IB Physics SL Internal Assessment Example

The student's research question is focused, specific, and clearly tied to the physics they are investigating.

The student establishes a relevant theoretical basis for the investigation and connects frequency, wavelength, spacing, and the speed of sound.

The student's method includes enough detail to show careful planning, including controlled variables, repeated trials, and a defined measurement procedure.

The student's diagrams and apparatus descriptions help the investigation feel purposeful and well organized.

Some practical details are still not fully precise, especially how peaks were identified and how the sound source coherence was confirmed.

The rationale for the chosen measurement range and geometry could be explained more fully to show why they were sufficient for the investigation.

A predicted graph shape or stronger justification of the expected relationship would make the design even more scientific.

The student communicates the data processing in a generally clear way, including example calculations and a logical transformation from decibels to linear intensity.

The student makes an appropriate attempt to address uncertainty through repeated measurements, uncertainty bars, and propagated uncertainty in the final result.

The student's processed tables and graphs make the analytical pathway understandable and show a serious attempt to handle the raw data systematically.

The student includes enough working to allow the reader to see how the final trend was obtained.

The precision of some processing steps is reduced by inconsistencies in uncertainty values and incomplete reporting of standard deviations.

The method used to identify peaks and extract final spacing values is not fully reproducible and relies too much on visual estimation.

There is a significant issue in how the interference features are interpreted, since some minima are treated as maxima.

The fitting procedure and gradient uncertainty need to be explained more clearly so the final trend can be trusted more confidently.