How do I revise for GCSE physics?

Equations are the spine of the subject

More than either other science, physics runs on equations - a couple of dozen relationships that carry a large share of the paper's marks. Fluency with them has three layers, and the exam tests all three: recognising which equation a question wants (it will not tell you), rearranging it without slips, and handling the units. Some equations are printed on a sheet in the exam and some must be memorised - the split is set per board and has been adjusted in recent years, so check the current arrangement for your board and exam year with your teacher, and build your memorisation list from that, not from a website's guess.

But here is the important reframe: even the given equations have to be earned. A sheet tells you the formula exists; it does not choose it for you, rearrange it, or convert your grams to kilograms. The skill that scores is fluency of use, and that comes only from doing calculations - which is why reading physics notes feels productive and moves so little.

The calculation routine: same steps, every time

Physics calculations reward a fixed routine, and drilling the routine is drilling the subject. Do a short set of calculations most days you revise physics - like maths, it is a fluency you maintain, not a topic you finish.

• Write down the quantities the question gives you, with their symbols and units, before anything else.
• Choose the equation that connects what you have to what you want - this is the skill the exam is really testing, so notice yourself doing it.
• Rearrange before substituting. Rearranging with symbols is one clean algebra step; rearranging with numbers in is where slips breed.
• Convert units before you calculate - grams to kilograms, centimetres to metres, minutes to seconds. Most lost calculation marks die on this hill.
• Finish with the unit on the answer, and a sanity check: a sprinter at 900 metres per second is your working asking to be reread.

The other half: explain-why questions

Roughly half of physics asks no calculation at all: explain why the current changes, why the object falls at a steady speed, what happens to the reading and why. These questions are where confident calculators quietly lose marks, because explaining physics in precise English is a separate skill from computing it. The mark scheme wants a chain of cause and effect in correct technical language - resistance, acceleration, and rate all mean exact things - with each link stated, not assumed.

Revise this half actively too: cover a concept, write or say the explanation from memory, and check against your notes or a mark scheme. Practise the classic chains until they run smoothly (why resistance changes, why terminal velocity happens, how energy transfers in a given system). And when self-testing reveals you can recite an explanation but not adapt it, that is the cue to do application questions on the topic - physics papers love familiar physics in unfamiliar clothing.

Required practicals: understand the method

Physics papers include questions on your board's required practicals, and they follow the same logic as the other sciences: understanding beats recall. For each practical on your board's list, be able to say what was measured and how, what was changed and what was controlled, why particular steps improve accuracy (repeats, avoiding parallax, letting equipment settle), and how the data turns into the conclusion - often via a graph, so reading gradients and intercepts is part of practical revision. Questions frequently present a twist on the method you did in class; a student who understood the logic answers comfortably, a student who memorised the worksheet does not.