1. Most candidates could sketch a graph of a brittle material.

The most common error was in not

realising that the plastic region for curve C had to be clearly shown starting at a lower strain than
A. Almost all candidates knew that the Young modulus = stress/strain but some failed to state
how they would obtain a value from the graph. Many omitted to point out that the values or
gradient must be taken from the linear section of the graph. The majority of candidates knew the
unit of the Young modulus. The answer "no unit was, however, fairly popular.

2. Many candidates did not realise that a long wire would be necessary to obtain measurable
extensions. A disappointingly small number suggested using their results to draw a graph.
Many thought that doubling the diameter would double the cross-sectional area of the wire.
Most candidates produced diagrams of an unacceptable quality, but a few lost marks
unnecessarily by being too casual about what they are trying to show.

3. Topic B - Solid Materials

Part (b) was generally well done with many candidates gaining almost full marks. Those who
lost marks often got the basics wrong, such as forgetting powers of ten, or missing or using
incorrect units. Part (c) was not so well done, with edge dislocation diagrams often being vague
and incorrectly labelled. A notable minority of candidates showed how the dislocation moved,
although this was not asked for in the question. The idea of dislocations moving in order to blunt
crack tips and thereby reduce stress concentrations was poorly answered.
The behaviour on heating and typical uses for polymers in part (d) produced a wide range of
answers. Those candidates who had studied this were able to score well, but they were in the
minority. It was clear that many candidates did not have a good understanding of polymers. Part
(e) did, however, produce many good answers. For many candidates, a detailed explanation in
part (f) did not include a mention of the steel rods in pre–stressed reinforced concrete, although
most did comment on tension and compression here.

4. Few of the graphs showed the very large difference in properties of rubber and steel, with neither
gradients nor maximum strains differing even by as much as a factor of two. There was a
tendency to describe the behaviour rather than the structure of the two materials.

5. Topic B - Solid Materials

Candidates often produced good responses to part (a) but a more systematic approach involving
stating the units of each quantity in the equation would have benefited those who did not clearly
state that strain has no overall unit. The Hooke’s law question (b) was generally well answered
and whether a thinner wire would store more or less energy caused some difficulty; quoting
equations here would have improved the quality of answers given. Part (c) was an opportunity
for candidates to use their knowledge of materials terminology and proved to be a good
discriminator, with few scoring full marks. Diagrams of an amorphous polymer were generally
poor and lacked labelling. The graph scale of 1/A was misunderstood by a large number of
candidates who simply read the x-axis quantity as area, causing problems with much of part (e),
although some very good answers were also seen here.

Barnet College 1