IB Physics SL Internal Assessment Example

The student framed a focused and testable question with a clear physics context.

The student connected the investigation to Stokes’ law and an Arrhenius-type relationship, which gives the study a clear scientific rationale.

The student described enough of the procedure and controls that another student could broadly follow the investigation.

Some important design assumptions were not addressed, especially terminal velocity, low Reynolds number conditions, and wall effects.

The method needs more precise operational detail for temperature control, release conditions, and the container geometry.

A few presentation inconsistencies make the design less fully reproducible than it could be.

The student's raw data and processed data are organised in a way that is generally easy to follow.

The student attempts uncertainty propagation through several derived quantities instead of only reporting final values.

The student shows the full chain from measured time to velocity, viscosity, and the linearised temperature relationship.

Some uncertainty choices are not well justified, especially the treatment of timing and repeated-trial variation.

There are presentation and notation issues that make parts of the processing harder to verify cleanly.

The reliability of the calculated values is weakened by likely violations of the assumptions behind the model, especially the low-Reynolds-number condition.