Cambridge & Pearson Edexcel Past Paper Questions

The table shows the weights and masses of four objects on different planets. On which planet is the gravitational field strength the largest?

Four forces act at a point as shown. What is the size of the resultant force?

A student drops, from rest, a table-tennis ball in air. What happens to the velocity and to the acceleration of the ball during the first few secon...

The mass and volume of four different objects are plotted as shown. Which object has the smallest density?

Newton's third law involves two quantities which are equal in size and opposite in direction. What is the unit for these two quantities?

When a car turns a corner at speed, it risks toppling over. Two factors affecting the stability of a car are the height of its centre of mass and t...

A cyclist travels along a horizontal track at constant speed. The work done by the cyclist is equal to

A 2.0 kg mass has 300 J of kinetic energy. What is the speed of the mass?

The diagram shows a simple model of the braking system of a car. A force of 20 N is applied to piston P. As a result, there is a force F on piston ...

The diagrams show liquids in containers. Which column of liquid exerts the greatest pressure on the base of its container?

A solid bar is heated at one end. How is thermal energy transferred to the other end of the bar?

The tubes inside solar heating panels use the Sun's radiation to warm water. Why are the tubes painted black?

Why is there a constriction in a clinical thermometer?

In a liquid-in-glass thermometer, the liquid column is 2.0 cm long at 0°C and it expands 10.0 cm when heated to 100 °C. Measuring from P, how long ...

Which substance in the table is liquid at 20°C?

In which situation do sound waves not travel?

A wave in a ripple tank passes from a deeper to a shallower region and refracts. Which wave properties decrease as the wave enters the shallow region?

A ray of light is incident on the surface of a glass block, as shown in the diagram below. The refractive index of the glass is 1.5. The light ray ...

An image is formed by a thin converging lens when it is used as a magnifying glass. What is the correct description of the image?

A ray of light travels from X to Y along an optical fibre. The angle of incidence at Y is greater than the critical angle. In which direction does ...

One end of a rod picks up the N-pole of a bar magnet when in position 1. The same end of the rod picks up the S-pole of the bar magnet when in posi...

A metal ring screens a piece of equipment from a magnetic field. Which metal should be used for the ring, and why?

The diagram shows the magnetic field pattern of a current in a solenoid. When the current in the solenoid is increased, where is there an increase ...

The diagram shows a circuit. Which circuit diagram shows this circuit?

A charge of 7.5 C flows through a resistor in 5.0 s. A student has ammeters with different ranges that he can use to measure the current in the res...

Three identical cells are connected in parallel to a resistor. What is the advantage of using three cells in parallel, rather than using a single c...

When the flash on a camera is used, a charge of 1.5 C flows through the flash-tube in 0.0030 s. The average voltage across the flash-tube is 3600 V...

A 1.0 m length of wire of cross-sectional area 0.40 mm² has a resistance of 2.0 Ω. What is the resistance of a 0.50 m length of wire, of the same m...

The diagram shows three resistors in parallel. What is the combined resistance?

In which circuit is the voltmeter reading 7.2 V?

The diagram shows the information found on an electric kettle. What is the frequency of the electrical supply used to power the kettle?

A magnet is placed near to a solenoid that is connected to a sensitive centre-zero ammeter. The magnet is pushed towards the solenoid. It accelerat...

A radioactive material decays by this process: Z L → Z+1M + x What is particle x?

A factory continuously produces plastic sheets. A radioactive isotope and a detector are used to check the thickness of the sheets. What is the mos...

A source contains a radioactive material. Without the radioactive source present, a detector records a background count rate of 20 counts per minut...

A nucleus contains 94 protons and 240 nucleons. It emits an alpha-particle. How many protons and how many neutrons are in the nucleus produced?

Which quantity is a scalar?

A cyclist takes a ride lasting 25 s. The diagram shows how her distance travelled from the starting position varies with time. What is her average ...

A car begins to move. It speeds up until it reaches a constant speed. It continues to travel at this constant speed for the rest of the journey. Wh...

A metal ball of mass 0.30 kg and weight 3.0 N is held so that it is below the surface of oil. It experiences an upwards force of 0.30 N. When the b...

The Earth travels in a circular orbit around the Sun at constant speed. Which arrows show the direction of the acceleration of the Earth and the di...

A uniform beam is pivoted at its centre. Two weights are placed on the beam in the positions shown and the beam is balanced by an upward force F. W...

The graph shows how the pressure of a fixed mass of gas varies with volume at constant temperature. What is the volume of the gas when the pressure...

A rocket of total mass M is travelling at a speed v. The engine of the rocket is fired and fuel is used up. The mass of the rocket decreases to M/2...

A builder lifts eight slabs from the ground on to the back of a lorry 1.5 m high. The total time taken is 48 s and each slab weighs 200 N. How much...

An electrical heater is placed in a beaker of cold oil, as shown. The heater is switched on. What happens to the liquid at X?

In a liquid-in-glass thermometer, the liquid column is 2.0 cm long at 0 °C and it expands 10.0 cm when heated to 100 °C. Measuring from P, how long...

Which substance in the table is liquid at 20 °C?

Which diagram represents the change in the arrangement of the molecules in a solid as the substance melts?

Some gas is trapped in a closed container. The gas is cooled and the volume of the container is kept constant. What happens to the gas molecules?