Tables & Graphs in Science exams (1 Viewer)

[Jolteon]

Hey so my AT3s are next week and according to my past science exams, it seems like I can never get more than 2-3/5 marks for tables and graphs in science questions.
Can someone clarify how to draw them and what to label because it seems like these skill-based questions are always dragging me down.
I'm doing chemistry only right now.

Any tips would be extremely helpful too, thanks

 

[polskicygan]

1. Always make sure you draw up a table or graph in pencil (2B is probably better because if you make a mistake its easier to rub out)
2. Always draw straight lines with a ruler
3. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I think the correct way to draw a table is to always have the independent variable 'first' - at least that's what I was told by my teacher. In a vertical table where your data is going down, the ind. variable should be on the left. In a horizontal table where your data is moving from left to right (or across), the ind. variable should be on top. See the picture so you get what I'm talking about.



4. Try to plan drawing the table so you can minimise the amount of rows or columns you have and make it less confusing.
5. Also remember that sometimes its impossible to fit everything into one table if you have a lot of data. You may have to separate data into multiple tables or risk losing marks for a single unintuitive table that just crammed everything into it.

Hope that helps!

 

[Queenroot]

Graphs:

- From the the table make sure the values are averaged before you plot them (unless only 1 trial)
- Indep. variable on X axis and dep. variable on Y axis
- Title, label axis X & Y with appropriate units in brackets
- make sure the scale you are using goes up in equal intervals unless it's exponential or something
- do a little squiggly line if the first number up on ur scale from 0 is not "1"
- Line of best fit/curve of best fit, leave out outliers