QCE Physics past exams 2020–2025, by year and topic

The rest of the syllabus

Question-level mapping for these areas is still being verified. Every official paper covering them is in the year table above.

• Thermal, nuclear and electrical physics (Unit 1) — Heating processes (kinetic particle model, specific heat capacity, conservation of energy) · Ionising radiation and nuclear reactions (decay types, nuclear model, balancing nuclear equations) · Electrical circuits (conservation of charge, potential difference and resistance, moving charges)
• Linear motion and waves (Unit 2) — Linear motion (displacement, velocity, acceleration, vector equations, SUVAT, gradients) · Waves (longitudinal vs transverse, wavelength, frequency, period, wave behaviour) · Thermodynamics and further electricity (where applicable) · Optics / wave model of light (reflection, refraction, total internal reflection, dispersion, diffraction, interference)
• Gravity and electromagnetism (Unit 3) — Gravity and motion (vector components, projectile motion, uniform circular motion, Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, Kepler's laws of planetary motion) · Electromagnetism (electrostatics, Coulomb's Law, magnetic fields, magnetic flux/flux density, electromagnetic induction, Faraday's Law, Lenz's Law, EMF)
• Revolutions in modern physics (Unit 4) — Special relativity (postulates, time dilation, length contraction, relativistic momentum/energy) · Quantum theory (photoelectric effect, wave-particle duality, atomic energy levels, black-body radiation) · The Standard Model (particle classification, quarks and leptons, baryons and mesons, fundamental forces)