Cambridge Past Paper Questions
Browse 23,045questions from 25 years of O-Level & A-Level exams. Click any question to practice.
A student is investigating how the boiling point of a salt solution varies with pressure. It is suggested that the relationship between the Celsius...
A student is investigating the electric potential near a charged metal sphere. The sphere is suspended from the ceiling as shown in Fig. 2.1. [Figu...
A student is investigating how the rate at which water evaporates varies with temperature. It is suggested that the relationship between the volume...
A student is investigating the current in a circuit. The circuit is set up as shown in Fig. 2.1. [Figure 2.1] Resistors, each of resistance R, are ...
A cyclist has a speed of 5 m s⁻¹ and a small car has a speed of 12 m s⁻¹. Which statement does not give a reasonable estimate?
Which expression gives an SI base quantity?
Which list contains only scalar quantities?
A micrometer is used to measure the 28.50 mm width of a plastic ruler. The micrometer reads to the nearest 0.01 mm. What is the correct way to reco...
The sides of a wooden block are measured with calipers. The lengths of the sides are measured as 20.0 mm, 40.0 mm and 10.0 mm. [Figure showing a wo...
A ball is thrown vertically upwards from ground level and reaches a maximum height of 12.7 m before falling back to ground level. Assume air resist...
A snooker ball has a mass of 200 g. It hits the cushion of a snooker table and rebounds along its original path. The ball arrives at the cushion wi...
A tennis ball is released from rest at time t = 0 and falls through air for a long time. Which graph of its displacement s against time t best repr...
The space probe Rosetta was designed to investigate a comet. The probe consisted of an orbiter and a lander. The orbiter had a mass of 170 kg and t...
A positively charged oil droplet falls in air in a uniform electric field that is vertically upwards. The droplet has a constant terminal speed v₀ ...
A rigid uniform bar of length 2.4 m is pivoted horizontally at its midpoint. [Figure showing a pivoted bar with 200 N weight at 0.8 m left and 300 ...
Two coplanar forces act on an object as shown. [Figure showing two forces originating from an object, one pointing up-right and another pointing ri...
Four measuring cylinders are filled with the same liquid to the heights shown. [Figure showing four measuring cylinders A, B, C, D with different l...
The gas in an engine does work on a piston of cross-sectional area 80 cm². The pressure on the piston has a constant value of 4.6 × 10⁵ Pa. [Figure...
A power station using coal as fuel has an average power output of 3000 MW. Coal is supplied by 20 trains each day. The efficiency of the station in...
A wooden cylinder floats partially submerged in a bath of water. A force F is applied to the cylinder until it is just fully submerged. [Figure sho...
The motor of a crane lifts a load of mass 600 kg. The load rises vertically at a constant speed of 12 m per minute. What is the useful power output...
The graph shows the effect of applying a force of up to 5.0 N to a spring. [Figure showing a graph of spring length/cm against force/N, starting at...
A transverse wave is travelling along a rope. The frequency of the wave is 2.0 Hz. The graph shows the variation with distance of the displacement ...
The two graphs represent the same wave. Graph 1 shows the variation with time of the displacement at a particular distance. Graph 2 shows the varia...
A microphone is connected to a cathode-ray oscilloscope (CRO). When a tuning fork is struck and then held next to the microphone, the following wav...
A loudspeaker emitting a constant frequency of 2000 Hz is swung in a horizontal circle with a speed of 15.0 m s⁻¹. A stationary observer is level w...
Two electromagnetic waves have wavelengths of 5.0 × 10⁻⁷ m and 5.0 × 10⁻² m. Which row identifies the regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to wh...
An electromagnetic wave is incident normally on a diffraction grating. A second-order maximum is produced at an angle of 30° to a normal to the gra...
P is a point near to charge X as shown. [Figure showing a point X, and a point P to its right.] When a negatively charged test charge is placed at ...
When the current in a wire is 5.0 A, the average drift speed of the conduction electrons in the wire is 7.4 × 10⁻⁴ m s⁻¹. Which row gives a possibl...
There is a current in a resistor for an unknown time. Which two quantities can be used to calculate the energy dissipated by the resistor?
Two cells with electromotive forces E₁ and E₂ and internal resistances r₁ and r₂ are connected to a resistor R as shown. [Figure showing two cells ...
A battery has an electromotive force (e.m.f.) E and internal resistance r. The battery delivers a current I to a variable resistor and the potentia...
Three identical resistors are connected between terminals P and Q in different networks X, Y and Z as shown. [Figure showing three resistor network...
The diagram shows a variable resistor R and two fixed resistors connected in series in a circuit to act as a potential divider. [Figure showing a p...
The table gives some data relating to four neutral (uncharged) atoms W, X, Y and Z. [Table showing nucleon (mass) number and total number of partic...
What is not a fundamental particle?
An unstable nucleus decays and emits a β⁻ particle. Which changes, if any, occur to the quark composition of the nucleus?
Answer all the questions in the spaces provided. 1 (a) Make estimates of:
A small charged glass bead of weight 5.4 × 10⁻⁵N is initially at rest at point A in a vacuum. The bead then falls through a uniform horizontal elec...
A small remote-controlled model aircraft has two propellers, each of diameter 16cm. Fig. 3.1 is a side view of the aircraft when hovering. [Figure ...
The variation with extension x of the force F applied to a spring is shown in Fig. 4.1. [Figure 4.1] The spring has an unstretched length of 0.080 ...
A ripple tank is used to demonstrate the interference of water waves. Two dippers D1 and D2 produce coherent waves that have circular wavefronts, a...