National 4 Physics

N4 Physics is intended to provide a coherent progression leading to a deeper understanding of a wide range of Physical issues. The Physics Course enables learners to develop the ability to solve problems and establish relationships in physics by acquiring a broad knowledge base and practical skills.

To achieve a National 3/4 award in Physics pupils must pass all of the required units and the added value unit. There is no final exam and the course is not graded.

Internal Assessment

All Units are internally assessed against the requirements shown in the Unit Specification. They will be assessed on a pass/fail basis.

The assessment of the Units in this Course will be as follows:

N4 Physics is split into 3 units that builds on Knowledge gained from S1-3:

Dynamics and Space: This unit covers how we actually make different types of measurements such as vectors and scalars, velocity and acceleration, Newton’s laws, projectile motions, space travel and observations and cosmology.

Electricity and Energy: This looks further at fossil fuels and renewable energies, the generation and distribution of electricity to society, the construction of different types of electrical circuits to carry out simple and complex tasks, heat, pressure and how gas particles around us behave in everyday situations.

Waves and radiation: This unit develops understanding of wave characteristics and behaviours, how we use the electromagnetic spectrum and light through refraction and reflections, nuclear radiation and nuclear reactions and how the world around us has been affected through use of nuclear reactions.

All course work is marked internally for N4. This includes:

End of unit test (NAR): This assesses both knowledge and problem solving skills.

Practical Investigation: Pupils will carry out a practical experiment and write a full experimental report of their results.

Added Value Unit: This is a larger research topic. Pupils will choose a topic that links to one of the units above. They will then research this topic of their choice and write a report on it.