Showing Your Discoveries

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

Up to 8 marks are available for analysing results from your practical investigation.

As with the other 3 areas of assessment, the criteria you have to meet are hierarchical - you must achieve the lower marks before you can be awarded marks higher up.

A.8a

The use of "detailed scientific knowledge and understanding" was already assessed in planning (specifically P8a). Unless you didn't have to write a plan, this section is a doddle: you merely have to re-state the science as it applies to your results. If you didn't write a plan, just make sure you use some real science in your conclusion.

The lower-level analysis mark A6b already required the use of scientific knowledge and understanding. The difference now is that you must go into more detail, and you must use it to explain processed evidence, not just observations.

Let's see what our guy does for top marks:

So it's worth looking at what your graph shows in detail, and trying to explain such detail using sound scientific understanding. Nice one.

A.8b

A8a leads directly into A8b, as discussion of whether or not your experimental results support your prediction is all part of the process of drawing conclusions. It is largely artificial to separate them here. However, this is what our student writes to pull this mark out of the hat:

It is not necessary, at this stage, to talk about how good your results were: that is left for the evaluation section.

• Evaluating - saying what went well

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