SPSC Subject Specialist flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Newton's second law

The net force on a body equals its mass times its acceleration (F = ma); one newton accelerates one kilogram at one metre per second squared.

Quadratic formula

For any equation ax² + bx + c = 0 with a not equal to zero, the roots are x = (−b ± √(b² − 4ac)) ÷ 2a.

Photosynthesis equation

6CO₂ + 6H₂O + light energy → C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂; chlorophyll inside chloroplasts captures the light energy used to build glucose.

Ohm's law

At constant temperature, the current through a conductor is directly proportional to the voltage across it, so V = IR.

DNA base pairing

Adenine pairs with thymine by two hydrogen bonds and guanine pairs with cytosine by three, keeping the two DNA strands complementary.

Mole concept

One mole contains 6.022 × 10²³ particles, and the mass of one mole in grams equals the substance's relative molecular mass.

Mass versus weight

Mass is the amount of matter, measured in kilograms and unchanged by location; weight is the gravitational force, W = mg, measured in newtons.

pH scale

pH = −log₁₀[H⁺]; values below 7 are acidic, 7 is neutral and values above 7 are basic when measured at 25 °C.

Bloom's revised taxonomy

Six cognitive levels from lower to higher order: Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate and Create; used to frame measurable learning objectives.

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a learner can do alone and what the learner can achieve with guidance from a more capable person.

Formative assessment

Ongoing checks during teaching, such as quizzes or questioning, that give feedback and let the teacher adjust instruction before the unit ends.

Concrete operational stage

Piaget's third stage, roughly ages 7 to 11, when children master conservation, classification and reversibility but still need concrete objects.

Scaffolding

Temporary support such as models, prompts or worked examples that lets a learner finish a task, gradually removed as the learner's competence grows.

Validity and reliability

Validity is the degree to which a test measures what it claims to measure; reliability is consistency of scores across occasions, forms or raters.

Constructivism

A theory holding that learners build understanding by linking new information to existing knowledge, so teaching designs active tasks rather than passive listening.

Herbart's five lesson steps

Preparation, presentation, association or comparison, generalisation and application: a classic sequence for organising the stages of a single lesson.

Eight parts of speech

Noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection; every English word works as one of these in a sentence.

Third conditional

If + past perfect in the conditional clause and would have + past participle in the main clause, expressing an unreal past situation and its imagined result.

Active and passive voice

Active voice has the subject performing the action; passive voice makes the object the subject using a form of be plus the past participle.

Simile

A figure of speech that compares two unlike things using the words like or as, as in the phrase 'as brave as a lion'.

Subject-verb agreement

Singular subjects take singular verbs and plural subjects plural verbs; in 'one of the boys is here' the subject is 'one', so the verb is singular.

Gerund

A verb form ending in -ing that works as a noun, as in 'Swimming is good exercise' or 'She enjoys reading'.

Reported speech backshift

When reporting, present becomes past, present perfect becomes past perfect, will becomes would and can becomes could; time words also shift.

Prepositions of time

Use at for clock times and night, on for days and dates, and in for months, years, seasons and longer periods.

Objectives Resolution

Passed by Pakistan's Constituent Assembly in March 1949, it declared that sovereignty belongs to Allah and became the ideological base of later constitutions.

Constitution of 1973

Pakistan's present and third constitution, adopted in 1973, which established a parliamentary, federal system with a prime minister as chief executive.

Indus Waters Treaty

A 1960 treaty brokered by the World Bank that gave India the eastern rivers and Pakistan the western rivers, and set up the Permanent Indus Commission.

SAARC

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, set up in 1985 with its secretariat in Kathmandu and eight member states including Pakistan and India.

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation

Founded in 1969 with headquarters in Jeddah, it groups 57 member states and coordinates political and economic cooperation in the Muslim world.

UN Security Council

The principal UN organ for peace and security, with five permanent veto-holding members and ten members elected for two-year terms.

K2

The world's second-highest mountain, 8,611 metres high, standing in the Karakoram range of Gilgit-Baltistan and also called Chogori.

Four provinces of Pakistan

Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, alongside Islamabad Capital Territory, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.