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AS Biology Assessed Practical Notes

Use the following headings & sub-headings in this order:

Planning

Hypothesis ~ what is the idea you want to test
Explanation of hypothesis ~ use detailed AS knowledge to explain the hypothesis.
Plan ~ details of exactly what you are going to do & how
Equipment ~ what are you using and why is this the best equipment to use. Go through the equipment item by item.
Controlling variables ~ for each variable, what is it, why does it need to be controlled, how are you controlling it.
Risk assessment ~ Assess the risk of every aspect of your experiment, if there are dangers, how are you going to minimise the risk? Risks of chemicals must be from CLEAPS or similar

Implementing

Summary of results ~ A table of the averages, percentages, S.D.s etc
Calculations ~ an explanation of any calculations you did and why
Graph ~ the one graph that best shows the pattern in your results related to your hypothesis (with error bars)

Analysis

Trends & patterns in the results ~ what are they?
Explanation of the results ~ use AS knowledge to explain the actual results you got and whether or not your hypothesis is supported by your results.

Evaluation

Reliability of the data ~ Use you SD calculations/error bars to help you discuss how certain you are of the meaning of your results.
Limitations of the experiment ~ What was it that you could not control and could do nothing about. Could you be certain about any conclusions? Why?
Further work ~ give an explanation of the next experiment that you could do to find out more information to do with your hypothesis.

Appendix

Raw Results ~ all the results you collected whilst doing the experiment. No averages, percentages etc.
Calculations ~ all the working of any calculations you did

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Further notes to help you

The whole assessment should be about 3500 words plus graphs, diagrams, tables, calculations etc

Planning

Use detailed AS knowledge to explain the hypothesis but only include relevant information. Use libraries and the internet to research information. If you state a fact say where you got it from (book name & author or internet site) This research will take many weeks ~ don't leave it until the last moment.

Everything in your experiment must be well controlled. There is no such thing as "room temperature". Students are expected to find out if reactions are exothermic and control the temperature of the reaction.

Method details are essential. E.g. "use a light meter to measure the amount of light passing through the coloured filter" is not good enough. How should the light meter be used? What distance from the filter? What is behind the filter? Etc etc.

Risk Analysis should quote from Cleaps cards etc. It must be thorough and must say what is being done to make it safe.

It should be clear that the candidate knows what they are going to do with the results and that is why they have planned to do the experiment in the way they have. E.g. "I am going to repeat each test 20 times so that I have a sufficient sample size to carry out a standard deviation calculation" "I am going to do 5 different temperatures and then when I find the optimum temperature I am going to carry out two further experiments 20C either side of that temperature to allow me to draw a more accurate line graph."

Implementing

Tabulation is easy so must be excellent to score at all. Without good tabulation you cannot get more than 2 marks even if the experiment is brilliantly carried out.

All units MUST be SI. No minutes or hours, time must be in seconds. No % strengths when it is possible to work out molarities

Units must be at the tops of columns only ~ not in the boxes

Links between data must be clearly defined.

Analysis

No credit for anything that does not help to prove/disprove the hypothesis.

No theoretical discussion here, every comment must refer to or be related to the results. Explain the results using factual knowledge, if these facts have already been explained in detail in the plan then refer to them accurately but you don't need to repeat them all again

Draw only the graph(s) that clearly relate to proving/disproving the hypothesis.

Hand drawn not computer generated.

No lines of best fit ~ join the points with a straight line between each.

Do not project beyond actual results gained.

Anomalous results should have been eliminated during the practical by repeating. Deviations from a perfect curve are not anomalous nor are results which don't happen to fit your prediction, but you must discuss why it is that they do not fit.

Include error bars. These can be SD calculations with bigger samples, or just range bars in smaller numbers of repeats. You must refer to the variability of you results.

In discussion refer to raw data as well as summarised data.

Evaluation

"No matter how carefully I do the experiment what would stop me getting identical results if I repeated it?"

What further work could you do to get more information directly related to the hypothesis?