The Practical Paper,
Rehearsed In 3D
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE and A Level Biology, Chemistry and Physics each examine practical skills: planning, taking readings, recording, drawing conclusions. The 3D labs let a learner rehearse those skills on a bench of real apparatus, marked on the server, as many times as it takes, in a school without a lab or a home without one.
Three Labs
CHEMISTRY LAB
Titrations, qualitative analysis, rates of reaction, energy changes and gas preparation on a bench of 234 apparatus items and reagents.
PHYSICS LAB
Lenses and refraction, springs and Hooke's law, density, upthrust, moments, Ohm's law, pressure and expansivity, with your own readings, table and graph.
BIOLOGY LAB
Food tests, enzymes, osmosis, transpiration, photosynthesis, respiration and the microscope, with the colour changes and timings you record yourself.
What Gets Marked
THE METHOD
The lab records each step and the server marks it: apparatus chosen, readings taken, table completed, graph drawn, conclusion reached. You see where the marks went.
AGAIN AND AGAIN
Reset the bench and every value changes, so a practical cannot be memorised, only learned.
ON A PHONE
The labs run in the browser on an ordinary smartphone. No app, no lab fee.
A Note On The Designs
The practicals were built to Kenya's KCSE Paper 3 designs, which examine the same skills Pearson's practical assessments do with the same apparatus. A learner preparing for an Edexcel practical rehearses exactly those skills; the tutor relates each one to the Edexcel specification.
Questions
Which science practicals can I do?
Every practical the three labs carry: 22 in Chemistry, 5 KCSE designs plus the KICD set in Physics, and 11 in Biology, covering titration, qualitative analysis, rates, energy changes, lenses, springs, density, food tests, enzymes, osmosis and respiration.
Do they cover the A Level core practicals?
They rehearse the skills the core practicals assess: reading apparatus, recording, plotting and concluding. The tutor can then set questions on the specific core practicals of the specification.
Where do the answers come from?
From the Pearson Edexcel specification and the files you upload, and nothing else. The tutors and buddies are grounded in the units listed on these pages and in the past papers, notes and mark schemes you give them; they do not invent facts or pull from the open internet. Your syllabus and your files are the only truth they teach from.
Is this free?
A free account gives you the tutors with a daily allowance, the 3D labs and the Practice Buddies. Premium adds unlimited tutor time; the pricing page has the current price in Kenyan shillings, and schools and homeschooling families pay the same.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Everything runs in the browser on an ordinary smartphone over mobile data, including the 3D labs.
Do you register candidates for the exams?
No. Pearson Edexcel exams are sat at a registered Pearson centre; homeschooled learners enter as private candidates. CognitaSTEM teaches and revises the specification and tells you where a learner stands before the exam.