IB Physics HL Internal Assessment Example

The student states a focused, measurable research question with clear independent and dependent variables.

The student places the investigation in a specific fluid-dynamics context and connects it to cavity collapse and jet formation.

The student justifies many of their design choices with reasons linked to the physics of the system and the need for repeatable data.

Some important operational details are still missing, so another person could not fully reproduce the investigation without guessing.

A few methodological choices, such as the oil application and release geometry, need tighter standardization.

The student's description of the data-collection process would be stronger if they defined thresholds and alignment procedures more precisely.

The student organizes the raw data clearly and shows repeated trials at each velocity, which makes the dataset usable for analysis.

The student calculates means and transforms the data in a way that reflects the measured impact velocities rather than idealized targets.

The student makes a genuine effort to address uncertainty through repeat ranges, parallax estimates, and discussion of measurement limits.

Some equations and uncertainty expressions contain errors or are written unclearly, which weakens confidence in the processing.

The student's uncertainty treatment is not fully consistent across the dataset, and some key sources of uncertainty are not propagated cleanly.

The modeling choices are not always justified strongly enough, especially where curvature remains and points are excluded.