Supervisions: Work to Do

Instructions

Work to Do: Michaelmas Term 2024

I plan to update this table on Tuesday evenings.

Date of SupervisionWork for IA Nat. Sci. MathsWork for IB Physics AWork for IB Physics B
(Course A)(Course B)
14th-19th OctoberNo work set. (But bring with you any questions you have from the online preparation that you did.)No supervision this week.
21st-26th OctoberAll questions from sections A and B on the question sheet, except that you may omit A1 and A3 if you like.Questions A1, A3, A4, A5, A7, A8, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, B8, B10, B11, and B13.Questions 1-7, omitting 6(b).Questions 1-6.
28th October - 2nd NovemberSections C, D, and E.C1(iv), {C3(ii) or X2}*, C4, C5(i, ii, iii), C7, C9, C10, C12, D1, D2, E2, E3, E4, F1(b, e, g, h).Questions 8-15, omitting 10.Questions 7-12.
4th-9th NovemberQuestions 1-13 from section F. If you are already good at complex numbers, omit question 1 completely, and only do parts (b), (d), (f), (h) and (j) from question 2.{F3(c,d) or X4}*, F4(c), {F5(c) or X7}, F6, F7(b,d,e,f,g,h,i,k), F8, F10, F11, F13(b), F14(e), F15(d), F17, F18(c,e), F19, G1, G3(b,e), G4, H1(e,f,h), H2(a,c,e), H3.Questions 16-18 from experimental methods and 1-4 from the OWO course.Questions 13-18.
11th-16th NovemberF14-15, all of section G, and H1-7, optionally omitting H1(b,d,f,h), H2(b,d,f,h), and H5(d).{H4 or X9}*, H5, I1, J1, K1, K2, L1, L2.Questions 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, and 11.Questions 19-24.
18th-23rd NovemberH8 to H15.M1, M2, M3, N1, N2, N4, O1, {P1(d,g) or X11}*, P2(c,d,e), P3(b), P4.Questions 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.Questions 25-30.
25th-30th NovemberH16, H17, all of section I, J1, J2.{P5(d) or X17}*,{P5(g) or X18}*, P6(all), P7, P9, P10, P12, P15, Q1, Q2, Q4, Q6.Questions 17-22.Questions 31-37.
2nd-7th DecemberThe rest of section J, and questions 1 and 2 from section K.P14, Q8, Q9, {R1 or X23}*, R2, R3, R4, R5, R7, R8, R9. (If you do X23, the starred parts are optional.)Questions 23-29, omitting (a) and (d) from question 24 (unless you are very keen to do them).Questions 38-44.

General notes

Where to find the questions

Computational questions in IB Physics A

These questions are just as important as the algebraic ones. You need to be able to set up computational models. Furthermore, these questions illustrate important physics. If you don't like MATLAB, use a different language, such as Python. Many of the questions can even be done with just a spreadsheet given a bit of determination.

I only need to see the output graphs and your comments. If possible, submit this all on paper with the rest of your work. If your college's printing facilities aren't working, you can e-mail the graphs to me instead, naming the files with a name that includes your crsid.

I don't need to see your code if it works. If you can't get it to do anything at all, and it's in Python, you can send it to me by e-mail, along with any error messages you're getting, and I'll try to work out what's wrong with it. I'm not debugging languages other than Python; if you use them, you'll have to fix the problems yourself.

What I will mark

Re-arranging supervisions

I'm happy to re-arrange supervisions for almost any reason, providing that I have a week's notice. This means that you need to talk to me about it in the previous supervision (i.e. the supervision before the one that you want to rearrange), when all of the affected people are in the same place.

There's no need to read the rest of this section unless you are looking to re-arrange a supervision with less than a week's notice.

Sometimes students ask me to re-arrange their supervisions by e-mail, giving me less than a week's notice. The trouble with this is that it requires a number of e-mails to establish a possible alternative time that all three or four people affected can make, and for me to book a room. This series of e-mails usually takes a few days, by which point some possible rearranged times have already been and gone, and during which I have to allow not only for my regular timetable and the time of the rearranged supervision, but also for a number of hypothetical timetables based on rearrangements that might never happen. This is inconvenient, and if several students are asking for such rearrangements at once, can become impossible. And I don't think it fair to provide a flexibility to some students that I can't give to everyone. Furthermore, I consider that providing a reasonable amount of notice for rearranging supervisions is a basic level of professionalism with regard to their academic commitments that can reasonably be expected of students. Therefore I shall not re-arrange any supervision with less than a week's notice except for academic or health reasons.