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Transition guide: A level Physics
We have created this student support resource to help you make the transition from GCSE to AS or A-level Physics.
- You’re studying AS or A - level Physics, congratulations! Contents
- Why study A-level Physics?
- Possible degree options
- Which career appeals to you?
- Specification at a glance
- The assessment for the A-level consists of three exams
- Resources to help
- Useful information and activities
- Greek letters
- SI units
- The delta symbol Δ
- Important vocabulary for practical work
- Maths help
- Data Sheet
You’re studying A-level Physics, congratulations!
Studying physics after your GCSEs really develops your practical and mathematical skills. If you enjoy experimenting in the lab, yo u’ll love it. At first, you may find the jump in demand from GCSE a little daunting, but if you follow the tips and advice in this guide, you’ll soon adapt. We recommend you keep this somewhere safe, as you may like to refer to the information inside throughout your studies.
Why study A-level Physics?
Physicists explore the fundamental nature of almost everything we know of. They study everything from the fundamental particles that build matter, to the galaxies that make up the universe itself. Join them to enter a world deep beneath the surface of normal human experience. Even if you don’t decide to work in physics, studying it still develops useful and transferable skills for other careers. You’ll develop research, problem solving and analytical skills, alongside teamwork and communication. Universities and business regard all of these very highly.
Possible degree options
According to bestcourse4me.com the top seven degree courses taken by students who have A-level Physics are:
- mathematics
- physics
- mechanical engineering
- computer science
- civil engineering
- economics
- business. For more details, go to bestcourse4me.com or UCAS.
Which career appeals to you?
Studying Physics at A-level or degree level opens up all sorts of career opportunities.
- Geophysicist/field seismologist
- Healthcare scientist, medical physics
- Higher education lecturer or secondary school teacher
The assessment for the A-level consists of three exams
Paper 1 Paper 2
Paper 3 What's assessed + Sections 1 – 5 and 6.1 (Periodic motion) What's assessed Sections 6. (Thermal Physics), 7 and 8 Assumed knowledge from sections 1 to 6. What's assessed Section A: Compulsory section: Practical skills and data analysis Section B: Optional topic Assessed
- written exam: 2 hours
- 85 marks
- 34% of A-level Assessed
- written exam: 2 hours
- 85 marks
- 34% of A-level Assessed
- written exam: 2 hours
- 80 marks
- 32% of A-level Questions 60 marks of short and long answer questions and 25 multiple choice questions on content. Questions 60 marks of short and long answer questions and 25 multiple choice questions on content. Questions 45 marks of short and long answer questions on practical experiments and data analysis. 35 marks of short and long answer questions on optional topic.
Resources to help
AQA website is a great place to start.
AQA Physics webpages are aimed at teachers, but you may find them useful too. Information includes:
- The specification – this explains exactly what you need to learn for your exams.
- Practice exam papers
- Lists of command words and subject specific vocabulary – so you understand the words to use in exams
- Practical handbooks explain the practical work you need to know
- Past papers from the old specification. Some questions won’t be relevant to the new AS and A-level, so please check with your teacher.
- Maths skills support.
Institute of Physics (IOP)
The IOP do everything from research like that taking place at CERN to lobbying MPs. You’ll find lots of handy resources on their website at iop.org/tailored/students/
The student room
Join the A-level Physics forums and share thoughts and ideas with other students if you’re stuck with your ho mework. Just be very careful not to share any details about your assessments, there are serious consequences if you’re caught cheating. Visit thestudentroom.co.uk
Textbooks
AQA approved textbooks are published by Collins, Hodder and Oxford University Press. Textbooks from other publishers will also be suitable, but you’ll need to double check that the content and formula symbols they use match our specification.
Revision guides
These are great if you want a quick overview of the course when you’re revising for your exams. Remember to use other tools as well, as these aren’t detaile d enough on their own.
Activity 1
List all of the uses of Greek letters that you have encountered in your GCSE Science and Maths studies.
SI units
Every measurement must have a size (eg 2.7) and a unit (eg metres or ºC). Sometimes, there are different units available for the same type of measurement. For example ounces, pounds, kilograms and tonnes are all used as units for mass. To reduce confusion, and to help with conversion between different units, there is a standard system of units called the SI units which are used for most scientific purposes. These units have all been defined by experiment so that the size of, say, a metre in the UK is the same as a metre in China. The seven SI base units are: Physical quantity Usual quantity symbol Unit Abbreviation mass (^) m kilogram (^) kg length l or x metre m time (^) t second (^) s electric current I ampere A temperature (^) T kelvin (^) K amount of substance
N
mole mol luminous intensity (not used at A-level) candela cd
All other units can be derived from the SI base units. For example, area is measured in square metres (written as m^2 ) and speed is measured in metres per second (written as ms–^1 ). Some derived units have their own unit names and abbreviations, often when the combination of SI units becomes complicated. Some common derived units are: Physical quantity Usual quantity symbol Unit Abbreviation SI unit Force (^) F newton (^) N kg m s–^2 Energy E or W joule (^) J kg m 2 s– 2 Frequency f hertz Hz S– 1 It is not always appropriate to use a full unit. For example, measuring the width of a hair or the distance from Manchester to London in metres would cause the numbers to be difficult to work with. Prefixes are used to multiply each of the units. You will be familiar with centi (meaning 1/100), kilo (1000) and milli (1/1000) from centimetres, kilometres and millimetres. There is a wide range of prefixes. The majority of quantities in scientific contexts will be quoted using the prefixes that are multiples of 1000. For example, a distance of 33 000 m would be quoted as 33 km. The most common prefixes you will encounter are: Prefix Symbol Multiplication factor Tera T 1012 1 000 000 000 000 Giga (^) G 109 1 000 000 000 Mega (^) M 106 1 000 000 kilo k 103 1000 deci (^) d 10 - 1 0.1 1/ centi (^) c 10 - 2 0.01 1/ milli (^) m 10 - 3 0.001 1/ micro μ 10 - 6 0.000 001 1/1 000 000 nano (^) n 10 - 9 0.000 000 001 1/1 000 000 000 pico (^) p 10 - 12 0.000 000 000 001 1/1 000 000 000 000 femto (^) f 10 – 15 0.000 000 000 000 001 1/1 000 000 000 000 000
Activity 4
Re-write the following quantities:
- 1502 metres in kilometres
- 0.000 45 grams in micrograms
- 0.000 45 metres in millimetres
- 1055 kilometres in metres
- 180 megaseconds in seconds
- 2500 centimetres in millimetres
The delta symbol Δ
The delta symbol is used to mean “change in”. For example, at GCSE, you would have learned the formula: distance d
speed = which can be written as s =
time t What you often measure is the change in the distance of the car from a particular point, and the change in time from the beginning of your measurement to the end of it. change in distance along road point of measurement measurement
Because of the fact that the distance and the speed are changing, you use the delta symbol to emphasise this. The A-level version of the above formula becomes:
velocity = displacement which can be written as v = ∆ s
time ∆ t Note: the delta symbol is a property of the quantity it is with, so you treat “Δs” as one thing when rearranging, and you cannot cancel the delta symbols in the equation above.
Activity 5
Research exercise
- Find out the difference between: speed and velocity distance and displacement
- Look at the A- level Physics formula sheet on the AQA website (it’s under “assess” on the Physics A - level page). Which equations look similar to ones you’ve encountered at GCSE, but include the delta symbol?
Important vocabulary for practical work
There are many words used in practical work. You will have come across most of these words in your GCSE studies. It is important that you are using the right definition for each word. The activity on the next page tests your understanding of terms used in practical work.
Maths help
Physics uses the language of mathematics to make sense of the world. It is important that you are able to use maths. The following exercises will help you to practise some of the maths you have covered during your GCSE studies to help with your A-level course.
Activity 7: Standard form
- Write in standard form (a) 379. (b) 0.
- Write as ordinary numbers (use the data sheet on the last page of this booklet): (a) The speed of light (b) The charge on an electron
- Write one quarter of a million in standard form.
- Write these constants in ascending order (ignoring units): permeability of free space; the Avogadro constant; proton rest mass; acceleration due to gravity; mass of the Sun.
- Work out the value of the following. Give your answer in standard form. The mass of an electron/the mass of the Earth (use the data sheet).
- Solve (2.4 × 107 ) x = 1.44 × 109 Give your answer in standard form.
Activity 8: Decimal places, significant figures and rounding
- How many rockets would be needed to deliver 30 tonnes of material to a space station, if every rocket could hold 7 tonnes?
- A power station has an output of 3.5 MW. The coal used had a potential output of 9.8 MW. Work out the efficiency of the power station. Give your answer as a percentage to one decimal place.
- A radioactive source produces 17 804 beta particles in 1 hour. Calculate the mean number of beta particles produced in 1 minute. Give your answer to one significant figure.
- Power station A was online 94% of the 7500 days it worked for. Power station B was online of the 9720 days it worked for. Which power station was offline for longer?
Activity 10: Use sine, cosine and tangent
1 (a) Work out the length of AB. A B 2.5 (^) cm C (Not drawn accurately) (b) Work out the length of PR. (Not drawn accurately)
R Q
P
2.5 cm
45 °
Activity 13: Rearranging formulas
- Rearrange y = 2 x + 3 to make x the subject.
- Rearrange C = 2π r to make r the subject.
- Rearrange E = 1 mv^2 to make v the subject. 2
- Rearrange s to make u the subject.
- Rearrange s to make a the subject. v
6. Rearrange ω = to make r the subject.
r
7. Rearrange v to make x the subject.
Note: in science, subscripts are often used to label quantities. So in the following two examples, there are two masses, m 1 and m 2. The 1 and 2 are part of the quantity and should be kept with the m.
- Rearrange F = Gm1 m 2 to make m 2 the subject. r^2
- Rearrange F = Gm1 m 2 to make r the subject. r^2
Activity 14: Graphs
- The cost of hiring a piece of equipment is given by the formula C = 8 d + 10, where d is the number of days for which the equipment is hired and C (£) is the total cost of hire. Add a line to the graph to show this equation C = 8 d + 10
- For the above graph, what was the deposit required for hiring the equipment?
- Another shop hires out equipment where the cost of hire is given by the formula C = 5 d + 24 Josh says that the first supplier is always cheaper if you want to hire equipment. Add this formula to the graph. Is he correct? Give reasons for your answer.
