Students will work on assigned problems related to the lecture material each week. These will be discussed in the tutorials, and a short 10-minute quiz related to the previous week's questions will also be completed each week during the tutorials. Quizzes will start in week 2 for a total of 12 quizzes.

You are expected to present yourself for examination at the time and place designated in the University Examination Timetable.  The draft timetable will be available approximately eight weeks before the commencement of the examinations and the final timetable approximately four weeks before the commencement of the examinations.  Exam timetables are available at http://www.timetables.mq.edu.au/exam.

It is Macquarie University policy not to set early examinations for individuals or groups of students.  All students are expected to ensure that they are available until the end of the official examination period.

The final examination will include material from both halves of the unit.

The final examination is a hurdle requirement. You must obtain a mark of at least 40% in the final exam to be eligible to pass the unit. If your mark in the final examination is between 30% and 39% inclusive, you will be a given a second and final chance to attain the required level of performance. The mark awarded for the second exam towards your final unit mark will be capped at 40%.​

If you apply for Disruption to Study for your final examination, you must make yourself available for the week of December 17 – 21, 2018.  If you are not available at that time, there is no guarantee an additional examination time will be offered. Specific examination dates and times will be determined at a later date. Second-chance hurdle examinations will also be offered in this week.

Laboratory work will begin in week 2 . Students must bring a laboratory notebook to the first class. Lab notes for each experiment will be provided in the lab. Each experiment is allotted two weeks for completion and you are expected to complete 5 experiments. 

You must keep a laboratory notebook, in which you keep a record of all activities. In addition, you will be required to write a full report on one experiment of your choice. Some notes about laboratory log books and report writing will be posted on iLearn.

The purpose of the laboratory work is to expose you to a range of physical concepts and experimental techniques which spread beyond the coverage of the lectures. In addition, we hope that your ability to maintain a written record of your laboratory work and to write reports on your work will develop further. To this end, the laboratory will be assessed in the following way:

(i) Your laboratory notebook will be marked each fortnight. If it is less than satisfactory, it will be returned to you for correcting, and then re-marked. All relevant calculations must be done, the appropriate graphs drawn, and uncertainties assessed where appropriate.

(ii) You are required to submit a full report on one two-week experiment of your choosing from the first three experiments that you have completed. This report will be submitted in draft form initially. It will be marked and returned to you with comments for improvement.  When the report is resubmitted, your first attempt should also be handed in for comparison.  The mark awarded for the report will be that obtained in the second marking.  (However, if you obtain more than 7 out of 10 for the initial submission, then handing in the final version is optional.) This strategy gives you the opportunity to use the feedback from staff to help you develop professional report-writing skills before your work is finally graded.

The draft report is to be submitted by the end of week 9 with the final version by the beginning of week 13.

Permission may be granted for late submission of laboratory reports if the request for consideration is made prior to the due date.  Reports submitted late may be subject to a marking penalty of one-half mark (out of ten marks) for each working day that the report is late, unless a valid, extraordinary, substantiated reason for late submission is presented to the Unit Convenor.

If you are planning to word-process your report (optional) it may also be advisable to bring a memory stick to the lab sessions.  Some experiments have data recorded on PCs which can be saved direct to your memory stick, then included in your report.

The relative weighting of the components of the laboratory assessment will be:

Laboratory log book: 14%

Report: 6%

TOTAL: 20%

Satisfactory completion of laboratories is a hurdle requirement. You must obtain a mark of at least 40% in the laboratory activities to pass the unit. If you miss or fail an activity, you must within two weeks arrange a new time to perform the activity. 

You will be given one assignment in each of the two halves of the unit. Those assignments are intended to further develop your problem solving skills and will help you to prepare for the final examination. While we encourage you to discuss the assignment problems with your colleagues, you must submit your own original work.