PRECAUTIONARY STEPS FOR INVESTIGATIVE EXPERIMENTS

No. Type of experiment Precautions that can be taken

involving;
1 Light a. Experiment must be carried out in darkened
room.
b. Lens, screen and object must be in line
c. Avoid parallax error by placing the eye
perpendicular to the scale of the ruler.

2 Spring a. Make sure the spring is not loaded beyond

the elastic limit. (spring return to original
length when load is taken off).
b. Avoid parallax error by placing the eye
perpendicular to the scale of the ruler.

3 Electric a. All connections must be secure/tight.

b. Off the switch after readings are taken to
prevent wires from heating up (resistance
increase)
c. Avoid parallax error by placing the eye
perpendicular to the scale of the ammeter/
voltmeter.

4. Heat a. Liquid must be stirred constantly so that

temperature rises evenly.
b. Alluminium block must be wrapped with
insulating material to prevent heat lost.
c. Thermometer bulb should be smeared with
oil to give better thermal contact with the
block.
d. Avoid parallax error by placing the eye
perpendicular to the scale of the
thermometer.

5. Sound wave inteference a. Experiment must carry out at open space to

avoid echo

6. Ticker tape (Chapter 2) a. Switch on the power supply and release the
trolley. Cannot push the trolley

For all the experiment, students can also use;

1. Repeat the experiment 4 times and calculate the average
2. Take into account zero error
3. Use magnifying glass when reading the scale of measurement

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