What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 9702 Physics papers and filtered to quantum 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.
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What examiners see students get wrong here
These are the errors that cost marks on quantum physics, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Saying a photon has mass. It has energy and momentum but no mass.
- Using E = hf with the wavelength in nanometres rather than metres.
- Multiplying by 1.60 × 10⁻¹⁹ when converting joules to electronvolts. Divide.
- Saying brighter light gives photoelectrons more kinetic energy. It gives more of them.
- Saying that if the light is bright enough, emission will happen below the threshold frequency. It never does.
- Saying several photons can combine to release one electron. One photon, one electron.
- Treating the threshold wavelength as a minimum. It is a maximum.
- Forgetting that the work function must be converted from eV to J before use with h in SI units.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Quantum physics revision notes.