Paper 1

• Specific heat capacity

  1. place beaker on balance and press 0
  2. add oil to beaker and record mass of oil
  3. place thermometer and immersion heater into oil
  4. read starting temperature of the oil
  5. wrap beaker in insulating foam to reduce thermal energy transfer to surroundings
  6. connect joule meter and power pack to immersion heater
  7. Leave setup for 30mins
  8. read total number of joules of energy that passed into the immersion heater and final temperature of the oil
  9. specific heat capacity calculation
• Thermal insulation

  1. Place small beaker inside large beaker
  2. use a kettle to boil water
  3. transfer 80cm3 hot water into the small beaker
  4. use cardboard lid for the big beaker, lid should have a hole for thermometer
  5. place thermometer through the hole, bulb of thermometer should be in hot water
  6. record starting temperature of water and start stopwatch
  7. record temperature of water every 3mins for 15mins
  8. repeat experiment using same volume of hot water, using an insulating material to fill gap between two beakers
• I/V characteristics of components

  1. Make circuit: use voltmeter to read p.d across the resistor
  2. use ammeter to read current through the resistor
  3. record values in a table
  4. adjust variable resistor and record new readings on voltmeter and ammeter, repeat step 1-3 several times
  5. switch direction of battery to reverse direction of potential difference
  6. voltmeter and ammeter should have negative values
  7. continue taking several readings of p.d and current
  8. plot an IV graph: should be straight line passing 0 as they are directly proportional to each other
  9. Replace resistor for any other component
• Resistance

  1. attach wire to metre ruler using tape
  2. connect wire to rest of circuit using crocodile clips
  3. move crocodile clips further apart to increase length of wire in the circuit, measure resistance in the circuit
  4. plot graph: resistance is directly proportional to length of wire