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Component query

Hi,I just wanted to know that what is the difference between
Advanced Practical skills 31 and Advanced Practical skills 32 in AS Level sciences.

Reply 1

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Javeriya ijaz

Hi,I just wanted to know that what is the difference between
Advanced Practical skills 31 and Advanced Practical skills 32 in AS Level sciences.

Cambridge International use some non-trivial terminology, so I'll mentioned that first in case someone else stumbles across this post.

They use exam codes 9700 for AS & A Level Biology, 9701 for AS & A Level Chemistry, and 9702 for AS & A Level Physics. In each case, paper 3 is Advanced Practical Skills, of which there are two options - Advanced Practical Skills 1 or Advanced Practical Skills 2. This creates a full paper code like 9700/31 or 9701/32.

OK, now we've got that out of the way, this is what CIE have to say about the difference between the two options for the Advanced Practical Skills paper:

"What is the difference between the two Advanced Practical Skills paper options?

These two Advanced Practical Skills papers are equivalent in every respect, except that they will contain different questions. Students should be prepared in exactly the same way whichever of these papers they are to be entered for.

The practical papers will be timetabled on different days. We anticipate that schools will decide which paper to enter their students for, based on the number of students and the laboratory resources available. They can either:

• enter all of their students for the same practical paper (it does not matter which one, but the school will need to have sufficient laboratory space and resources to accommodate all of their students) or
• enter half of their students for one paper and the other half for the other (which means that the laboratories only have to be able to accommodate half of the students on any one day, but which means that the laboratories will be in use for two days rather than one)."

(source)