Practical/internal assessment component
This domain covers the school-conducted part of the qualification - practical record or file, experiment performance, viva voce, project work, and the internal assessment marks your school forwards to UPMSP. These marks are earned across the session, not in the three-hour theory paper, and they reward consistency and honesty about what you actually did.
What the record must contain
- Aim, apparatus or materials, procedure in numbered steps, observation table, calculation, result, and precautions.
- Observation tables with every column headed by quantity and unit, readings at the precision the instrument allows, and no blank cells.
- Dated entries, teacher's signature column, and corrections made with a single line rather than overwriting.
Viva technique
Answer in one sentence first, then add the reason only if asked. Examiners probe why a step is performed, not just what it is.
Project work
Title, objective, method, data or observations, analysis, conclusion, and a short bibliography. Original data, however modest, outranks copied pages.
Worked example
Viva question: "Why is the apparatus rinsed with the solution before use?" Weak answer: "Because we were told to." Strong answer: "Rinsing with the solution removes water droplets that would dilute it and change the concentration, so the reading would be lower than the true value." The reasoning: the examiner is testing a cause-and-effect explanation, and the second answer supplies both the cause and its consequence for the result.
Traps that cost marks
A file copied in one handwriting; missing signatures, dates or units; observations that do not match the calculation shown; a project with no conclusion; and bluffing in the viva instead of saying plainly what you observed.