A Level Physics exam mistakes are the same, year after year. Maybe not exactly, but they follow a pattern. If your child is sitting A Level Physics and the grade is not matching the effort, the answer is usually in the examiner reports, which the exam boards publish for free after every sitting.
These reports reveal what examiners actually reward. The pattern is consistent. Specifically, marks are rarely lost on big gaps in knowledge. Instead they are lost on small habits: a number truncated too early, a free-body diagram that was never drawn, an explanation that meant the right thing in everyday English but the wrong thing in physics. The physics was usually right. The way it landed on the page let the student down.
The Real Problem
If your child knows the physics but the grades are not reflecting it, the issue is almost always exam technique. They understand the content. They are losing marks on the way they communicate it on the page.
Book a lesson with an A Level Physics tutor
A specialist tutor can read your child’s past papers and show you exactly which marks are being lost.
Why does my child lose A Level Physics marks despite knowing the content?
A Level Physics rewards careful working and methodical thinking in a way that GCSE never quite tested. The difference between a B and an A* is often the same student answering the same questions, but with cleaner setups, fewer rounding errors, and a habit of checking what each step actually shows. The pace also picks up sharply. Our piece on A Level revision strategies that work covers complementary methods for managing this jump.
The examiner reports give parents an unusual window into what is actually rewarded. They are written for teachers, but the picture they paint is one any parent can use. As a result, the same A Level Physics exam mistakes recur every year, because most students never read the reports and so never know what the examiner is really looking for.
What are the most common A Level Physics exam mistakes?
Truncating numbers mid-calculation
Physics problems often run across three or four stages of working. For example, your child calculates a value at stage one, uses it at stage two, and again at stage three. If they round to two significant figures early, the final answer drifts and the accuracy mark is lost.
Examiner reports flag this specifically. One report noted that the truncation of intermediate answers had a detrimental effect on students’ chances of success in the final stage of a calculation. The fix is simple. Your child should carry every value to at least one extra significant figure through the working and only round at the final answer.
Skipping the free-body diagram
In mechanics, the free-body diagram is the most useful tool on the page. Specifically, it shows every force acting on an object and the direction it acts in. Examiners consistently note that students who skip the diagram lose marks they would otherwise pick up. For instance, in a 2023 question on equilibrium, the report observed that drawing the weight and the tension on the diagram would have shown their lines of action and led directly to the right answer.
Your child should sketch a free-body diagram on every mechanics question, however simple it looks. It takes thirty seconds and saves marks on the questions that look hardest.
Showing only the final answer when working is needed
Modern A Level calculators are powerful. For instance, they can rearrange formulas, evaluate integrals, and handle multi-step calculations. However, the mark scheme awards method marks for the steps in between, not for the final number alone. If your child writes only the final answer and gets it wrong, they score zero.
If they show two or three lines of working and reach the wrong answer, they often score most of the marks anyway. So this is one of the most expensive A Level Physics exam mistakes a strong student can make, because it affects the high-achievers most. They are confident enough to skip steps, so they do.
Is your child losing marks on physics they actually understand?
A specialist A Level Physics tutor can read their work and show you exactly which marks are being dropped, and why.
Calling a graph “proportional” when only “linear” applies
This is a classic A Level Physics exam mistake and one of the most expensive. A straight-line graph is not necessarily proportional. For proportionality, the line must also pass through the origin. So a graph that is straight but does not pass through the origin is linear, but not proportional.
One examiner report put it bluntly. Large numbers of students seemed to think that any straight line graph represents direct or inverse proportion. Examiners insisted on seeing the words “linear” or “straight line”, and any mention of proportion of any sort was rejected. Your child should treat “linear” and “proportional” as separate terms with separate meanings.
Vague language in explanation questions
Extended-response questions in A Level Physics reward specific scientific language. For example, phrases like “the wavelength gets bigger” or “the waveform might not fit” leave examiners unable to credit the answer. The mark scheme wants “the wavelength increases” or “the waveform exceeds the screen width by a factor of two”.
One examiner report criticised answers that “equivocated” with phrases like “might not fit”. The mark scheme is written to reward precise terminology and quantitative detail. Your child should compare their answers against the mark scheme line by line, and underline any term in the mark scheme that they did not use. Those are the terms to learn.
Treating required practicals as background noise
At least 15% of the marks on AQA A Level Physics come from practical assessment in the written papers. Specifically, these questions test why a particular piece of equipment is used, what a particular technique achieves, and what observation indicates a successful measurement.
Examiners regularly note that students “improvise” their answers when asked about practical setup. This usually signals limited hands-on practice. Your child should have a one-page summary for each required practical, covering apparatus, technique, sources of error, and the standard exam questions that come up.
How can my child stop making these A Level Physics mistakes?
Spot the pattern in your child’s A Level Physics exam mistakes
When your child loses marks on a past paper, the question to ask is not “what topic was that on?” but “what type of mistake was that?” Two questions on completely different topics can both be lost to the same habit. Once your child sees the habit, they can fix it across the whole paper.
Have them mark their own past papers properly
Doing past papers is helpful. However, marking them carefully is where the gain comes from. After every paper, your child should sit with the mark scheme open and identify every mark they did not get. Was the physics wrong, or was it a technique slip? In practice, the pattern usually appears within three or four papers.
Get a second pair of eyes on their work
Self-marking has a ceiling. The student who wrote an answer is the worst-placed person to spot what is wrong with it, because the answer looks right to them. A specialist tutor reads the work line by line and identifies precisely where marks are being dropped. The same diagnostic eye comes up in our piece on the challenges of A Level Biology.
📚 Find your child’s examiner report
Every board publishes free past papers, mark schemes, and examiner reports:
Which Greenhill tutors specialise in A Level Physics?
Murray
Murray reads Materials Science at Trinity College, University of Oxford, where he is in his fourth year and is on track for a First. At A Level he earned A*s in Physics, Maths, and Chemistry. His physics credentials include a Bronze in the British Physics Olympiad (Senior, Division 1) and the Armourers and Brasiers Award (top of his Oxford cohort). Murray has 150+ hours of tutoring under his belt and specialises in the maths-heavy parts of A Level Physics that catch students out. He also prepares students for the Oxford Physics Aptitude Test (PAT).
Charlotte
Charlotte read Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford, graduating with a First. She teaches across all four sciences and Maths at GCSE and A Level, with particular strength in helping students who are strong on the content but losing marks on exam technique. Charlotte’s parents and students consistently note her patience and her ability to translate the mark scheme into language a student can actually act on.
Ready to stop losing A Level Physics marks?
If your child knows the physics but the grades are not yet reflecting it, the gap is almost certainly in technique. Get in touch and we will match them with a specialist A Level Physics tutor who can diagnose the issue and fix it before the next paper.
Get Your Child to the Top Mark Bands in A Level Physics
TURN A LEVEL PHYSICS EXAM MISTAKES INTO MARKS
Our Oxbridge-educated A Level Physics tutors specialise in the precision that separates A from A*. They give the kind of personalised feedback past papers alone cannot provide.
Part of our A Level exam mistakes series
This piece is one of a series for parents on the most common A Level exam mistakes by subject. The patterns differ subject to subject, but the technique fixes are universal. The other posts in the series:
→ A Level Maths: The Most Common Exam Mistakes
→ A Level Biology: The Most Common Exam Mistakes
Frequently asked questions
