AQA GCSE Physics Foundation (8463), Foundation tier · Waves › Electromagnetic waves
Practise Uses and applications of EM waves. 5 exam-style questions on this subtopic, at up to four difficulty levels, with full mark schemes and a progress tracker. Free, no account needed.
Mixing up infrared and ultraviolet uses, e.g. saying 'ultraviolet cameras' for seeing warm objects in the dark.
More tips
Memory tricks
Walk along the spectrum saying one use for each: radio for radio and TV, micro for satellites and cooking, infrared for heaters and cameras, visible for fibre optics, ultraviolet for lamps and tanning, X-rays and gamma for hospitals.
Exam technique
For 'give a use', one specific use is enough, e.g. 'satellite communications' for microwaves.
Learn the uses exactly as the specification lists them: they are the answers examiners expect.
What each grade needs
What you need to be able to do, from the first marks up to the top grade.
Grade 3
Match each EM wave to a useE.g. radio waves: television and radio; X-rays: medical imaging.
Grade 4
Give two uses of microwavesSatellite communications and cooking food.
Grade 4
Give three uses of infraredElectrical heaters, cooking food and infrared cameras.
Grade 5
Give uses of visible light and ultravioletVisible light: fibre optic communications. Ultraviolet: energy-efficient lamps and sun tanning.
Quick recall
Cover the answers and test yourself. The app has these as flashcards that come back just before you'd forget them.
Different types of electromagnetic wave have different uses. Give one use of infrared radiation.
Electric heaters (or cooking, or infrared cameras).
Night-vision goggles form an image of a person in the dark by detecting the radiation the person emits. Which type of electromagnetic wave do they detect?
Infrared
Give one reason why infrared, rather than visible light, is used in a TV remote control.
It is invisible (or it reflects usefully off surfaces to reach the receiver).
Sample questions
Written for this site in the style of AQA exam questions. They are not taken from real past papers.
Question 1Easy5 marks
Different types of electromagnetic wave have different uses.
(a) Name the type of electromagnetic wave used for each application. Fibre optic communications Satellite communications Sun tanning Producing images of broken bones[4]
A WiFi router in a house uses microwaves to send data to devices in different rooms. A remote control for a television uses infrared, and it only works when it is in the same room as the television.
Explain why WiFi can work between different rooms, whereas the TV remote control only works in the same room as the television.[3]
Show the answer and mark scheme
Answer: Microwaves pass through walls reasonably well, but infrared is absorbed (or reflected) by walls, so the remote control’s signal cannot reach another room while WiFi can.
the microwaves used by WiFi can pass through walls (materials such as brick and plasterboard) to a useful extent
infrared is much more strongly absorbed (or reflected) by walls and solid objects, so it cannot usefully pass through them
so the infrared from the remote control cannot reach a television in another room, but the WiFi microwaves can reach devices in other rooms