What Are the Best Resources for IB Physics?

Past papers from 2016 onward, a topical question bank, revision notes mapped to the current syllabus, and the IB Physics data booklet — used together, not separately. In my experience the students who plateau at a 5 are the ones revising from notes alone and never touching past-paper mark schemes.

No — past papers test what you already half-know; they don't teach the gaps. Pair them with topical practice on your weakest areas first (usually electromagnetic induction, wave phenomena and simple harmonic motion), then move to full past papers under timed conditions six weeks before exams.

There's no single official guide — the closest thing is your teacher's notes plus the IB Physics data booklet, which lists every formula you're allowed in the exam. A good revision guide should map directly onto the current syllabus's seven DP core topics, not a generic A-level physics structure.

Treat the data booklet as an open-book exam aid, not a crutch. Know exactly which page each formula sits on, understand every symbol used, and practise pulling the right equation under time pressure — students who've never opened it before exam day waste minutes searching in Paper 2.

Mostly the same base resources, but HL students need extra material on the HL-only topics: engineering physics, imaging, and further mechanics/electromagnetism content depending on option choice. A question bank that clearly tags SL-only versus HL-only questions saves real revision time.

Free videos are fine for a first explanation of a tricky concept — induced EMF, or the photoelectric effect — but they rarely give IB-specific mark schemes or practice at the command-term level examiners actually use. Use them to understand, then switch to IB-marked practice to apply.

Grade 7 students typically combine three habits: daily formula recall from the data booklet, weekly timed past-paper questions, and a habit of writing full working even on calculator-heavy questions — because method marks exist independent of the final numerical answer.

Around three to four focused hours a week outside class is realistic for most students aiming for a 6 or 7, rising to five or six hours in the two months before mocks. Consistency across weeks matters more than occasional long weekend sessions.

Re-reading notes instead of doing questions. I see this every year — a student who can recite the definition of simple harmonic motion but freezes on a Paper 2 question combining it with energy graphs, because recognition and application are different skills entirely.

Paper 3 tests data analysis and your option topic, so practise raw experimental data sets weekly — not just theory questions. According to the IB, Paper 3 for the current Physics guide (first exams 2025) carries roughly 20% of the total SL/HL mark, so it's too big to leave until the final fortnight.

It depends what you're paying for. A well-structured question bank with mark schemes and topic tagging saves your child hours of hunting for past papers online — genuinely worth it. Paying for generic PDFs or repackaged free content usually isn't.

Start with what's free: official past papers and your child's class notes. Then add one paid structured resource — a topical question bank or set of revision notes aligned to the current syllabus — rather than several overlapping ones that just eat revision time.

Ask to see their past-paper scores over time, not just their revision notes. Improvement across three or four timed papers on the same topics is the clearest sign a resource is working — flat or declining scores despite hours of "revision" usually mean the method, not the effort, needs to change.