Dr. P is an exam-focused interactive tool to help you learn definitions of scientific words and phrases. All A-Level exam boards are covered, and by tailoring to each board the authors have been careful to satisfy the precision that examiners look for when asking you to define or explain scientific terms.
Knowing your definitions is a good idea not only for the marks that are directly for defining or explaining terminology, but also, if you really understand what a scientific term means, then you are much more likely to successfully apply your knowledge in other contexts which come up on the exam papers.
Dr. P cuts each definition in half and then helps you ‘Learn’, ‘Play’ and ‘Test’.
• When Learning, you choose which half of the definition is shown, and then the words from the other half are revealed one at a time at your own pace.
• When Playing, you choose which half of the definition you can see, and you type in the other half. You can have hints for the number of words in a definition and how long they are – a bit like hangman! When you get things wrong, the corrections are shown and you have the chance to repeat that definition straight away.
• In Test, you have to give the whole definitions for up to 10 terms. Dr. P marks the test and shows you how you did at the end.
You are in full control of which topics you are working on with Dr. P at any time. Just go into Settings and choose the paper and topics. These will then be kept as default until you change them.
As you use Dr. P and get definitions right, your Confidence Score will increase. Each definition has its own Confidence, and these come together to give an overall Confidence for whatever topics have been chosen at that time. But, if you don’t use Dr. P regularly, your Confidence will go down, so you need to keep practicing! The Confidence scores for each paper, topic and term can be looked at in detail at any time by tapping the score on the front screen.
Dr. P knows alternative words and phrases, so you don’t have to learn the definitions absolutely word for word. For example, “a substance which” and “a chemical that” are both fine. There are lots of alternatives that Dr. P knows, but there could be others. If you use Dr. P and you type something that isnt allowed but you think it should be, you can get in touch and e-mail your alternative to:
[email protected]
If it is indeed allowable it will be added, and as Dr. P checks for changes to the definitions regularly, you could see the result of your e-mail quite quickly.
We hope you like the App and find it useful!