Year 12 · TCE / Physical Sciences
Flashcards and recall.
Make a short deck from material you need to recall without notes.
Try this with Physical Sciences
- Write one prompt per card. Use definitions, explanations or examples from your current topic.
- Answer aloud before turning the card. Split a card if it asks for several unrelated facts.
- Set aside missed cards and revisit them in a later session.
Recall topics
- Electron configuration
- How do you draw an electron shell diagram, and what is the course limit on them?
- How do you deduce an element's group and period from its electron configuration?
- Atomic radius
- How and why does atomic radius change across period 2 or period 3?
- How and why does atomic radius change down group 1, 2 or 17?
- Valency
- State the valency pattern across period 3 from sodium to argon.
- How is the charge on a stable ion related to the parent atom's outer shell?
- Give the common stable ion charge for groups 1, 2 and 17, with an example of each.
- Describe the nuclear model of the atom used in this course.
- Isotope
- How is an isotope represented using an atomic symbol?
- How do you find the number of neutrons in an isotope?
- Why do isotopes of an element have the same chemical properties but different physical properties?
- What does mass spectroscopy do, and what must you be able to do with a mass spectrum?
- Relative atomic mass
- How do you calculate relative atomic mass from isotopic abundances?
- Why is the relative atomic mass of most elements not a whole number?
- Alpha decay: what is emitted and how does the nucleus change?
- Beta negative decay: what is emitted and how does the nucleus change?
- Gamma decay: what is emitted and how does the nucleus change?
- Metastable isotope, and how is it written in a decay equation?
- Distinguish natural from artificial isotopes.
- Background radiation
- Why are mobile phones and fluorescent lights not sources of the kind of radiation studied in nuclear physics?
- How do you correct a measured count rate for background radiation?
- Ion, and what makes radiation ionising?
- Compare the penetrating power of alpha, beta negative and gamma radiation.
- Rank alpha, beta negative and gamma by ionising ability, and explain why the order is the reverse of penetrating power.
- How can ionising radiation damage living organisms at the level of DNA?
- Justify shielding and handling decisions for an alpha, a beta and a gamma source.
- Induced nuclear fission
- Fission chain reaction, and what makes it controlled or uncontrolled?
- How do you complete a fission equation when one product nuclide is missing?
- Half-life, and how is it related to activity?
- How do you calculate what remains after a whole number of half-lives?
- How do you determine half-life from a decay graph?
- Scalar quantity
- Vector quantity
Resource inventory inspected 4 November 2026. The main ATARMAXXING study platform is separate from tutoring. Topic labels show what was found, not a guarantee of complete curriculum coverage or tutor availability.
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