Internal Assessment (project, practical and portfolio)
What is tested
Internal Assessment rewards sustained work rather than one test: a mathematics project, the practical or activity file, and a portfolio of class work, together with a viva. Marks come from evidence you can show - planning, mathematical accuracy, neat presentation, and your ability to explain your own reasoning.
What each component should contain
- Project: title and aim, short introduction naming the mathematics used, method, observation or data tables, analysis, conclusion, bibliography. It must sit inside the syllabus - relations, inverse trigonometric graphs, matrices, derivatives, integrals, linear programming, probability.
- Practical/activity file: each activity needs an objective, materials, procedure, observation table and conclusion, with every figure labelled.
- Portfolio: dated class work, homework, quizzes and corrected errors, showing progress across the session.
- Viva: be ready to justify each step, not only quote the final answer.
Worked example (project skeleton)
Aim: to verify graphically that y = sin⁻¹x is the reflection of y = sin x in the line y = x. Method: plot y = sin x for x in [−π/2, π/2], interchange coordinates to plot the inverse, and draw y = x. Observation table: (0,0), (π/6, 1/2), (π/2, 1). Conclusion: each point (a,b) on the sine graph corresponds to (b,a) on the inverse graph, so the curves are mirror images about y = x.
Marks-losing traps
Submitting a copied project you cannot defend in the viva; missing observation tables or conclusions; unlabelled axes and diagrams; leaving the file until the final week; ignoring the rubric your school issues for the current session.