IB Physics Paper 2 - Your Road to Success
At the end of IB Physics, you will have to write two final exams that will dictate 80% of your final grade. The remaining 20% comes from your Internal Assessment, which you are to complete and submit before taking the final exams for any of the subjects followed during your IB journey. If you are looking for help with your physics IA, feel free to check out our IA guide and list of ideas! For advice regarding Paper 1 for physics, look no further! Here, we will discuss the worth, approach, and strategies for the Paper 2 physics exam.
Struggling to prepare for your Physics Paper 2? Our expert IB tutors can help you master exam techniques, understand mark schemes, and boost your score with confidence.
Time and worth
For both Standard and Higher Level students, the paper 2 exam accounts for 44% of your final course grade. You are allowed to use both a graphic-display calculator and a physics formula booklet, the same one as for paper 1.
For Standard Level (SL) students, the time allocated for the exam is 1 hour and 30 minutes. You can score a total of 50 points for the exam, which is spread out between 5 questions.
For students who followed the subject as Higher Level (HL), you will have a total of 2 hours and 30 minutes for Paper 2. Since the higher level syllabus includes more in-depth analyses of the topics covered, there are more questions in the exam - you should expect around 8 questions in total.
All of the problems, whether SL or HL, will require long answers demonstrating working and approaches, consisting of many sub-questions. Usually, the questions between the two levels have great overlap, as the base content required is the same for both. The main differences can be spotted only at the end of the paper, where the last three HL questions do not appear in SL at all.
General preparation tips
To best prepare for Paper 2, you should be familiar with the structure and what will be expected of you before entering the exam hall. As a starting point, you should already be familiar with all the contents of the physics syllabus, keeping in mind that HL students have significantly more topics covered over the two years.
When you become confident in your skills and knowledge, it is the perfect time to give them a test drive. Print out a past paper, set up a timer and give the exam a fair shot within the allocated time (see section Time and Worth). Make sure to simulate exam conditions as accurately as possible – no electronic devices aside from your calculator are allowed, the space should be quiet and tidy, and you should not be distracted by your surroundings.
When you run out of time, ask yourself questions that will let you reflect on how you did. Although not ideal or comfortable, you have to address both your weaknesses and strengths. Some example aspects to consider may include the following:
Did you struggle fitting in the time frame expected for this exam?
Was there a point you found yourself stuck in a sub-question and could not move on?
Were you familiar with the topics covered by the exam?
Were there any sections that caused you more trouble than others?
Which topics did you have no doubts about?
Did you feel distracted or unfocused at any point during writing? If yes, are you able to pinpoint what the cause was?
Was the stress felt manageable or overwhelming?
Was the calculator/formula booklet of help? Did you know your way around these tools?
After answering a few of these questions honestly, checking your answers with the mark scheme, and reflecting, you should be able to have a clear idea of how well prepared you are for the actual exam.
Any area that you saw yourself struggling in should become apparent, which will allow for targeted practice to become even better and feel more comfortable with the idea of taking the final exam. This method of practice can be easily applied to other subjects you’re following along your IB journey.
Tip 1 - Always Round Final Answers to the Correct Number of Significant Figures
It is expected that every final numerical answer you provide will be given to three significant figures, unless the question states otherwise. Keep in mind that this is a different concept from decimal places, which students often confuse.
Before entering the exam hall, make sure that you are aware of the differences between the two ideas. If in a question you encounter the sentence ‘State your answer to a correct number of significant figures’, your answer will not score points if it does not follow this rule.
For example, if you are to calculate the volume of a container with parameters 1.42 m (3 sf), 2 m (1 sf) and 1.826 m (4 sf), your final answer should be given to only one significant figure. The final number should be stated to the same number of significant figures as the answer that has the fewest of them.
Tip 2 - Use the Topic Order to Your Advantage
The problems in the exam are written in the same order as the topics were covered during classes. You can expect the first question to be related to Topic A, the second to Topic B, and so on. If you find yourself more comfortable in a certain topic and want to get it out of the way as soon as possible, you can immediately jump into the question related to it.
Tip 3 - More Marks = More Steps
If a sub-question is worth a single point, it will either expect an easy word-based answer or a simple numerical one.
When a sub-question has two or more points, you are expected to show the intermediate steps to get to a final numerical answer or a written explanation stating the reasoning behind it.
As an example, you may encounter a question that is worth two points and asks you to ‘Explain why two light sources need to be coherent for an interference pattern to be observed’. The first statement can be an explanation of what it means for light sources to be coherent, then relating that to the formation of an interference pattern – this would lead to full marks as a final answer.
Tip 4 – Show Your Work and Know the Theory
Remember to always show as much of your work as possible, as well as always state any assumptions made during the calculation processes. This will make it easier for an examiner to understand your thought process, thus awarding you full points for your answer.
Although usually students assume physics involves many calculations, you are also expected to know and explain the theory behind them. You may have to face a question based on the ideal gas law involving expansions and compressions, but you may also have to explain what an ideal gas is in the first place. Make sure to know the basic assumptions of the concept and be able to clearly explain it during the exam.
This can be applied to all other topics covered in the physics syllabus. Therefore, be prepared for theoretical sub-questions on concepts, ideas, experiments, as well as their conclusions.
Tip 5 - Master Your Tools: Formula Booklet & Calculator
Both of these tools will be at your disposal during both Paper 1 and 2 in physics; do not be afraid to use them! When doing past papers, homework questions, or simply learning the topics, have the formula booklet close by. Check which formulas it contains, what all of the symbols mean and what is expected of you to know by heart. On the first pages, you can find many constants, their respective units, conversions and the table of metric multipliers. By working with the formula booklet for two years, it will feel natural to use it during the exam as well.
You are taught how to use the Graphic-Display Calculator during math classes; keep in mind all of the tools you learned there - you will most definitely need them during the physics exams as well. Graphing, numerical solving and extensive calculations should not be an obstacle for you when familiar with the calculator and the tools it enables.
Tip 6 - Always Check Units and Prefixes
As this is a physics exam, units are of high importance. Beware of any prefixes the text of the question may have provided alongside the information, for example, the pressure being given in hPa (Hectopascals). The ‘h’ is a metric multiplier used within the SI unit system, which means that to express the pressure in Pa (pascals), the number given must be multiplied by 100. You are not expected to remember the prefixes by heart, you can find the conversion table in the formula booklet. Just make sure to include them when performing calculations in your GDC, so as not to end up with distances between two planets in micrometres!
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