|
|
Join The Student Room TodayBe part of the UK's largest and fastest growing student community. It's free to join and a lot of fun - Get inspired, express your ideas, interact and share A-Level PhysicsFrom The Student RoomTSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > A Levels > A-Level Subject Guides II > A-Level Physics
A-Level PhysicsBackground information about studying PhysicsPhysics at A Level comprises significantly more mathematics than at GCSE, so your maths skills will need to be up to scratch. If not, you can buy books, or most colleges offer some support for students not taking Maths to A Level as well. The course starts at the basics, and works up to some pretty tricky puzzles, such as working out collision speeds in a atom collider. How will it differ from GCSE?DifficultyAs stressed before, there is much more maths. Also, the work is much more in depth and riveting than at GCSE. It's very much a puzzle, and most questions you tackle, once finished, will give you increasing levels of satisfaction as you work through the course. Thankfully in most classes, people will find some things very easy you will find tough and vice versa, and there is a lot of emphasis on working together and collaborating to solve equations. The teachers generally hold a Physics or Maths degree, and thus will always not only help you, but answer questions in more depth than at school, which is awesome! Taking A-Level Maths can be of good use, especially if you have the option to take Mechanics modules (M1, M2). By doing so, you should have covered some Mechanics in your Maths lessons, reducing workload and making the easier mechanics questions in the Physics exams an easy topic to pick up marks. Some content covered in your Physics course does touch on stuff covered in the Maths module M3, however this isn't really strenuous and you are given the formulae anyway. Somewhere between 40-50% of the marks in a typical Physics exam can come from questions requiring you to calculate or derive some formula, so taking both Maths and Physics is a subject choice. WorkloadThe workload is a bit larger than at school; but thankfully, unlike essay based subjects, you can answer a sheet of problems and be done with it. Which is much better than staring at an essay for a week keeping wanting to add things to it! There's a large amount of coursework, but the teachers will help you out if there are any problems, and they're generally pretty good at enforcing deadlines! Required Individual StudyThere honestly isn't much. Apart from a few problem sheets a week, the coursework and possibly some background reading (there's a large essay-ish thing in the second year all about a topic of your choice), you're going to have quite a bit of free time! How is it assessed?This is correct so far for OCR B ExamsYou will have two exams per year, one in January and one in June/July, both on one module. These combine with coursework to make a final grade for a module. Each exam in 90 minutes long; but at the end of the course, you will have a two hour synoptic paper. For the new specification starting September 2008, there are still two exams per year, but the January exam is now only 1 hour, and the June/July exam has been extended to 2 hours long. There is no longer a synoptic paper, but both of the A2 units will have synoptic elements. CourseworkThere are two bits of AS coursework, an experiment and a presentation; and two bits of A2 coursework, a essay/article, and an experiment on anything you like (within the limits of an A level lab!) Some experiments that were done in my class included: The conductivity of copper, Newton's Cradle with more than two balls, dropping different materials from different heights, and even using a wave tank to replicate the actions of a boat in the sea. If you need any more materials for this, then the department will often provide, given fair warning. PracticalsYou will probably have one practical a week, sometimes only a 10 minute play with apparatus, which really helps you get to grip with the course material. Occasionally, you'll have a whole lesson or more in a lab to do a larger scale experiment, which will end with plotting graphs and putting the data into Excel and writing the experiment up. Field trips and excursionsNo field trips as such, but often you can be invited to a public lecture at a local university, or have a visiting speaker to discuss careers in physics or university courses. Our 6th form do an annual trip to Thorpe Park which is always a good day and the year 13s go to the cycling velodrome at calshot to study circular motion Where can I go with a Physics A-LevelAnywhere! Physics A Level is one of the most respected A levels there is, and it shows you are numerate and can handle a demanding course to a high level. Some people (like me!) will go onto a Physics degree, but it is a good subject to have for anything, from Psycology to Ecology. It's also a reccomended subject for Mathematics and Engineering degrees, and can also be used for entry into Medicine , Geophysics is also a very lucrative area of study where having done Physics is a great advantage User OpinionsUsername: Sam_Ash What I like about studying this subject: Physics is really interesting, and A-Level fills in a lot of the holes that GCSE left. The A-Level teachers are much better than the GCSE teacher I had. What I dislike about studying this subject: Errors. Username: sarubobo28 What I like about studying this subject: Who won't find physics amazing? (Also the fact that all you need to do is to understand concepts and not memorise a whole load of information like biology :D) What I dislike about studying this subject: I personally don't like experiments - they get assessed but they are just SO BORING. Like watching two masses bobbing up and down on a spring with a stopclock in one hand, watching water drop through a straw etc... Also A-level physics calculations make so many assumptions that what you learn is quite useless when it comes to actual application to reality. (But then A-level physics strengthens the basic stuff if you want to persue a degree in it!) Username: TheTallOne What I like about studying this subject: I found that Physics was the easiest of the A Levels I took. The things you have to learn can often be prompted from the formula sheet. It is, in fact, a good idea to carry a copy of the formula sheet you will be given in the exam around with you to your lessons. Whenever you do questions in class, it is better to refer to the formula sheet than your notes. This way, you won't waste time in Physics exams looking for the formula you want and you will also know what formula you are given and what you should know (this means that you don't have to waste time remembering When it comes to the theory, you can use the formula sheets as prompts (again), but there are a few set topics you may have to learn (eg Ideal Gas Theory). Here, look at the mark schemes for the ideal answers and learn what to write down as it is near certain that the answers are the same every time this question is set. What I dislike about studying this subject: I find it really boring. In fact, I drifted off and fell a sleep for about a minute during one lesson. Because of the way the course is structured, you don't really learn much as 50% of the work is based from the formula sheet. It is too easy, especially if you do Further Maths - don't be surprised if you end up with 570+/600. The most able candidates should be capable of taking both the AS and A2 course in a year. Practicals I'm indifferent about. As long as you can follow instructions it should go OK, although if something goes wrong it could have a disastrous affect on your results from this section. Graph drawing - you have to use good axes (that take up more than half a page) and plot well. Always draw your graphs to exam standard and never get lazy drawing graphs which don't use up most of the page and would drop marks if it were an exam. Username: What I like about studying this subject: What I dislike about studying this subject: Username: What I like about studying this subject: What I dislike about studying this subject: Username: What I like about studying this subject: What I dislike about studying this subject: Also See |
|
). Due to the sheer number of formulae you are given, you only really need to know a maximum of 10 equations throughout the course (and only 3 or 4 per module) - the rest can be derived from the formula sheet. So, when learning, make sure you use your formula sheet to do questions, and if the formula isn't there then have a look at your notes and see if there is a similar formula already given that you could substitute in an equation (eg F=ma into gravitational field strength - g is equivalent to a). If there still isn't an equation, then it is likely that this is one of the few equations you have to learn.
|
|