HSC Physics exam 2026 (NESA): format, sections and marking

The HSC Physics exam is a 100-mark paper: Section I is 20 multiple-choice questions worth 20 marks, and Section II is written response worth 80 marks. You get 5 minutes of reading time and 3 hours of working time. In 2026 it is on Thursday 5 November, the last written exam of the series.

This guide describes the HSC Physics paper as NESA printed it in 2023, 2024 and 2025, which share one format, and the 2026 timetable and rules. NESA has not published the 2026 paper, so treat the format as what the last three papers did. It covers the Year 12 HSC exam. For every past paper and question in one place, see HSC Physics past papers (NESA).

When is the HSC Physics exam in 2026?

Thursday 5 November 2026. It is the only exam that day and the last written exam of the 2026 period, which runs from 13 October. NESA's timetable prints a 9.25 am start and a 12.30 pm finish. The printed start is when reading time begins, so the 5 minutes of reading and the 3 hours of writing together fill that window.

Reading time is for reading only, and the rules on arrival, leaving early and what you can bring are the same for every course. Those are in How to prepare for HSC exams, not repeated here.

What is the format of the HSC Physics exam?

The cover page of each of the 2023, 2024 and 2025 papers prints the same instructions. Apart from page numbers, only the Section II question count changes.

Each paper is 100 marks with 5 minutes of reading time and 3 hours of working time. The cover page also says a data sheet, a formulae sheet and a Periodic Table are provided at the back of the paper, and that calculators approved by NESA may be used. What the sheets contain is covered in the HSC Physics formula sheet guide.

In 2025 Section II was a separate answer booklet. Its instructions say the answer spaces give guidance on the expected length of a response, and that you should show all relevant working in calculation questions. Extra writing space is at the back, and you must say which question you are continuing.

How many marks are the Section II questions worth?

Section II questions run from 3 marks up to 8 or 9. Counting the printed marks in each paper:

Each paper's Section II questions add to 80. The printed timing works out at about 1.8 minutes a mark for Section II (145 minutes for 80 marks) and about 1.75 minutes a question for Section I. That is our arithmetic from the printed times, and NESA's feedback gives no pacing advice of its own.

What equipment and calculator can you use?

NESA's exam equipment list gives Physics a NESA-approved calculator plus a pair of compasses, a protractor and set squares. Biology and Chemistry list only the calculator. The cover page says to write in black pen and draw diagrams in pencil.

An approved calculator is scientific. It cannot be programmable, have graphing capability, have computer algebra functions or have financial functions. Check yours against NESA's approved list before the exam, and know how it handles scientific notation, powers and the inverse trigonometric functions, because Physics calculations use all of them.

How many marks does each module carry?

Across the 2023, 2024 and 2025 papers, the 300 marks map to the Year 12 modules like this, using our mapping of each part to NESA's dot points:

Each of the four content modules carries more than a fifth of the marks across the three papers, so none can be dropped. The share of marks by topic and dot point, and what moved between 2023 and 2025, is in HSC Physics most tested topics. Where students lose those marks is in HSC Physics hardest topics.

Multiple choice

Section I is 20 questions at 1 mark each, so it is a fifth of the paper. NESA publishes a printed answer key with each paper's Marking Guidelines, and no feedback on Section I at all. The 2024 and 2025 Marking Feedback pages for Physics start at question 21.

On AusGrader, HSC Physics multiple-choice questions from board external papers average 65.5% across 20,377 marked attempts, against 54.5% on short-answer questions across 2,610 attempts. These are self-selected users practising when they chose to, not the NESA cohort, so read the gap as a sign of where marks are harder to get and not as a state average.

The 2025 paper shows what the questions look like. Several give four rows of a table and ask which row is correct (questions 2, 4 and 8). Question 7 gives four statements that each make two claims, and question 9 asks what you can conclude from a pair of spectra. Technique follows from that format:

• Check one column at a time. In a table-row question, find the value you are sure of, strike the rows that contradict it, then settle the remaining column.
• In a two-claim statement, both claims must be true. One wrong clause makes the option wrong.
• Work it out before you look at the options when it is a calculation or a comparison, so the options do not steer you.

NESA's rules add one point about Section I. Answering only the multiple-choice questions is not a serious attempt at the exam and can cost you the course, so the written section has to be attempted.

How is Section II marked?

Every Section II question has a table of criteria in the Marking Guidelines, with one row for each mark band, usually followed by a sample answer and sometimes a list of other acceptable points. Your answer is matched against each band in turn.

The 2025 guidelines show the pattern at two sizes. Question 21 (3 marks) asks for methods to tell alpha and beta sources apart. Its criteria are:

Question 32 (8 marks) is on the consequences of special relativity. Its top band reads, in NESA's words, "Provides a comprehensive analysis of the consequences of special relativity on time, length and motion" and "Refers to applicable experimental evidence". The bands below it step down through 6 to 7, 4 to 5 and 2 to 3 marks to "Provides some relevant information" for 1 mark.

Two things follow. The 8 and the 6 to 7 bands both name all three parts, so on our reading a question 32 response that leaves out motion sits in the 4 to 5 band or below, however good the rest is. And the evidence is a separate requirement from the explanation, so an answer with correct theory and no experiment cannot reach the top band. The key words in each question set which band applies, and HSC command terms shows how NESA's glossary translates into marks.

What does NESA's Marking Feedback say costs marks in Physics?

NESA's 2024 and 2025 Marking Feedback for Physics covers Section II only. This is a paraphrase of what it asks students to do, grouped by where marks went.

• Convert units before you substitute. The 2024 feedback named centimetres to metres, millimetres to metres and MeV per c squared to MeV or joules. The 2025 feedback named kilometres to metres and prefixes such as micro and nano. One 2024 question needed cubic kilometres and squared days converted to SI units to find a planet's mass from a graph.
• Show the formula and the substitution. The general feedback asks for full working, including the formula and the substitution into it. Feedback on 2025 question 28 praised deriving an expression algebraically first and substituting numbers at the end, which limits rounding errors. A 2024 question flagged that answers from early parts must be carried into later parts.
• Give units and directions for vector answers. Direction is part of a vector answer, and the general feedback says so in both years.
• Draw graphs with care. Feedback on a 2025 question that asked for the threshold frequency wanted for clearly marked points (crosses, not small dots), a line of best fit drawn with a ruler, and extension to the axis to read it. A 2024 question asked for the gradient from two points on the line, shown as a triangle on the graph. For sketches, mark key points such as the maximum, minimum and intercepts first.
• Use cause and effect and precise terms. The general feedback in both years asks for explanations that state cause and effect. Feedback on 2025 question 22 asked for specific losses such as eddy currents, incomplete flux linkage and magnetic hysteresis. Feedback on a 2024 special relativity question wanted length contraction and time dilation named, and non-standard abbreviations avoided unless defined.
• Answer every part and stay on it. Feedback on 2024 question 31 asked for both parts, maximum heights and energy changes, and warned against irrelevant detail. Feedback on 2025 question 27 asked students to stay on electron behaviour in each atomic model and not drift to protons and neutrons.
• Draw the diagram the question needs. Feedback praised a clear free-body diagram with every force annotated (2024) and annotated diagrams of an experimental setup with radiation paths and expected results (2025).
• Use the stimulus. Feedback on several questions asks students to take values and detail from the data or text supplied. The general feedback adds that students should know the constants and formulas on the Data and Formula Sheets.

Both years' general feedback also asks students to read the question carefully, understand the glossary of key words, plan the response and review it against the question. Nothing in the 2024 or 2025 Physics feedback advises on pacing or on handwriting.

What does a weak answer look like against a strong one?

The first row uses NESA's sample answer for 2025 question 21. The other two are our illustrations of points NESA's feedback made, not NESA examples.

How should you practise for the HSC Physics exam?

1. Sit one paper at the printed timing. Do Section I in about 35 minutes, then Section II in about 2 hours and 25 minutes, with the data sheet and formulae sheet beside you and only the equipment the exam allows.
2. Mark it against the Marking Guidelines, band by band. Find which band each answer reached and which phrase in the next band you missed. For a way to do this question by question, see HSC Physics past papers (NESA), where the marked questions from the 2023, 2024 and 2025 papers sit with their criteria.
3. Group the lost marks by module, using the table above, then work the topic pages for the module where you lost most. The hardest topics guide shows which topics carry the most marks at risk.
4. Practise the sheets. HSC Physics formula sheet lists what is and is not printed, so you stop hunting for a constant under time pressure.

For sourcing papers and how trial exams fit in, see HSC past papers. For the band gap in the sciences, see what separates Band 5 from Band 6 in HSC science.