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Core, Extended and the papers

Cambridge IGCSE Physics 0625 · syllabus for examination in 2026, 2027 and 2028

🎯Core or Extended — and why it matters

Everyone studies the same six topics. The difference is depth, and it decides which grades are available to you.

  • Core covers the main content. The grades available are C to G. It is not possible to get an A or an A* on the Core papers, however well you do.
  • Extended covers the Core content plus the supplement. The grades available are A* to G.

In the syllabus document and in most textbooks, the extra Extended material is marked with a different shading or a supplement label. On the topic pages here it is marked with an EXTENDED badge. If you are on the Extended route you need everything; if you are on Core you can skip those parts, but read them anyway if you are thinking of moving up.

Talk to me before deciding. Moving between routes gets harder the later it is left, and the decision affects what you can go on to study.

📃The three papers you sit

Every candidate sits three papers: one multiple choice, one theory, and one practical. Which version depends on your route.

  • Multiple choice — Paper 1 (Core) or Paper 2 (Extended). 45 minutes, 40 marks, 30%.
  • Theory — Paper 3 (Core) or Paper 4 (Extended). 1 hour 15 minutes, 80 marks, 50%. This is the paper that decides your grade.
  • Practical — Paper 5 (Practical Test) or Paper 6 (Alternative to Practical). 20%. Your school decides which of these you take, not you.

The practical paper is worth a fifth of your grade and is the one students prepare for least. Whether you sit Paper 5 or Paper 6, you are tested on the same skills: taking readings correctly, recording them to a sensible number of significant figures, plotting graphs with properly labelled axes and a sensible scale, drawing a line of best fit, calculating a gradient, and identifying sources of error and how to reduce them. None of that can be learned the night before. Do it properly in every practical lesson and this paper becomes the easiest 20% on the course.

💡Things worth knowing early

Formulas. A short list is provided in the papers, but not all of them — check which ones you are expected to recall, and learn those. Knowing which equation applies matters more than being able to recite it.

Units. Almost every calculation question carries a mark that depends on the unit. Write it every time, even in working.

Significant figures. Give answers to the same number of significant figures as the data you were given — usually two or three. An answer copied straight off a calculator to eight figures looks careless and can lose a mark.

Command words. State wants one line with no explanation. Describe wants what happens. Explain wants why, and needs physics in it. Calculate wants working shown, because method marks are available even when the final number is wrong. Reading the command word properly is worth more marks than any single piece of content.

🧭How to use this site

Each of the six topic pages follows the same shape: what you need to be able to do, the physics, a worked example, something to try, practice questions, and other people’s resources kept separate at the bottom.

The worked examples always end by naming the specific mistake that costs marks in that topic — the graph axes people misread, the distance people forget to double, the temperature change people confuse with the temperature. Those paragraphs are the most useful part of each page.