After every exam series, Cambridge examiners produce a report for each paper. These documents are unusually honest: they name the questions that were answered badly, quote common wrong answers verbatim, and describe what separated the students who scored well from those who didn't.
The problem is that they're dense, long, and written for teachers rather than students. This article extracts what's actionable for the 2025 series across both 0625 IGCSE and 9702 A Level.
IGCSE Physics 0625 — What the 2025 Reports Show
The 2025 series continued patterns that have appeared in every 0625 report since 2021. The underlying issue is rarely that students don't understand the physics — it's that they can't translate understanding into the precise language the mark scheme requires.
Multiple choice papers (Papers 1 and 2)
Examiners note that the questions candidates found hardest consistently involved applying a principle to an unfamiliar context rather than recalling a fact. Students who drilled past paper questions without understanding the underlying principle tended to fail these — they'd seen similar questions but not that exact context.
Questions on moments, pressure in fluids, and electromagnetic induction were the most-discriminating — the highest gap between top and bottom candidates. Students who scored well on these had built habits around drawing diagrams before answering, which forced them to identify the physical setup correctly.
Structured questions (Papers 3 and 4)
The two most-cited issues in structured question marking were (1) explanation answers that describe rather than explain — writing what happens without giving a physical reason — and (2) definition answers with missing key words. These cost marks on questions where the student demonstrably understood the concept.
In questions on thermal physics, many candidates wrote "the molecules move faster" without specifying that this is because they have greater kinetic energy, and without connecting this to temperature. The mark scheme required the full chain: temperature rises → mean kinetic energy of molecules increases → molecules move faster on average.
Paper 5 — Practical test
Paper 5 findings were the most specific and the most actionable. The report identified the following as the highest-frequency errors across the 2025 sitting:
1. Significant figures in measurements. Readings recorded to the wrong precision — typically too few significant figures for the instrument being used. A ruler to the nearest mm, a balance to the nearest 0.1 g, a thermometer to the nearest 0.5°C.
2. Control variables omitted from experimental plans. Candidates stated what to change and what to measure, but did not name what must be kept constant. This mark was missed by the majority of candidates on planning questions.
3. Graph errors. Joining points dot-to-dot (no smooth best-fit line); scales that used less than half the grid; axes not labelled with units. All three lost marks that had nothing to do with physics knowledge.
The Paper 5 Examiner Guide on this site was built directly from these findings across 2021–2025 reports. It covers all three in detail with a 50-point self-audit.
A Level Physics 9702 — What the 2025 Reports Show
The 9702 reports are longer and more technical. The key findings split cleanly across the practical papers (Papers 3 and 5) and the theory papers (Papers 2 and 4).
Paper 2 and Paper 4 — Theory
The most consistent finding across theory papers was that candidates struggled with derivation and explanation questions more than calculation questions. Many candidates could apply a formula correctly but couldn't explain where it came from or what the terms represented physically.
On electric field and potential questions, candidates frequently confused the direction of the field with the direction of force on a negative charge — confusing field lines (direction of force on a positive test charge) with the actual direction of force on the charge in the question. This is a conceptual distinction the mark scheme tests explicitly.
Paper 3 — Advanced Practical Skills
Paper 3 is where the most marks are lost by otherwise strong candidates, and the 2025 report continued this trend. The limitations and improvements section — where students must identify weaknesses in an experiment and suggest specific, realistic improvements — was the most discriminating part of the paper.
The most common failure mode: vague improvements. "Use a better ruler" scores nothing. "Use a ruler with mm graduations and take the measurement at eye level to eliminate parallax error" scores the mark. Examiners explicitly state that they are looking for a named cause of error paired with a specific, feasible method of reducing it.
The structure examiners want for a full-mark limitation answer is: identify the source of error → state how it affects the result → suggest a specific improvement that addresses that source.
Repeated oscillation timing errors were cited across multiple question contexts: students timing a single oscillation rather than multiple, not returning to the same reference point, and not accounting for reaction time. The improvement for all three is the same: "time 10 or more complete oscillations and divide by n to find the period" — this reduces the percentage uncertainty in timing significantly.
The Limitations & Improvements Trainer drills exactly this — real experimental contexts, examiner-level answer structure, with the mark scheme logic explained for each.
Paper 5 — Planning, Analysis and Evaluation
The 2025 Paper 5 report had specific findings for both Q1 (planning) and Q2 (analysis). For Q1, the most-missed marks were on the diagram and the safety precaution. For Q2, the most-missed marks were on uncertainty calculations — specifically, converting gradient uncertainty into uncertainty in a derived quantity.
Safety precautions scored poorly when candidates gave generic statements ("wear safety goggles") without connecting them to the specific hazard in the experiment. If the experiment involves a heated wire, the precaution needs to reference the wire: "avoid touching the wire during the experiment as it may reach temperatures that cause burns."
Linearisation was well-handled by most candidates. The marks lost in Q2 were almost entirely in the uncertainty propagation — candidates could find the gradient and intercept but couldn't correctly calculate the uncertainty in the gradient, or forgot to carry that uncertainty through to their final answer for the derived physical quantity.
The Linearisation Trainer and the Uncertainties Trainer target these two areas specifically.
The Patterns That Appear in Every Report
Reading five years of Cambridge Physics examiner reports, the same themes recur regardless of year or paper:
| Pattern | Papers affected | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Describing instead of explaining | 0625 P3/4 9702 P2/4 | Write the causal chain in full: "because… therefore…" |
| Missing key words in definitions | 0625 P3/4 9702 P2/4 | Learn definitions against the mark scheme, not from memory |
| Vague language in practical responses | 0625 P5 9702 P3/5 | Name the specific source of error + specific improvement |
| Wrong significant figures for readings | 0625 P5 9702 P3 | Match precision to instrument resolution, record immediately |
| Missing control variables in plans | 0625 P5 9702 P5 | Always write IV, DV, and at least one CV explicitly |
| Graph technique errors (scale, line, labels) | 0625 P5 9702 P3/5 | Use more than half the grid; draw one smooth best-fit line |
How to Actually Use This in Revision
The examiner reports are not interesting as reading material. They're useful as a checklist. The right approach is:
1. Identify which patterns apply to you. Do past papers under timed conditions, then mark them against the mark scheme. The mistakes you make will overlap with the list above — identify your personal top three.
2. Drill the specific habit, not the topic. If you keep missing marks on explanation questions, the fix is not to "revise electricity harder." The fix is to practise writing out full causal chains for any explanation question you attempt — in any topic — until it becomes automatic.
3. Use practical trainers against the mark scheme. Paper 5 and Paper 3 marks are almost entirely technique rather than physics knowledge. The students who score well on practical papers have seen enough mark schemes to know exactly what level of detail earns the mark. That's a drillable skill.
The trainers built from these findings
Every tool on CIE Insider was built around the patterns in examiner reports. Start with whichever matches your exam.