What changed in IB Physics, and why does it matter for tuition?
IB Physics has a new guide, first examined in May 2025. The options were removed, the content is organised into five themes, Paper 1 now has a data-based section, and Paper 3 no longer exists. Tuition material and past papers written for the old guide only partly match what students sit today.
The five themes are Space, time and motion; The particulate nature of matter; Wave behaviour; Fields; and Nuclear and quantum physics. Calculators and the data booklet are allowed in every paper, including the multiple-choice section, which changed how those questions are written.
Because only a few sessions of new-guide papers exist, choosing practice questions is a skill in itself. I use the new papers, the specimen papers, and old-guide questions filtered for what is still on the syllabus.
| Component | SL | HL | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1A, multiple choice, and 1B, data-based questions | 1 h 30 min | 2 h | 36% |
| Paper 2, short-answer and extended-response | 1 h 30 min | 2 h 30 min | 44% |
| Internal Assessment, scientific investigation | 10 hours | 10 hours | 20% |
Why is IB Physics HL hard even for students who are good at Maths?
IB Physics HL is hard for good mathematicians because the difficulty is not the algebra. It is deciding which physical model applies before any equation is written. Students who learn Physics as a list of formulas do well on routine questions and stall on the unfamiliar contexts that Paper 2 is built from.
This is where a physicist is useful rather than decorative. When a student asks why the field inside a conductor is zero, or what a wavefunction is, there is a real answer, and the real answer is usually easier to remember than the rule that replaced it. My doctorate was in experimental particle physics, which is also why data analysis, uncertainties and the IA are the parts I enjoy teaching most.
In lessons we practise the step that comes before the calculation: draw the situation, name the principle, state the assumptions, then write the equation. It is slower for two weeks and faster for the rest of the course.
How do you help with the IB Physics IA?
The IB Physics IA is an individual scientific investigation of up to 3,000 words, marked out of 24 on four criteria and worth 20% of the grade. I help the student turn an interest into a research question that can be measured, plan the data collection, and analyse uncertainties properly. The student runs the experiment and writes the report.
The most common way to lose IA marks is a research question that produces a straight line with nothing to discuss, or one so ambitious that the school lab cannot measure it. The second is uncertainty analysis done as a ritual: error bars drawn because they are required, then ignored in the conclusion.
| Criterion | Marks | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Research design | 6 | A focused research question and a method that can answer it |
| Data analysis | 6 | Correct processing, graphs and treatment of uncertainties |
| Conclusion | 6 | A conclusion justified by the data and compared with accepted physics |
| Evaluation | 6 | Specific weaknesses of the method and realistic improvements |
What does a weekly IB Physics tuition lesson look like?
A weekly IB Physics tuition lesson starts from what the student met at school that week, tested with two or three exam questions rather than with "did you understand?". Where the answer breaks, we go back to the concept, rebuild it with a diagram or a quick estimate, and then return to exam questions.
Before mocks and finals, lessons move to timed Paper 2 questions marked against the IB markscheme. Physics markschemes are strict about wording: "the force increases" and "the resultant force increases" are different answers. Learning to write the sentence the markscheme is looking for is a large share of the distance between a 5 and a 7.
For parents
How I work with families
- Confidentiality
- No student name, school or result is published without written consent. The reviews on this site carry a name only because the parent chose to sign it. A non-disclosure agreement is available on request before the first lesson.
- Lessons in Singapore time
- Weekdays between 5 pm and 9 pm Singapore time, at the same slot every week. Singapore does not change its clocks, so the lesson stays at the same local time all year.
- A report after every lesson
- Each lesson is written up the same day in a private family area: ratings for focus, understanding and execution, my note on how the hour went, the whiteboard we wrote, and the PDFs to revise from. Parents have their own access. See the family area.
- One tutor, start to finish
- This is not an agency. The person you meet in the assessment session is the person who teaches every lesson, marks every paper and answers every message, for as long as we work together.