The Practical Paper,
Rehearsed In 3D
Cambridge IGCSE Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Combined Science 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 Cambridge's practical papers do with the same apparatus. A learner preparing for the IGCSE practical or alternative-to-practical paper rehearses exactly those skills; the tutor relates each one to the Cambridge syllabus.
Questions
Which IGCSE 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.
Is this the alternative-to-practical paper?
It rehearses the skills that paper tests: reading apparatus, recording, plotting and concluding. The tutor can then set alternative-to-practical style questions from the syllabus.
Where do the answers come from?
From the Cambridge IGCSE syllabus and the files you upload, and nothing else. The tutors and buddies are grounded in the syllabus topics 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, which are built for low-end phones.
Do you register candidates for the exams?
No. Cambridge IGCSE exams are sat at a registered Cambridge school or exam centre; homeschooled learners enter as private candidates. CognitaSTEM teaches and revises the syllabus and tells you exactly where a learner stands before the exam.