AS 92045 Annotated exemplars

This annotated exemplar is intended for teacher use only. Annotated exemplars consist of student evidence, with commentary, to explain key parts of a standard. These help teachers make assessment judgements at the grade boundaries.

Download all exemplars and commentary [PDF, 1.2 MB]

Level 1 PESS assessment resources (external link) - NCEA.education

For Achieved, the student needs to demonstrate understanding of a physical phenomenon through investigation.

This involves describing the relevant physics concepts and relationships involved in a physical phenomenon, using evidence.

The student demonstrates understanding of falling objects by:

• recording the data they collected with their group in a results table and graph
• quoting a data point in the graph description
• describing that when an object is starting to fall, its velocity and drag are small, but will increase (and referring to the relationship between them).

For Merit, the student could show how they calculated speed, or include a clearer explanation of how drag increases until it equals gravity force (weight) in size, which results in terminal velocity for the falling object.

For Merit, the student needs to explain a physical phenomenon through investigation.

This involves explaining how physics concepts and relationships relate to the physical phenomenon, using processed evidence.

This student has explained the motion of a balloon by:

• correctly identifying the time axis on the graph and concluding the larger balloon takes the most time
• explaining this unexpected result using a cause-and-effect chain. The larger balloon has a larger profile, which causes more drag
• identifying the apparent fault with the bar graph’s X-axis, and explaining this in terms of the values of balloon width.

For Excellence, the student could discuss the observed effect of balloon size on time taken with a clearer flow of ideas. The final three paragraphs make suitable points and use the collected data, but the contradictory statements mean that understanding is not clearly shown.

For Excellence, the student needs to analyse a physical phenomenon through investigation.

This involves integrating processed evidence with a discussion of relevant physics concepts and the relationships involved

This student has analysed the falling of a muffin case by:

• calculating the gradient of the graph, which shows capable data processing
• clearly relating the findings of the investigation to sky diving in the conclusion
• discussing how reaching terminal velocity takes the same time for each fall height, so the overall speed increases with height.