HSC Physics Module 7: The Nature of Light Questions

Browse 11 selected questions from the 2023 and 2024 HSC exams. Choose a skill, open the question’s page in NESA’s PDF and check your work with the marking guidelines in NESA’s marking guide.

These papers were set under the 2017 syllabus. The first HSC exam for the replacement Physics syllabus is in 2028. NESA syllabus and implementation dates.

Module 7: The Nature of Light

Light: Wave Model

2023 Q29 · 4 marks. Explain why intensity drops when unpolarised light from an incandescent lamp passes through a polarising filter. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines

Light: Quantum Model

2024 Q16 · 1 mark. Multiple choice: use a photoelectric-effect graph for four metals to determine which emit photoelectrons at a given photon frequency. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2024 Q24 · 8 marks. Determine a star's surface temperature and an absorption-line frequency from a hydrogen absorption spectrum, then explain the physical process producing absorption spectra. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2024 Q32 · 8 marks. Extended response analysing how evidence from at least three light-matter interaction experiments contributed to understanding of physics. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2023 Q7 · 1 mark. Multiple choice: compare de Broglie wavelengths of a proton and neutron travelling at equal speed. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2023 Q9 · 1 mark. Multiple choice: predict how a black-body radiation curve changes at a lower temperature. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2023 Q15 · 1 mark. Multiple choice: identify photoelectric-effect evidence consistent with Einstein's photon model. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines

Light and Special Relativity

2024 Q12 · 1 mark. Multiple choice: identify the graph relating a moving rod's speed to its length-contracted measured length. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2024 Q20 · 1 mark. Multiple choice: compare tick rates of three atomic clocks in different orbital reference frames under special relativity. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2024 Q26 · 3 marks. Qualitatively explain, from both the muon's and Earth's reference frames, why cosmic-ray muons reach Earth's surface despite their short half-life. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines
2023 Q22 · 3 marks. Time dilation calculation for light pulses emitted from a spacecraft moving at 0.9c, as measured by an Earth observer. Paper (PDF) · Marking guidelines