The above is an example from the AQA Combined Science Physics Higher Tier Paper 2 of 2019. As can be seen, the students need to select 2 equations, substitute in values and rearrange them correctly in order to correctly calculate the mass of the plane.
In the build up to this years exam season, I was thinking about this type of question and I realised that although I had taught the equations, rearrangement and substitution, I had not taught the explicit skill of using two equations. I suppose that this is reflected in the results achieved by our centre:
Not that anyone else was really that much better…
As this was in my head, I had a chat with a science advisor. She said to me that it is one of those questions designed to differentiate between Grades 7, 8 and 9. Her very much unspoken implication was that it was something which was not really worth the effort, or, to put it more kindly, it was a niche thing to only work on with the higher achieving students.
When I looked at the student-by-student breakdown in eAQA I saw that 60% of our students scored no marks at all on this question. This seemed unacceptable to me. I am enough of a realist to comprehend that I cannot get everyone 5 marks on this but if students can at least identify one of the two necessary equations and carry out a substitution then they will gain marks. This has to be an improvement on abandoning the question only to those who understand it intuitively, right?
I have tried to produce a worksheet which shows students how to do this type of question. Ideally, the sheet would be generic so that the skill is there regardless of the equations used. In practice, actual examples have to be used and the students have to have covered the content before using the equations.
Please use the sheet which you will find here. Share it with colleagues and let me know of any suggestions or improvements either here or @AndMarking on twitter.
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