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AQA Combined Science Trilogy revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Combined Science: Trilogy 8464. Forty-nine of them, fourteen to twenty-three minutes each, covering all twenty-four topics across the three sciences. They are among the more demanding activities on this site. Forty contain a question where the student types a number rather than picking one, and only seven of those name the operation, so the student has to decide what to calculate as well as how. **The gap is the practicals.** AQA Trilogy names twenty-one required practicals and examines them, and four of these forty-nine activities mention one. If your students need practical-skills revision, that is a job for your own lab notes and past papers, and it is said plainly below rather than left to be discovered.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Combined Science: Trilogy 8464. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

Twenty-one required practicals, four mentions

Start with the gap, because it is the one that changes what you would set.

AQA Trilogy names twenty-one required practicals, RP1 to RP21, and they are examinable: questions about apparatus, variables, method and the handling of the data students produced. Our own curriculum map for this specification lists all twenty-one.

Four of these forty-nine activities mention one. Osmosis in potato cylinders, specific heat capacity, energy transfer, and the infrared work behind RP21. The other seventeen practicals are not represented.

That is a real hole rather than a design decision, and it is the part of the course least like the rest. Practical questions ask what would happen if the independent variable were not controlled, or why a repeat reading was discarded. That thinking does not come out of a content activity, and a set of content activities should not pretend otherwise.

For that half of the course, your own lab books and AQA's own papers in our past paper archive are the resources that work.

What the set does well: it makes them calculate

Combined Science is where a lot of revision quietly turns into recognition, because three sciences is a great deal of vocabulary and vocabulary is easy to test with four options.

These activities push the other way. Forty of the forty-nine contain a question where the student types a value, and only seven of those tell the student which operation to perform. Magnification from an image size and a real size. Percentage change in the mass of a potato cylinder. A rate from a bubble count and a time. Specific heat capacity from a mass, a temperature rise and an energy input.

That matters more than it sounds. Four options on a screen always leave an elimination route open, and typing the value closes it. Choosing the calculation, which is what AQA actually examines, stays with the student.

All three sciences, all twenty-four topics

Seven biology topics, ten chemistry, seven physics, each with at least one activity and most with two or three. Nothing in the specification's content is unrepresented.

The set runs longer than most on this site: a mean of about twenty minutes, and thirty-five of the forty-nine at twenty minutes or more. These are not five-minute starters. They suit a homework slot or a lesson's worth of a topic being rebuilt.

Trilogy is not the separate sciences trimmed

Worth stating because departments often assume otherwise. These activities are mapped to 8464 rather than cut down from the separate specifications, so the content they teach is Trilogy's content.

Where a topic appears in both, the separate-science version goes further. If you teach a mixed set, AQA GCSE Biology and AQA GCSE Physics are the pages for the students taking the full courses.

We have very little for AQA's other combined specification, Synergy 8465. If that is what your department teaches, the science here is still the science, but it is not mapped to your specification and the topic numbers will not match.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each one is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

The other board's combined course is covered at Edexcel GCSE Combined Science, which is organised very differently.

What this page does not do

It does not cover seventeen of the twenty-one required practicals. Stated at the top rather than the bottom, because it is the thing most likely to matter.

It is not a substitute for the separate sciences if your students are sitting those.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Combined Science: Trilogy activity for AQA

49 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Combined Science: Trilogy (8464).

Good for mock preparation (48)

Good for cover lesson (35)

Good for independent study (35)

Good for starter (1)

See all 49, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Combined Science: Trilogy 14 minutes

The Osmosis Lab

14 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Starter Intervention Mock preparation
  • Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

You change the sugar concentration and you measure the mass. Which of these must be kept the same to make it a fair test?

AQA Combined Science: Trilogy 20 minutes

The Heat Lab

15 steps, 10 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

During a reaction the temperature climbs from the starting value. What does that tell you?

AQA Combined Science: Trilogy 18 minutes

Cell Explorer

15 steps, 11 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Intervention Mock preparation
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

Which type of cell has NO nucleus, with its DNA as a free-floating loop?

Common questions

Do these cover the required practicals?

Barely. AQA Trilogy names twenty-one of them and our content map lists all twenty-one, but only four of our forty-nine activities mention one: osmosis, specific heat capacity, the electromagnetic spectrum and energy transfer. The practical half of this course is the clearest gap in the set.

How much of the course is covered?

All twenty-four topics, across all three sciences: seven in biology, ten in chemistry, seven in physics. Forty-nine activities, about sixteen hours.

Do students have to calculate, or just recognise?

Calculate. Forty of the activities contain a question where the student types a number, and only seven of those tell the student which operation to use. Magnification, percentage change in mass, rate from a bubble count, specific heat capacity: these are worked, not picked from four options.

Is this the same as the separate sciences?

No. Trilogy is its own specification with its own subset of the content, and these activities are mapped to 8464 rather than trimmed down from 8461, 8462 and 8463. Where a topic exists in both, expect the separate-science version to go further.

What about Synergy?

We have very little for AQA's other combined science specification, 8465. If your department teaches Synergy rather than Trilogy, most of what is here still applies to the science, but it is not mapped to your specification.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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