What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 0654 Co-ordinated Sciences papers and filtered to thermal physics. You answer, you find out immediately whether you were right, and you get the reasoning for the correct option and for each distractor. Wrong answers go to a mistakes locker so you can come back to exactly those.
Practice is free. You need an account only so your progress and your mistakes are still there next time.
Start practising practice questions →
What examiners see students get wrong here
These are the errors that cost marks on thermal physics, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Saying particles expand when heated. The spacing increases, not the particles.
- Saying convection happens in solids.
- Saying radiation needs particles. It is the only method that does not.
- Saying a shiny surface is a good absorber.
- Saying temperature rises while ice is melting.
- Confusing boiling with evaporation, or saying evaporation happens throughout the liquid.
- Saying a hot object "has more heat". It has more internal energy, and energy is what transfers.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Thermal physics revision notes.