Cambridge Past Paper Questions
Browse 23,045questions from 25 years of O-Level & A-Level exams. Click any question to practice.
Two point masses are isolated in space and are separated by a distance x. State an expression relating the gravitational force F between the two ma...
A fixed mass of an ideal gas has volume 210cm³ at pressure 3.0 × 105 Pa and temperature 270K. The volume of the gas is reduced at constant pressure...
During the transmission of a signal, attenuation occurs and noise is picked up.
A sample of a radioactive isotope contains N nuclei of the isotope at time T. At time (T + AT), the sample contains (N – AN) nuclei of the isotope....
A student is investigating the bending of a loaded wooden strip. Fig. 1.1 shows a rectangular strip of width b and thickness t overhanging the edge...
A student is investigating a rotary variable resistor, as shown in Fig. 2.1. [Figure 2.1] The variable resistor is connected to a battery of electr...
A student is investigating the stability of a wooden block resting on a bench. A strip is attached by a nail to the centre of the top of the block ...
A student is investigating the oscillations of a mass attached to an arrangement of springs. Fig. 2.1 shows a mass attached to two springs connecte...
What is a reasonable estimate of the mass of a raindrop?
Which quantity is a scalar?
A galvanometer of resistance 5Ω is to be used in a null method. In order to protect the galvanometer from damage due to an excessive initial curren...
Readings are made of the current I for different voltages V across a fixed resistor. The results are plotted on a graph to show the variation of I ...
A stone is dropped from a height of 20m above water. The graph shows the variation with time of the velocity of the stone. [Figure 5.1] Which state...
A car X is travelling at a constant speed u along a straight road. At time t = 0 a second car Y is a distance d₀ behind car X and travelling at a s...
The resultant force acting on an object is slowly increased. Which graph could show the variation with time t of the momentum p of the object? [Fig...
An astronaut has a weight of 660 N when she is standing on the Earth's surface. The acceleration of free fall on the surface of Mars is 3.71 m s⁻²....
A mass m₁ travelling with speed u₁ collides with a mass m₂ travelling with speed u₂ in the same direction. After the collision, mass m₁ has speed v...
The diagrams show a negative electric charge situated in a uniform electric field and a mass situated in a uniform gravitational field. [Figure 10....
A bicycle pedal is connected to a pivot by a metal bar, as shown. [Figure 11.1] The force on the pedal is 60 N downwards. What is the moment of thi...
A thin horizontal beam XY is freely hinged at point Y to a vertical wall. The beam is held stationary by a cable XZ which is attached to the wall a...
A pipe, open at one end, floats in a liquid as shown. [Figure 13.1] The cross-sectional area of the pipe is 0.012 m². The weight of the pipe is 32 ...
During an interval of time, fuel supplies energy X to a car. Some of this energy is converted into kinetic energy as the car accelerates. The rest ...
In which situation is work done on an object?
A spring is attached at one end to a fixed point. A mass is then hung from the other end of the spring. The spring has extension x when the system ...
An escalator in an underground station has 25 people standing on it and is moving with a speed of 4.3 m s⁻¹. The average mass of a person is 78 kg ...
An elastic cord of unstretched total length 16.0 cm and cross-sectional area 2.0 × 10⁻⁶ m² is held horizontally by two smooth pins a distance 8.0 c...
A student is investigating the mechanical properties of a metal. He applies different loads to a long thin wire up to its breaking point, and measu...
Which statement describes what is meant by the plastic deformation of a material?
A transverse wave is moving along a rope. Two points X and Y on the rope are a quarter of a wavelength apart from each other. Which statement is no...
Two progressive waves meet at a fixed point P. The variation with time of the displacement of each wave at point P is shown in the graph. [Figure 2...
A microphone connected to the Y-plates of a cathode-ray oscilloscope (CRO) is placed in front of a loudspeaker. The trace on the screen of the CRO ...
The diagram shows an experiment to produce a stationary wave in an air column. A tuning fork, placed above the column, vibrates and produces a soun...
A stationary person measures the speed and wavelength of the sound from a horn on a stationary vehicle. The person then repeats the measurements wh...
The table shows the wavelengths of five electromagnetic waves. Which row correctly identifies the principal radiation for each of these wavelengths...
Two progressive waves meet at a point. Which condition must be met for superposition of the waves to occur?
A hill separates a television (TV) transmitter from a house. The transmitter cannot be seen from the house. However, the house has good TV receptio...
The diagram shows an arrangement for demonstrating two-source interference using coherent light of a single wavelength λ. [Figure 29.1] An interfer...
Light of wavelength λ is incident normally on a diffraction grating. The angle between the second-order maximum and the normal to the grating is θ....
A dipole is a pair of charges of equal magnitude, one negative and one positive. The electric field of a dipole is shown below. [Figure 31.1] In wh...
A charged oil droplet of mass m is falling, initially freely, in a vacuum between two horizontal metal plates that are separated by a distance x. A...
The number density of free electrons in copper is 8.0 × 10²⁸ m⁻³. A copper wire has diameter 0.42 mm. What is the average drift speed of the free e...
An electric kettle is rated at 2.0 kW, which describes the power supplied to the heating coil in the kettle. The coil has a resistance of 5.0 Ω. Wh...
A conductor consists of three wires connected in series. The wires are all made of the same metal but have different cross-sectional areas. There i...
A cell of electromotive force (e.m.f.) E and internal resistance 0.50 Ω is connected to a resistor of resistance 4.7 Ω. [Figure 36.1] The maximum p...
Kirchhoff's first and second laws link to the conservation of physical quantities. Which quantities do they link to?
In the circuit shown, X is a variable resistor whose resistance can be changed from 5.0 Ω to 500 Ω. The electromotive force (e.m.f.) of the battery...
An unstable nucleus goes through successive decays to become a final, stable nucleus. The initial nucleus and the final nucleus are isotopes of eac...
A hadron has a charge of -e and is composed of three quarks. What could be the quark composition of the hadron? [Figure 40.1]