Physics Experiments? (Section A)

stainluss

What/How much would ya need to know about each to answer these questions?

(I assume you wouldnt need to know all the procedure word-for-word etc?)

gant0

there are a few tha seem to come up almost every year but just changed figures....just look threw the papers an you'll see yourself....section a is prety easy cause its quite predictable

You'll need to be able to draw a diagram of the apparatus and explain briefly how to carry out the experiment. Then you need to know possible sources of error and how to minimise/prevent these errors, and for certain experiments you might be asked how something works within the experiment. If you look over the experiment questions in the past papers you'll see the sort of things that get asked.

KnifeWRENCH

Yup, looking at past papers is definitely the best way to prepare. They'll give you an idea of how much knowledge is expected.
The most basic things you'll need to know are a brief summary of each procedure (not too long and not word-for-word), to know how to draw a rough diagram and be able to see the potential sources of error and ways of eliminating or minimising these errors.

On top of this, some experiments will provide data and ask you to plot a graph (like the variation of frequency with length or tension in a string.) Others will ask for calculations (the levers experiment or the heat capacity experiments.)

jumpguy

You pretty much need to know the experiment, give a brief description of how it's done, know how to calculate the results and plot a graph, draw a diagram of the set-up and know the conclusion (eg conclusion of Snell's Law: The graph is straight line through the origin hence showing that the sine i is proportional to sine r, verifying Snell's Law).

It's best to do exam papers and look at the marking schemes, they give you a far better idea than a list!

**Timbuk2**

It is essential that you know how to draw each graph, as in what goes on the x-axis and y-axis. Normally, they are obvious as y=mx so the m will be the slope, however some are a bit odd. Take example the graph to find the focal length of a concave mirror (I think that's the experiment - this is off the top of my head).

The usual method would be to plot [latex]\frac{1}{v}[/latex] against [latex]\frac{1}{u}[/latex]. It should intercept both the x and the y-axis at the same point, and this is the value for [latex]\frac{1}{f}[/latex]

That doesn't really follow the y=mx rule, so it's important to learn it.

Although in theory, you could rearrange the formula to get [latex]\displaystyle f = \displaystyle \frac{uv}{u+v}[/latex] and therefore plot a graph of uv against u+v, with f as the slope. However, the value for vu would probably get very large, so it would be difficult to plot!