Astrophysics (2 Viewers)

[RealiseNothing]

Was I the only one who thought it was much harder than previous years?

 

[yasminee96]

It was so strange. The last question... Pretty much had no idea how observing light is related to mass . Also, if you didn't memorise spectral and luminosity classes, you would've been screwed. Part D wasn't bad and hardly required knowledge, but was moreover skills. Part (a) was good. Not sure how HR diagram was supposed to look.

But idk... I reckon with lots of practice it would have been easy to do. But I guess considering astro usually has very long responses and pretty much always needs many rote learned responses, it was strange.

 

[cyradis]

I also thought it was much more difficult then past papers! could not work out how to measure mass or luminosity! mindblank...

 

[JohnMaximus]

Last question was worded in a way that didn't express what they want as simply as is usual- similar to the I2I question.

Where in previous years they would just ask- How do you get this from spectroscopy, they made the question somewhat more difficult for international students- "analysis of light".

In I2I they usually ask- how have transistors impacted society. This time they expected students to connect the dots from changing properties to doping to transistors.


In general they were a lot more picky than usual, looking for a more detailed/precise knowledge than the usual broad/bludgeable questions they ask.
Physics aligns fairly different each year in the past few, it'll be interesting to see what it aligns like this time.


Tbqh I'm impressed.

 

[gwilymprice]

Yeah defs harder than normal, optional topics get aligned differently don't they so they can be compared to other options?

 

[ocatal]

How does astrophysics compare to other options, in terms of scaling/aligning?

 

[RealiseNothing]

How does astrophysics compare to other options, in terms of scaling/aligning?

In 2011 or 2012 (can't remember which year it was I saw) it scaled up a bit by like 1 mark.

 

[lej01]

So many of the astro questions were based on section 6 this year... the only part that my class did not go through.

 

[JJ345]

In 2011 or 2012 (can't remember which year it was I saw) it scaled up a bit by like 1 mark.

I hope it scales much more than that this year
I didn't even know what to talk about for the last 6 marker-Had to read the question several times then just went on about spectroscopy/photometry/ HR-diagram

 

[yasminee96]

I hope it scales much more than that this year
I didn't even know what to talk about for the last 6 marker-Had to read the question several times then just went on about spectroscopy/photometry/ HR-diagram

I talked about that as well
hey i might've done something right yay!

 

[LilyYum]

For mass I talked about binary stars. That was the only thing I could think of

 

[yasminee96]

For mass I talked about binary stars. That was the only thing I could think of

Same hahaha bsd so hard

 

[ate8]

Yeah I talked about spectroscopy as well, mentioned a bit of photometry in there (hopefully enough to get some pity marks). Regret not drawing a HR diagram and showing the mass luminosity relationship.