Year 10 - Science
Measuring the resistance of a filament lamp
Circuit components
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit explores current, resistance, and potential difference. It covers circuit design for lamps, diodes, and thermistors, and emphasises planning experiments, data interpretation, and presenting scientific conclusions.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to find the resistance of a filament lamp by measuring the current and p.d. for a suitable range of p.d.
Key Notes
- An appropriate range of p.d. values includes 0 V and the maximum p.d. of the lamp and at least four other readings.
- For electricity investigations, it is good practice to take many more than the minimum number of measurements.
- After plotting a graph, extra readings could be taken to fill gaps or to check possible errors.
- Plots that lie off the best fit line are possible errors that need to be checked.
- The resistance of a filament lamp is calculated from an I–V graph using pairs of readings and the equation R = V ÷ I.
Vocabulary To Learn
- filament lamp: a type of lamp that uses a hot wire to emit light
- variable resistor: a resistor that can be easily changed to any value in its range
- range: the minimum to maximum possible values in an experiment
- repeat reading: when a measurement is taken again to improve the experiment
- best fit line: a line that shows the underlying trend of a set of results on a graph, it can be straight or curved
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- The terms current, voltage, resistance, energy and power, together with the properties of each, are often mixed up.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the scientific idea in this lesson using two key points.
An appropriate range of p.d. values includes 0 V and the maximum p.d. of the lamp and at least four other readings. For electricity investigations, it is good practice to take many more than the minimum number of measurements.
2. Define this scientific word and use it in context. 'filament lamp'
a type of lamp that uses a hot wire to emit light. Include the word in a full scientific explanation, not as a single label.
3. Correct this common scientific misunderstanding.
Mistake: The terms current, voltage, resistance, energy and power, together with the properties of each, are often mixed up. Correction: As each term is introduced during this lesson, spend a few moments checking pupils' understanding.
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