Posts Tagged ‘leaving cert physics’
The nature of matter
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 28, 2012
Few concepts in Physics generate wonder quite like Quantum Theory. You only need to look at the shelves in the Popular Science section of a bookstore for evidence. Yet (once again) in schools we play down this sense of wonder. I used to think this wasn’t done deliberately but now I’m beginning to learn that [...]
How to get 100% in your leaving cert Physics exam. Part 3: Short Questions
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 23, 2012
Question 5 on the paper is 56 marks and counts for 14% of the overall mark. The choice is to do 8 questions out of 10. It is one of the more popular questions on the paper. I have compiled a list of all the short questions which have been asked over the last ten [...]
Junior Cert Science: Unusual demonstration of magnetic fields
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 12, 2012
This week we looked at a concept called ferromagnetism which allows us to demonstrate the 3-dimensional nature of magnetic fields. Thanks to my first years for being so co-operative Here’s another way of illustrating the idea (which we didn’t do)
Leaving Cert Physics: Unusual resonance demonstrations
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 12, 2012
This week we demonstrated resonance. Apart from the standard demonstrations using tuning forks and wine glasses we also tried out variations 1. The Chinese Bowl 2. The aluminium rod
How to get 100% in your Leaving Cert Physics exam. Part 2: Answering Graph Questions
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 4, 2012
The following can be downloaded as a word document here Drawing the graph You must use graph paper and fill at least THREE QUARTERS OF THE PAGE. Use a scale which is easy to work with i.e. the major grid lines should correspond to natural divisions of the overall range. LABEL THE AXES with the [...]
How to get 100% in your Leaving Cert Physics exam. Part 1: Section A
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: May 2, 2012
Section A counts for 30% of your overall mark and is the easiest section to pick up full marks. There are about 24 experiments but many of them are minor variations on each other. Stop wasting time trying to predict which ones will come up and just learn them all. Take one or two per [...]
Imagine if the key-word in the Leaving Cert Physics syllabus was ‘wonder’
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: April 22, 2012
This is an image, courtesy of Wordle.net, of the current Leaving Certificate Physics syllabus. Wordle is a program that gives the most common words the largest font size: This is a similar image of the proposed new syllabus. Notice the new focus on the words ‘learners’ and ‘learning’. Imagine if a syllabus had as its [...]
A short history of the term ‘Voltage’
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: March 13, 2012
Image created with wordle.net Potential difference (commonly known as ‘voltage’) is probably one of the least well understood concepts in Leaving Cert Physics. Not only is it difficult to understand such an abstract concept (it’s not like you can hold a bunch of voltage in your hand), but the meaning of the term ‘voltage’ has [...]
Physics subject plan online
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: January 12, 2012
We had a Physics inspection last year which involved putting together a Subject plan (not that it didn’t exist previously of course, but you know what I mean). It did take quite a bit of time and it occurred to me that, given that most schools in the country offer Physics as a subject, it [...]
Quantum Theory – why do we ignore the mystery?
Posted by: ozymandias1 on: April 16, 2011
Isn’t it crazy that one of the most wonderful concepts in Physics – the dual nature of light – doesn’t get a better deal from the leaving cert physics syllabus? Students are expected to know how to demonstrate that light is a wave, and also to be able to recall Einstein’s interpretation of the Photoelectric [...]
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