A free slideshow covering all 10 AQA GCSE Physics required practicals, for Separate Physics (8463) and Combined Science: Trilogy (8464). Every practical has four slides: a short method, sample results with repeats, working scientifically, and a conclusion with improvements.
Key: every slide shows the Physics RP number and the Combined Science RP number, or Physics only for the two practicals Combined Science students don’t do.
Use the arrows to move through the slides. The clickable menus and tabs work when you download the file and run it as a slideshow in PowerPoint.
What’s in the slideshow
- Method: 5–7 short numbered steps, the aim, an equipment list and the key equation.
- Sample results: a results table with three repeats and a mean, a graph with a line of best fit, and a worked calculation. Anomalous results are highlighted, with an explanation of why they’re left out of the mean.
- Working scientifically: independent, dependent and control variables, the main hazard and how to reduce it, accuracy and precision, and random and systematic errors.
- Conclusion and improvements: what the results show, the science that explains it, an evaluation and four improvements.
- A key words slide: accurate, precise, resolution, repeatable, reproducible, anomalous, random error, systematic error and zero error.
The 10 practicals
Each practical also has its own page with a method, a video link and eight exam-style questions with answers.
- Specific heat capacity – Combined Science RP14 · Paper 1
- Thermal insulation – Physics only · Paper 1
- Resistance – Combined Science RP15 · Paper 1
- I–V characteristics – Combined Science RP16 · Paper 1
- Density – Combined Science RP17 · Paper 1
- Force and extension – Combined Science RP18 · Paper 2
- Acceleration – Combined Science RP19 · Paper 2
- Waves – Combined Science RP20 · Paper 2
- Light: reflection and refraction – Physics only · Paper 2
- Infrared radiation – Combined Science RP21 · Paper 2
✏️ For the language of variables, errors and evaluation, see Working Scientifically. To practise drawing the apparatus, see Key Diagrams.