Name...............................

Group..................

A.Q.A. G.C.S.E.
SCIENCE A
Revision Book
1
PHYSICS
 WEB SITES TO TRY

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/aqa/

Really good for revision summary notes and interactive activities

along with end of section tests. This section is specially for your
exam board so you need to know it all.

http://www.s-cool.co.uk/gcse/physics

Similar to bitesize but covers other exam boards as well as AQA so

you might find things that you don’t need included here.

http://www.gcsescience.com/gcse-physics-revision.htm

like s-cool this is designed for all exam boards so might have extras
but quizzes are good.

http://www.my-gcsescience.com/Core_Science_HIU3.html

I’ve not investigated all of this but it looks like a good set of video
lessons and notes. The lessons are a bit slow and cover higher as well
as foundation work.

DON’T FORGET TO USE YOUR EXERCISE BOOK AND ANY

REVISION BOOKS THAT YOU HAVE TOO!
P1.1.1 INFRARED RADIATION

Infra red radiation is sometimes just called heat. It is very

similar to light. In this section you need to know:-

 All objects emit (send out) and absorb (soak up) infra red
radiation.
 The hotter an object is the more infra red radiation it
radiates each minute.
Some cameras detect infra red
rather than ordinary light. More
infra red is being emitted from the
hotter, right hand side of this house
where there is a cannabis farm.
Infra red picture of a cannabis farm

 Dark matt surfaces are good absorbers and good emitters

of infra red
 Light shiny surfaces are poor emitters and poor absorbers
of infra red radiation but good at reflecting it.

This light coloured, shiny suit is a

poor absorber of infra red
radiation. It reflects the infra red
away so the fire fighter stays cool.

This radiator would emit more infra red radiation

if it was painted with matt black paint rather than
white.

Remember infra red radiation doesn’t need particles to travel.

It can go through a vacuum – empty space.
1.1.2 KINETIC THEORY

Kinetic theory is just the idea that everything is made from tiny
particles. You can use the particle idea to explain how things
heat up and cool down.

 Use kinetic theory to explain the different states of

matter.
 Particles of solids liquids and gases have different amounts
of energy.
Particles of solids have the least
energy. They only jiggle.
Particles of liquids have more
energy than in solids. They can
move around each other. Particles
of gases have the most energy.
solid liquid gas
They move very fast.

1.1.3 ENERGY TRANSFER BY HEATING

This section uses kinetic theory to explain how energy is

transferred from one place to another.
 Transfer of energy by conduction involves the particles of
solids.
Some materials are insulators like plastic. They do not
transfer energy easily. When the partcles are heated
they get MORE energy and vibrate MORE. They
collide with their neighbours and pass some energy on.
Metals are conductors. They transfer energy easily.
The heated particles get MORE energy and vibrate
MORE just like the plastic but metals have free
electrons that transfer the energy too.
  Transfer of energy by convection involves the particles of
liquids and gases.

A. Energy transferred to the

C
C water particles makes them move
B D faster and spread out.
D
B. This water is less dense than
A the cooler water around it so it
floats up.
C. energy is passed on to other
particles so original particles move
slower and closer together.
D. This water is now more dense than the water around it so it
sinks down.
This circulation of water is a convection current. It happens in
gases like the air too.
Match the statements to the numbers on the diagram
Other particles now collide
A CONVECTION CURRENT
with the warmer water
 particles as they rise and
absorb some of their energy to
Spreading out makes the
water particles less densely
 packed so they float up
through the colder water
above them.
Colliding means the original
hot particles have lost energy
so they move slower and

 closer together.

 Meanwhile the surrounding

water particles moving in to
collect some energy from the
bunsen themselves

 The more densely packed

particles now sink down.

 Particles in the water absorb

energy from Bunsen. They use
HEAT the energy to move faster and
spread out.
If you have carefully revised the work so far you should be able
to have a go at an exam question. Try this one.
  Evaporation and condensation can transfer energy too.

Evaporation. – Particles at the

surface of a liquid absorb enough
energy to escape into a gas. They
carry the energy away with them
so the liquid cools down. Just like
when you sweat.

Condensation – this is the opposite of evaporation. Particles of

a gas lose enough energy to turn into a liquid. Just like a
steamed up mirror in the bathroom.
 The factors that affect the rate of evaporation and
condensation.

How quickly something evaporates or condenses depends on

several things.
1. Temperature. The hotter the liquid the faster it evaporates
because the particles of the liquid have enough energy to
escape.
2.Air Flow. The faster the air flow over the liquid the faster it
evaporates. The air blows away the evaporated particles and
makes room for more.
3.Surface area. The bigger the surface of the liquid the
quicker it evaporates. The bigger the surface the more
particles can evaporate at the same time.
4.Dryness of the atmosphere. The drier the air the faster the
evaporation. There is room for more liquid particles in the air
when it is dry.
Think about drying some washing to help you remember what
makes a difference.
Have a go at this exam question to see if you can use what you
have revised about evaporation. Don’t be confused by the word
model. It just means how do the marbles behave like the
particles in a liquid.
  Using energy transfer ideas to explain everyday situations.

The vacuum flask.

Flask is made of insulators like glass and
plastic so conduction cannot happen easily.

Glass walls are silvered because silver is a

poor emitter of infra red radiation. The
infra red is reflected back into the hot
liquid.
The vacuum between the glass walls has no particles so
conduction and convection cannot carry energy away.
The stopper traps the air above the liquid. This stops
evaporation and convection carrying energy away.
Cooling fins.
When you want something to stay cool e.g.
the inside of a computer or a motor bike
engine you can use cooling fins. The fins are
made from a conductor like copper so they can conduct heat
away from the device. Heat can then be emitted from the fins
by radiation and carried away by convection. The fins have a big
area so heat can be lost quickly.

Animal adaptations.
Animals can be adapted to live in hot climates.
E.g. Ears with a big surface area used for cooling
like cooling fins. Rabbits found in colder places
have smaller ears!
Draw some particle diagrams and label them to show that you
can remember what happens in evaporation and condensation.
What makes evaporation go faster?

Add some labels and notes to the diagrams below to show how
they are used to keep things cool or hot. Remember to use the
key words (in italic writing in the notes).

Now see if you can apply what you have learned.

 1.1.4 HEATING AND INSULATING BUILDINGS

This section is about keeping our homes warm but saving energy
too.
 U values measure how effective a material is as an
insulator.
 Lower U values mean better insulators.
All you need to know here is that materials that we use to build
houses are given a number called a U-value. The smaller the
number the better the material is at insulating- keeping heat in.
Wall type U-value
Ordinary brick wall 2.0
Modern filled cavity wall 0.3

Cavity wall insulation Loft insulation Double glazing

All the above energy saving ideas have low U-values.

They all work in the same way. The insulating material stops
heat being conducted through the wall window or roof by
conduction.
The material contains trapped air which cannot move about
enough to transfer energy by convection either.
If you want to keep toasty on a really cold day these types of
insulation are vital because the warmer it is inside compared
with outside the faster energy is transferred.
  Compare the cost effectiveness of energy saving devices
The idea of pay-back time is useful here.
For example- If it costs you £1000 to put double glazing in
your house and you save £50 on your heating costs each year it
would take you 20 years to get your money back. This is the
pay-back time.
To work out pay-back time divide the cost of installation (cost
to put it in) by the saving each year.
1000 divided by 50 = 20 years
Loft insulation might cost £200 and save you £60 a year. Work
out the pay-back time for the loft insulation.
.....................................................................
Is loft insulation more cost effective than double glazing? How
can you tell?
  Specific heat capacity

You need to learn this off by heart:-

The specific heat capacity of a substance is the amount of

energy required to change the temperature of one kilogram
of the substance by one degree Celsius.

It just tells you how difficult it is to heat something up.

Water needs a lot of energy to heat it up so it has a high
specific heat capacity. Cooking oil needs less energy to heat it
up so it has a lower specific heat capacity.

MacDonald’s tell you to take care with their

apple pies. The filling has a high specific heat
capacity so it absorbs more energy than the
pastry when they are both heated to oven
temperature. The filling can burn your mouth.

You can work out how much energy you need to add to heat
something up using an equation.

Energy = mass x specific heat capacity x temperature change

It’s easier to write it in letters

E = m x c x 

m= mass in kg c = specific heat capacity in J/kgC

 = temperature change in C
This equation is on the exam paper.
YOU DON’T NEED TO REMEMBER IT- JUST BE ABLE TO USE IT
1.2.1 ENERGY TRANSFERS AND EFFICIENCY

This section is about the different types of energy and how it

can be transferred from one type to another.
 Energy can be transferred usefully, stored or dissipated
but cannot be created or destroyed.
We can give energy different names depending on what it is
doing.
Kinetic (movement) Heat

Light Sound

Electrical Nuclear

Chemical (stored in things like food, Elastic potential (stored in

fuel, batteries) stretched or squashed things)
gravitational potential (stored in things that are lifted up),

Always remember THE ENERGY THAT GOES IN HAS TO

COME OUT IT you cannot create any more or destroy any of it.
It might look as if it has ‘disappeared’ when it goes into heating
something up like the parts of the machine or the air around it.
Try writing an energy transfer chain for the following to
practice what you have revised.

1. Light bulb
2. Car travelling along a road.
3. A roller coaster going up the first slope and down the
other side.
4. An iPod playing music.
  When energy is transferred only part of it is useful, the
rest is wasted.
 Wasted energy becomes increasingly spread out and so
becomes less useful.

To show energy transfers we can draw Sankey diagrams. These

can be just a sketch or drawn to scale on graph paper.

Remember the useful energy always shown going to the right.

The wasted energy always goes down.

The WIDTH of the arrow has to be the right size. The length
of each arrow is not important.

Have a go at drawing a sankey diagram on graph paper yourself.

Use the example above to remind you.

Professor Bean is testing a new high efficiency car engine. He

finds that for every 100J of energy supplied to the engine

 75J are transformed into kinetic energy in the moving car,

 5J are wasted as sound
 The rest is turned into heat. (How many joules will that be?)

On graph paper draw an energy transformation diagram (Sankey

diagram) to scale to illustrate his results.
  Calculating the efficiency of a device.

Efficiency is just a science word for how good something is at

transferring the right sort of energy.
A light bulb is efficient if it makes most of the electricity you
put in into light rather than wasting it making heat.
The best way to write down the efficiency of something is as a
number. To work the number out we use an equation.
Efficiency = useful energy out Means divide by
Total energy in
This equation is on the exam paper.
YOU DON’T NEED TO REMEMBER IT- JUST BE ABLE TO USE IT

For example, what is the efficiency of a light bulb that wastes

50J of the 150J of electrical energy put into it?
Always use the four steps to success!

1. Write out equation in words Eff = useful out

Total in
50J was the wasted so the
2. Put in numbers Eff = 100J useful must be what’s left of
150J the 150J put in which is 100J

3. Work out on calculator Eff = 0.67

4. Remember efficiency doesn’t have any letters after the number (units)

You could work out a percentage efficiency instead using

Efficiency = useful energy out x 100%

X 100%
Total energy in
Do the ‘divide by’ first then
times the answer by 100
Time for some more exam type questions.
1.3.1 TRANSFERRING ELECTRICAL ENERGY

 The amount of energy an appliance transfers depends how

long it is switched on for and its power.
The power of an electrical appliance like a microwave oven or a
toaster tells you how much energy it uses in 1 second.
For example an energy efficient light bulb
might have a power of 13W. W is short for
Watts. This means that the bulb uses 13J of
energy every second. Let’s imagine that the
light is on for 1 minute and we want to know
how much energy the lamp will use in that time.
We can use common sense,
1 hour is 60 seconds and the lamp uses 13 J every second
so all together it must use 60 lots of 13 = 60 x 13 = 780J
We can write this idea as an equation instead;

E=Pxt

E = energy in Joules (J) P= power in watts (W)

T= time switched on for in seconds (s)
This equation is on the exam paper.
YOU DON’T NEED TO REMEMBER IT- JUST BE ABLE TO USE IT

How much energy would a 1200W iron need to run for 2hours?
(That’s 7200 seconds)

Did you get E = 8640000J Well done!

  Calculating the cost of mains electricity
As you can see for the iron example the energy equation has a
problem when we use it for electricity at home the number of
Joules starts to get huge!
To get round the problem we don’t use Watts, Joules and
seconds we use some different units.
SAME FORMULA, DIFFERENT UNITS
E=Pxt
E = energy in Kilowatt-hours (kWh) P= power in kilowatts (kW)
T= time switched on for in hours (h)
So we can work out the iron problem again
How much energy would a 1200W iron need to run for 2hours?
First we need to find out how many kW 1200W is
W  kW you divide by 1000
so 1200W = 1200 divided by 1000 = 1.2kW
Now use the equation.
E=Pxt
E = 1.2kW x 2h
E= 2.4kWh
The cost of the electricity is easy to find now because you pay
for each kWh (also called Units of electricity) that you use.
If the electricity supply company is charging 10p for each kWh
then the iron will cost,
2.4kWh x 10p = 24p to run for two hours
The table shows the power for things you might have at home.
1. Choose 5 of them
2. Decide how long you might have them switched on for.
3. Use the equation to work out how much electrical energy they
use. (Remember to write down the four steps to success with
each calculation).
4. If electricity costs 13p for each kWh how much does it cost
to run each appliance for the time you chose?

For example:-
Immersion heater (heats up water) power = 3000W = 3kW
Switched on for 30 minutes = 0.5 hours
E=Pxt
E = 3 x 0.5
E= 1.5kWh
Cost = 1.5 x 13p = 19.5p
 You can use this to work out your electricity bill

Electricity Bill June 2012

The readings are in Units

(otherwise known as kWh)

The reading has gone up from 7711 to 8459 so that’s

8459 – 7711 = 748 kWh of electricity used in June.
Each Unit (kWh) costs 9.2p and we’ve used 748 so
Total cost = 748kWh x 9.2p = 6881.6p or more sensibly £68.82