The required practicals side by side

Ten practicals, one table

Each practical has its own lesson in its topic unit.

This table puts them side by side for revision.

Practical	Key measurement	Main source of error	Fix
Specific heat capacity	Temperature rise of a block and energy supplied (joulemeter, or P × t)	Energy lost to the surroundings	Insulate the block; oil in the thermometer hole
Thermal insulation (Physics only)	Temperature of cooling water at regular times	Different lids, volumes or start temperatures	Same volume, start temperature and lid each time
Resistance of a wire	p.d. and current for each length of wire	Wire heats up, so its resistance rises	Small current; switch off between readings
I-V characteristics	Current for a range of p.d.s, both directions	Too few readings where the graph bends	More readings, closer together, near the bend
Density	Mass on a balance; volume by measuring or displacement	Parallax at the meniscus; splashes	Eye level with the bottom of the meniscus; lower gently
Force and extension	Extension of a spring for each weight added	Parallax when reading the ruler	Pointer on the spring; eye level with it
Acceleration	Acceleration of a trolley for different forces or masses (light gates)	Friction; timing by hand	Tilt the runway to cancel friction; light gates
Waves	Frequency and wavelength in a ripple tank and on a string	Waves move too fast to measure by eye	Stroboscope or photo; measure across many waves
Light (Physics only)	Angles of reflection and refraction against the normal	A wide ray is hard to mark	Narrow slit; two dots far apart along each ray
Infrared radiation	Radiation from each face of a hot cube (Leslie cube)	Detector at different distances	Same measured distance from each face

Edexcel calls these core practicals and OCR groups them in practical activity groups (PAGs). The skills are the same; the exact list differs by board.