Practical GCSE Questions

A student wants to investigate how the temperature of a gas affects its pressure. What is the depedent variable?

• temperature
• pressure
• mass of gas
• volume

A student wants to investigate how the temperature of a gas affects its pressure. What is the most suitable control variable?

• temperature

• pressure

• insulation type

• volume

• heating method

A student wants to investigate what happens to the resistance of a wire when longer wire is used. What is the indepenent variable?

• resistance
• length
• temperature of wire
• voltage of power supply
• current in circuit

A student wants to investigate what happens to the resistance of a wire when longer wire is used. What is the most suitable control variable?

• resistance

• length

• temperature of wire

• voltage of power supply

• current in circuit

A student wants to know how the type of flooring affects the bounce height of a bouncy ball. What is a NOT control variable?

• initial drop height
• material ball is made from
• material floor is made from
• mass of ball
• diameter of ball

A pupil investigates how the number of identical marbles in a box affects the mass of the box. What sort of data is the independent variable?

• continuous

• discrete

• mass of the box

• colour of the marbles

• temperature of the room

A pupil investigates how the number of identical marbles in a box affects its mass. How should they display the data?

• Bar chart
• Pie chart
• Line graph
• Box and whiskers

A pupil investigates how the mass of salt in water affects the density of the water. What sort of data is the independent variable?

• continuous
• discrete
• temperature of the water
• volume of beaker

A pupil investigates how the voltage across a resistors affects the current. How would they display their data?

• Bar chart
• Pie chart
• Line graph
• Box and whiskers

How do you improve the validity of a practical

• Use the correct units and apparatus

• Take several repeats

• Change one variable, measure how this affects another variable. Keep all other variables the same.

• Use an instrument which reads to more decimal places (i.e. mm scale rather than cm scale)