Home > Subjects > Chemistry > Level 1 > 1.1 Practical investigation > Key tips
- Subject: Chemistry
- AS: AS90930
- Level: 1
- Credits: 4
- Internal
Chemistry 1.1 Carry out a practical chemistry investigation with direction
Key tips
- Follow your teacher's instructions and make sure you understand what is needed to achieve each grade.
- Practise writing methods so that someone else can pick up your method and carry it out correctly.
- The best way to show that the data you have collected is reliable is to repeat your investigation, producing a second set of data that shows the same trend as the first. If you don’t have the time or resources to repeat your whole investigation, repeating part of it may be acceptable. Another way that data can be made more reliable is by choosing a greater range of the values of the independent variable. For example, when the independent variable is temperature, it is more appropriate to measure the dependent variable at a greater range of temperatures, rather than repeating measurements at the same temperatures.
- Think carefully about the best way to present your data so that any trend is clear. Using graphs and tables or calculating averages are common ways of presenting data.
- When writing your conclusion, always link it to the purpose of your investigation. For example, if the purpose of your investigation is to investigate the rate of a reaction, then your conclusion should not be about the time taken for the reaction to occur.
- To achieve Excellence, positive comments to justify your conclusion are needed. Negative comments such as “I did not record time accurately? “or “My pieces of magnesium were not the same size?” destroy the reliability of your method or data and therefore the investigation is not at an Excellence level.
- “Justifying the choices made to increase the accuracy during the investigation”, means to explain why it is so important to control the key variables (other than the dependent and independent variables) that could have affected your results and why you chose to control these variables in the way you did.
- In your discussion you need to link your findings to applicable chemistry ideas. Are your findings consistent with what you have already learnt in chemistry or any research you have done?
