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Physics IA: large amounts of error


ibislord45

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Hey Guys,

 

So I decided to start with my Physics IA and I did my experiment today. There is just one problem: I have to calculate the speed of an object after it is given some acceleration, and to do that, I am measuring the time taken by the object to travel a fixed distance of 1 m. 

 

The values for the time I am measuring have an approximate 40% error. This is huge, and I am guessing is caused by the small time interval (<1 s) the object takes to travel that distance of 1 m.

 

Should I go ahead with my IA, despite the huge inaccuracy (which will get propagated as I do further manipulation of the data) or should I look for another IA topic, one without this limitation?

 

Thanks,

ibislord.

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sorry bro, its been accessed by my teacher but not moderated by ib yet so i cant give it to you (cant risk plagiarism) 

i just gave my view on the assumption that labs with big errors wont get a good score, but in truth you can actually talk a lot about your results through anomalies and more in your evaluation... so large errors are good in a way (you can even link it with your personal connection which is what the new syllabus is all about)

if you're looking for examples, im pretty sure ibo has some exemplar ia's

however, i would gladly help with any problems you might have

Edited by kfernando1
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Quote from a teacher in my school about lab experiments: "In the IB, if your results are too accurate, then make them up in order to have around 10~20% error, else you won't have anything to evaluate". He's been teaching IB biology for more than 40 years, he just retired this year. Honestly, data collection matters to an extent of how you present it. Sometimes it helps to have more accurate data, in order to prove that your own setup of the experiment worked (they do account for how effective your setup is, based on the possible random errors and your thought of them, but then again, you'll get some points out of this if you acknowledge them in the evaluation. As in philosophy: the best way to present an argument is to make it as solid as possible and still acknowledge its objections. Such critical analysis helps your score go through the roof). But such trivial things such as a fixed distance travelled, although they might not make you lose marks, your teacher will be apprehensive regarding your lab procedure. And you can easily change that variable and even acknowledge how your former setup was not accurate enough.

 

In IB sciences, acknowledging the flaws on your procedure will give you a lot of marks. Just make sure you don't add ridiculous things such as including air resistance if you're dropping a ball from a 4 meter high place, because sometimes such "errors" are considered negligible. And also remember, if there's something in your procedure you can easily change within the time you're doing your experiment, do so. You also don't want a lot of random error happening, because it'll make your life at evaluating harder.

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