AQA Physics PHYA5 - Thursday 18th June 2015 [Exam Discussion Thread]

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Reply 140

KeithHayward

Original post by Lau14

Everything but 1/2-2/3 of astro

Astrophysics? How are u finding it? Isn't it meant to be hard...

Reply 141

Lau14

Original post by KeithHayward

Astrophysics? How are u finding it? Isn't it meant to be hard...

I haven't found anything hard so far, but we've also only covered about 20 minutes of stuff that I didn't do at astronomy GCSE so that helps (and makes it very boring).

Reply 142

CD223

Original post by KeithHayward

What % of PHYA5 has everyone done so far in school?

I have all of astro to go after this month has been spent finishing gas laws and having mocks as well as a practice EMPA.

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Reply 143

KeithHayward

Original post by CD223

I have all of astro to go after this month has been spent finishing gas laws and having mocks as well as a practice EMPA.

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Astro is quite popular amongst TSR students :confused:

Perhaps I should have asked to take it after all. I need to do some practice ISA papers!

Reply 144

CD223

Original post by KeithHayward

Astro is quite popular amongst TSR students :confused:

Perhaps I should have asked to take it after all. I need to do some practice ISA papers!

Ah which unit are you taking again? Applied? When is your isa?

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Reply 145

Lau14

Original post by KeithHayward

Astro is quite popular amongst TSR students :confused:

Perhaps I should have asked to take it after all. I need to do some practice ISA papers!

It's the only option offered by our college, I don't know if this is common to a lot of places though?

Reply 146

KeithHayward

Original post by CD223

Ah which unit are you taking again? Applied? When is your isa?

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Original post by Lau14

It's the only option offered by our college, I don't know if this is common to a lot of places though?

Im taking turning points which is quite nice since not a lot of new learning to do. It just builds on knowledge in the AS syllabus and touches on bits from PHYA4. My isa is in early march but i've got a mock next week :frown:

When's yours?

I think it is, theres quite a few schools I know that are teaching it this year. Its one of those modules i'd love to do because it sounds interesting if i had enough time to learn it all. How easy/hard are you finding it compared to PHYA4?

Reply 147

Lau14

Original post by KeithHayward

I think I prefer PHYA5/Astronomy to PHYA4, partly because the timing should be less cramped without the multiple choice and also because I've covered every topic before at least a little bit (thermal physics overlaps with Chemistry a little, radioactivity has barely changed from what we studied at GCSE, and I already did an astronomy GCSE).

Reply 148

CD223

Original post by KeithHayward

When's yours?

Turning points sounds great. I would have had difficulty deciding between that and astro if my college allowed both. In theory, we could choose any one we wanted out of astro, applied, turning points and medical physics, then the two most popular were chosen as a result and we all had to choose again out of the two favourites which were astro and applied.

My EMPA is in early March. I had a mock two weeks ago and I've another in late February aha.

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Reply 149

CD223

Original post by Lau14

What would you say, to someone that didn't do astronomy GCSE, is the hardest topic in astro?
Lenses and telescopes, life cycles of stars and the Doppler effect seem fairly straightforward due to what was covered at GCSE physics, but everything else is new I believe.

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Reply 150

Lau14

Original post by CD223

You've covered pretty much the same stuff we have so far at A level. There's a table of stuff to remember for the Balmer lines/classification of stars section. It's not very big so it should be okay. The magnitude equation requires very basic logs occasionally. I wouldn't say astro gets much harder, if at all, as far as I can tell?

Reply 151

CD223

Original post by Lau14

Oh right, thanks! Is that the one with the annoyingly non-alphabetic categories?

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Reply 152

Lau14

Original post by CD223

Oh right, thanks! Is that the one with the annoyingly non-alphabetic categories?

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Yep, OBAFGKM. It's not too hard to remember though :smile:

for each letter there's a colour, temperature range and a few things that give strong Balmer lines on spectra.

Reply 153

CD223

Original post by Lau14

Yep, OBAFGKM. It's not too hard to remember though :smile:

for each letter there's a colour, temperature range and a few things that give strong Balmer lines on spectra.

Ugh more regurgitated facts :L

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Reply 154

_Caz_

Astro is really difficult. :frown:

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Reply 155

CD223

Original post by _Caz_

Astro is really difficult. :frown:

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Ah, in what way? I've not started it. Loads of content? Hard calculations? Difficult to understand concepts?

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Reply 156

Lau14

Original post by CD223

Ugh more regurgitated facts :L

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There's a lot of content type stuff in astro (particularly compared to the amount of calculations in unit 4), but I find it pretty interesting which helps with learning it all :smile:

Reply 157

CD223

Original post by Lau14

There's a lot of content type stuff in astro (particularly compared to the amount of calculations in unit 4), but I find it pretty interesting which helps with learning it all :smile: