Assessing How You Got On

THIS IS LEGACY MATERIAL - the science is correct but the marks no longer apply!

Up to 6 marks are available for evaluating your investigation.

As always, you must achieve the lower marks before you can be awarded marks higher up.

E.6a

Results can be considered reliable if you are able to repeat them successfully and get near enough the same result. However, this is not the same as being accurate or precise!

Talking the Lingo!

Accuracy: exactness. In other words, being careful to measure something properly.

Precision: degree of accuracy. For example, you can measure the length of a wire to the nearest centimetre. Measuring to the nearest millimetre would be more precise.

Reliability: repeatable and consistent. Taking all measurements again can help show that they are reliable. If each set of results are similar, they are consistent. If a trend is expected, reliable results should show it strongly.

Results that are sufficient to support a conclusion will tend to show a clear effect. For example, you may expect the current through a wire to increase as you turn up the voltage of a power supply. If this happens, great! If not, then say that your results are not enough to support a decent conclusion. In E.6b you can then talk more about what you would do to provide more evidence.

Accounting for anomalies is tricky if you don't appear to have any! For this reason, many teachers recommend you either make up, or sloppily produce, at least one anomaly. However, this is nonsense. If you have none, simply state that you have none. It is likely that you have superb results that strongly support your conclusion.

Let's see how our top pupil pulls this mark out of the bag:

What a top kid! You know, I have a feeling they're going to get full marks...

Getting the final mark!

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