What's the Best Way to Revise for IB Physics?

Do past papers by topic, not by full mock, at least until your last month. Mark every answer against the actual IB mark scheme, log your recurring mistakes in one document, then revisit that document weekly. Passive reading of notes barely moves a Physics grade — active recall and calculation practice do.

Most students who land a 6 or 7 do 3-4 focused hours a week outside class during term time, rising to daily sessions in the final 6-8 weeks before exams. Quality of practice — genuinely marking your own work against the mark scheme — matters more than raw hours logged.

You mostly don't need to — the IB Physics data booklet gives you nearly every equation in the exam. Focus instead on knowing which equation applies to which scenario and being fluent with the booklet's notation, since fumbling to find the right formula under time pressure costs more marks than not memorising it.

HL revision needs extra time on the four HL-only topics — Rotational dynamics, Wave phenomena, Fields, and Nuclear/particle physics extensions — since these are exactly where HL Paper 2 questions get harder and where SL-trained instinct won't help you. Do HL-only past questions separately, not mixed into general practice.

Yes — IB Physics HL is consistently one of the harder DP science options, mainly because it combines conceptual depth with real mathematical demand (calculus-adjacent reasoning in mechanics and fields). SL is more manageable but still asks for genuine problem-solving, not memorised recall, across all three exam papers.

Grade boundaries shift slightly each session, but Physics HL typically needs somewhere around 80-85% of total marks for a 7, while SL is often a touch lower depending on paper difficulty that year. Boundaries are set after each exam session based on how the whole cohort performed, so they're never fixed in advance.

The most common mistake I see marking mocks is students doing the physics correctly but losing marks on presentation — no units, wrong significant figures, or skipping the working the mark scheme actually awards points for. The second most common: misreading command terms like 'estimate' versus 'calculate'.

Physics HL is generally considered harder than Chemistry HL for students who find abstract mathematical reasoning difficult, but easier than Maths AA HL in pure problem-solving demand. The honest answer depends on whether a student's strength is conceptual physics reasoning or algebraic manipulation.

According to the IB, the current Physics guide (first exams 2025) is organised into five core themes — Space, time and motion; The particulate nature of matter; Wave behaviour; Fields; and Nuclear and quantum physics — with HL students covering additional depth and four extra sub-topics within these themes.

Paper 3 tests data-based and practical-scheme-of-work questions, including one option-free section that draws on experimental skills from your IA and practical work across the two years. It rewards students who've actually done labs thoughtfully, not just read about them.

The IA is marked against five criteria from the current Physics guide — Personal engagement, Exploration, Analysis, Evaluation, and Communication — for a total of 24 marks, worth 20% of the final grade for both SL and HL students.

Choose HL if you're aiming at engineering, physics, or a maths-heavy degree and you're comfortable with algebra and trigonometry under exam pressure. Choose SL if Physics is a supporting science for a non-STEM pathway — the content overlaps heavily, but HL adds real mathematical depth, not just extra facts to memorise.

Most competitive engineering degrees list Physics HL (or a strong SL grade plus Maths AA HL) among their typical requirements, so HL is generally the safer choice if engineering is a firm goal. Check the specific university's DP subject requirements before committing, since they vary by institution.

The most useful resources are past papers with official mark schemes, a well-organised set of topic notes, and a data booklet you've actually practised using under timed conditions. RevisionPrep's Topical Worksheets and Mock Papers are built specifically around the current Physics guide's five themes for this kind of structured, markable practice.

Costs vary widely — private one-to-one support in most countries runs anywhere from GBP 30 to GBP 80+ per hour, while self-study platforms with structured Revision Notes, Topical Worksheets and Mock Papers cost a fraction of that as a flat subscription. Many families combine both depending on budget and how much independent structure their child already has.