Investigating resistance

• in series:

  1. build a series circuit using a resistor and make a note of the potential difference of the battery
  2. Measure the current though the circuit using the ammeter use this to calculate the resistance of the Circuit using R= V÷ I
  3. Add another resistor, in series with the first
  4. Measure the Current through the Circuit and again calculate the resistance
  5. Repeat this untill you have added 4 resistors
• In parallel:

  1. Build a parallel Circuit with a resistor
  2. calculate the resistance of the Circuit (V is the pd of the batteries)
  3. Add another resistor in parallel with the first
  4. calculate the resistance again
  5. do this until you've added all your resistors
• Resistance rules:

  • Adding resistors in a series increases the total resistance of the cirent
  • more resistors you add, larger the overall resistance
  • when you add resistors in parallel, the total current though the circuit increases So the total resistance of the Circuit decreases
  • so the more resistors, the smaller the overall resistance