HSC Physics Question Thread

[RuiAce]

Thanks for the rapid reply. Also for Year 11, will all the tests and Pracs be based on the Syllabus Dot Points?

EVERYTHING is based on the syllabus dot points.

[jamonwindeyer]

Thanks for the rapid reply. Also for Year 11, will all the tests and Pracs be based on the Syllabus Dot Points?

For Year 11 and 12, definitely. That's the whole point of a syllabus after all; it dictates what you need to know for the course! Any assessment must link back to the syllabus. You could be asked to do research into some of the points in more detail than is necessary, but that would be a take-home assignment; not a test or a practical

[Aaron12038488]

Will the school start from the very first topic or would it be random?

[jamonwindeyer]

Will the school start from the very first topic or would it be random?

For Year 11, I actually started with the very last topic. It does depend on preference. It is more common to start with either the very first topic, or Moving About

[Aaron12038488]

I'm looking at the schools prelim booklet, and it says syllabus components covered in Physics. It has P2, P11, P12, P13, etc. What does P2 and the rest mean?

[RuiAce]

I'm looking at the schools prelim booklet, and it says syllabus components covered in Physics. It has P2, P11, P12, P13, etc. What does P2 and the rest mean?

The outcomes (whilst not bad to read if you have time) serve no real purpose for you as a student whatsoever. It serves as a reference for teachers in setting assessment tasks to determine what skills a student must have.

[Aaron12038488]

How do u make notes?
How much info should you put for each dot point?

[Happy Physics Land]

How do u make notes?
How much info should you put for each dot point?

Hey Aaron!

I can definitely help you there. When making notes, especially for physics, I dont like to include a tonne of information. You need to especially avoid having model answers in your notes that you can memorise, because physics questions are never the same and just like maths, they require an open mind and real understanding of physics concepts. When making notes, try to use a lot of colour, diagrams, tables and flowcharts. You want your notes to be easy to read and interesting to read so that you actually WANT TO read your notes. Try to include diagrams such as the galvanometer, loudspeakers and BCS theory in your notes (best if you hand-draw them and take photos and paste them into your notes). These images will come in very handy in an exam. Below is a sample of my notes for solar cell:



Physics is all about processes. That's why we use flowchart to explain a lot of things in physics. Instead of memorising written answers, we understand each part of the process of why something happens. This way we can properly answer any question that's thrown at us during exams. Below is an example of my medical physics notes on ultrasound:



You definitely don't need to write passages, the most you will ever need to do is brief dot points. Try to make each dotpoint straightforward and simple, avoid combining various ideas in one dot point.

Best of luck!

Best Regards
Happy Physics Land

[Aaron12038488]

Do you also make notes for the skills section?

[jamonwindeyer]

Do you also make notes for the skills section?

I never did that, they are skills so it's hard to make notes on them when notes are inherently content focused I'm just not sure what you'd write there! You are wayyy better off just doing practice questions and such to get those skills down

[and1_98]

I got 1968km for the Moon's radius. Not sure if this is the answer though (there aren't answers, although Google says it's 1737km).

Not sure whether a question like this is assessable...? Only based on the first line of the question; 'Using your knowledge of solar eclipses...'

Thanks in advance

[jakesilove]

I got 1968km for the Moon's radius. Not sure if this is the answer though (there aren't answers, although Google says it's 1737km).

Not sure whether a question like this is assessable...? Only based on the first line of the question; 'Using your knowledge of solar eclipses...'

Thanks in advance

Interesting question! Personally, I would have had a go at using similar triangles. This method is definitely not assessable, but it's interesting, so let's give it a go.

Using the 'knowledge of solar eclipses', we know that the moon appears to JUST block out the sun. We can draw ourselves a diagram, which would look something like this.



Okay, so, we can quickly find the acute angle between the earth and the tangent lines. The 'opposite' side is 700,000km  and the 'adjacent' side is 150,000,000km plus the radius (700,000km), giving us 150,700,000km. So,



So, theta is equal to 0.26614 degrees. Now, let's use the 'moon' triangle. The angle is the same, but the 'opposite' and 'adjacent' sides are different.





That's pretty close to the real value! However, DEFINITELY not assessable in Physics (but a good 2U maths question!).

Thinking of a Physics way is a bit trickier. In fact, I'm not 100% sure there is a better way. How did you do it? An answer of 1968km, in my opinion, is probably correct; it's very close to the real value, which would be unlikely if you had done something wrong!

[bluecookie]

in r^3/T^2=GM/4(pi)^2

what are the units for T?

[RuiAce]

in r^3/T^2=GM/4(pi)^2

what are the units for T?

seconds.

Always assume seconds for anything related to time.

[bluecookie]

seconds.

Always assume seconds for anything related to time.

Thank you ^^