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During the GCSE Physics course you will complete practical activities from eight Practical Activity Groups (PAGs).

The exams will include questions about the apparatus, methods, safety precautions, results, analysis and evaluation of some of these experiments. You may also be asked to apply your knowledge to unfamiliar practical contexts, which will draw on your practical knowledge and understanding.

Practical questions will appear throughout both exam papers (Breadth and Depth) and at both Foundation Tier and Higher Tier.

Remember to look at your lab book or your notes from the practical activities you have done, when you're revising for the exams.

The practical questions also test your knowledge of 'Ideas about Science'.

There are four main aspects to 'Ideas about Science'. These are:

1. Planning practical experiments and investigations (including writing hypotheses and predictions, selecting apparatus and describing methods, controlling factors, and working safely).
2. Processing and analysing data (including doing calculations, presenting data graphically, identifying patterns and trends, evaluating results and experiments, and interpreting data to draw appropriate conclusions).
3. Developing scientific explanations (including ideas about correlation and cause, peer review, and the use of models in science).
4. The impacts of applications of science (including positive and negative impacts on people, other organisms and the environment, and ideas about risk and ethics).

There are no practical techniques covered in this unit so there will not be practical questions relating to sustainable energy.

Learn about practicals with Dr Alex Lathbridge

Listen to the full series on 91�ȱ� Sounds.