None of the above

[gareth_rees]

As background for an article complaining about falling standards in education, The Times scanned and posted the 2006 Edexcel GCSE Science: Physics P1b exam paper. This is a multiple choice paper covering topics of waves, electromagnetic radiation, astronomy, cosmology, and seismology.

I don’t necessarily concur with the judgment of the article (

Comments

[gareth_rees]

I thought about microwaves but wasn't sure: repeated burning of tissue is another cause of skin cancer, and microwaves of sufficient power can heat skin, so I think it's medically plausible. But I couldn't find any evidence of it actually happening in real situations (just a lot of studies finding no evidence that mobile phones/Wi-Fi/microwave ovens cause cancer), whereas I could find cases for the other kinds of radiation. Here's a study showing that microwaves can accelerate the development cancer in cancer-prone strains of mice.

questions 6 and 7 are both entirely bogus.

Some of the commenters on the Times article wondered if this was part of a programme of indoctrination: teach children about iris scanning, then when they grow up they will be less likely to object to it.

Question 33 is problematic, because (as I understand it) the proportions of baryonic matter, non-baryonic (dark) matter, and dark energy are now highly constrained by models of the Big Bang. This 1995 paper sets out the theory; on Wikipedia, see Lambda-CDM model. So it may not be a question of finding more or less dark matter, the CMBR and other observations already constrain the amount (if the model is right).

But schools can't possibly be expected to grapple with this in any detail. And the idea that the fate of the universe is tied to the density parameter is still a valid concept, and a good thing to be learning about, I think. So three cheers for putting cosmology on the GCSE syllabus, but boo to Edexcel for being too incurious to learn anything about it.

[nickbarnes]

questions 6 and 7
I guess my point here is that there are actual deployed systems which do identification based on irises, retinas, faces (of which eyebrows are an important part) and I dare say on scleral blood-vessel patterns. And these actual deployed systems are used in a variety of settings including airports but also including offices and military bases, and probably also including hospitals, schools, offices, homes, vehicles, and examination board arse-finding competitions.
So this is ignorant, as well as being indoctrination. And it also has absolutely fuck-all to do with physics. Really, nothing at all. It has a little tiny bit to do with biology, I guess, and maybe a bit to do with IT, and a lot to do with sociology, and politics, and history, and philosophy, and "citizenship". But not physics. So what the hell is it doing in a physics paper? I mean, where are the questions about reality TV, or gardening, or french poetry?

[nickbarnes]

examination board arse-finding competitions
"It's a roll-over".

[nickbarnes]

On question 33. The question is bogus. Put this stuff in a real question, in the written paper.
There is a written paper, right?