OCR AS Level Physics B (Advancing Physics) Past Papers

OCR AS Level Physics B (Advancing Physics) (H157) is developed around three unifying themes — Imaging and Signalling, Mechanical Modelling, and Matter and Radiation — that provide a conceptual coherence distinguishing the Advancing Physics specification from conventional physics courses. The approach emphasises the use of physics to model and explain physical systems, with explicit attention to the limits and validity of models. Paper 1: Foundations of Physics (H157/01, 1 hour 30 minutes, 70 marks) introduces the Advancing Physics approach. Content includes imaging and signalling (how telescopes, microscopes, and electronic communications use wave behaviour — refraction, reflection, diffraction, and interference), mechanical modelling (forces and moments, kinematics using graphs and SUVAT equations, Newton's laws), and an introduction to the properties of materials (stress, strain, elastic and plastic deformation, the Young modulus). The paper places these topics within broader physical modelling contexts — for example, using exponential models for radioactive decay alongside linear models for motion. Paper 2: Physics in Depth (H157/02, 1 hour 30 minutes, 70 marks) extends into matter and radiation. Content covers electric fields and charge (Coulomb's law, field lines, equipotentials), magnetic fields and induction, circuits at greater depth (EMF and internal resistance, Kirchhoff's laws), materials in more detail (phase diagrams, thermal properties), nuclear physics (radioactive decay, nuclear equations, half-life), and quantum physics (the photon model, line spectra, wave-particle duality). Extended data-handling and modelling questions test the ability to apply physical principles to unfamiliar quantitative scenarios.