the language of physics, and equations help us to understand processes. You will need to be adept at rearranging equations throughout the course. Practice using the equations below.

Equation Value to make the subject

𝑽 = 𝑰 𝑹

𝑰 = 𝑹 =

𝑷 =𝑬

𝒕

𝑬 = 𝒕 =

𝒗 = 𝒖 + 𝒂𝒕

𝒖 = 𝒂 = 𝒕 =

𝑬𝒌 = 𝟏

𝟐 𝒎 𝒗𝟐

𝒎 = 𝒗 =

𝒗𝟐 = 𝒖𝟐 + 𝟐𝒂𝒔

𝒖 = 𝒂 = 𝒔 =

𝑬 = 𝒉 𝒄

𝝀

𝒉 = 𝒄 = 𝝀 =

𝑬 = 𝑰 𝑽 𝒕

𝑰 = 𝑽 = 𝒕 =

𝑭 = 𝒎 𝒗𝟐

𝒓

𝒎 = 𝒗 = 𝒓 =

𝑽𝒐𝒖𝒕 = 𝑹𝟏

𝑹𝟏 + 𝑹𝟐 × 𝑽𝒊𝒏

𝑽𝒊𝒏 = 𝑹𝟏 = 𝑹𝟐 =

𝒉𝒇 = 𝝓 + 𝟏

𝟐 𝒎 𝒗𝟐

𝝓 = 𝒎 = 𝒗 =

𝑭 = 𝒌 𝑸 𝒒

𝒓𝟐

𝑸 = 𝒒 = 𝒓 =

𝑵𝒔

𝑵𝒑=

𝑽𝒔

𝑽𝒑

𝑵𝒔 = 𝑵𝒑 = 𝑽𝒔 = 𝑽𝒑 =

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Key Skills Practice IV: Relating equations to graphs

When doing experiments, we usually plot our results on a graph. The most useful types of graph are straight-line graphs, as the intercept and gradient often relate to physical quantities. We often have to re-arrange known equations so that they follow the form y = mx + c, and then plot relevant variables on the correct axes to find our physical values.

Complete the table below about graphs and gradients Equation Graph Rearrange Equation Gradient Intercept

cmxy y plotted on the y axis

cmxy m c x plotted on the x axis

IRV

y axis = V RIV R 0

x axis = I

t

QI

y axis = t

x axis = Q

l

RA

y axis = l

x axis = R

IrV

y axis = V

x axis = I

VItW

y axis = W/t

x axis = V

KEhf

y axis = EK

x axis = f

mv

h

y axis = 1/v

x axis = m

fc y axis = 1/λ

x axis = f

atuv y axis = a

x axis = 1/t

asuv 222 y axis = v2

x axis = s

tvu

s2

)(

y axis = v

x axis = s

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Can you name these famous Physicists?

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http://xkcd.com/1047/ http://xkcd.com/1366/

http://xkcd.com/1231/