Diploma Programme science, SL and HL
Edunest arranges live online IB Diploma Programme Physics lessons for SL and HL students in Qatar, each learner working alone with a tutor. Lessons follow the guide first assessed in 2025, across all five themes, both papers and the scientific investigation. Each tutor begins with your child's marked tests and lab work, so lessons aim at the marks being lost.
Physics is often the first DP subject where algebra, graphs and experimental uncertainty meet inside one question. A tutor who knows the current guide can pull those threads apart and strengthen each one.
What we cover
The IB groups DP Physics into five themes, read through three concepts: energy, particles and forces. HL adds whole topics and extra depth inside shared ones, as marked below.
Motion graphs, Newton's laws, momentum and energy form the base of the course. Learners often lose marks with incomplete free-body diagrams or by mixing up impulse and force in collision questions.
Kinematics · Forces and momentum · Work, energy and power · Rigid body mechanics and relativity
Specific heat, gas laws, the greenhouse effect and electric circuits sit together here. Common slips are using degrees Celsius in the gas equation and ignoring a cell's internal resistance.
Thermal energy transfers · Greenhouse effect · Gas laws · Current and circuits
Simple harmonic motion, interference, standing waves and the Doppler effect. Students tend to confuse path difference with phase difference, and HL learners must treat single-slit patterns and diffraction gratings with numbers.
Simple harmonic motion · Wave model and wave phenomena · Standing waves and resonance · Doppler effect
Gravitational, electric and magnetic fields, and how charged particles move through them. Marks slip away on field directions, on the hand rules and, at HL, on negative potentials and equipotential surfaces.
Gravitational fields · Electric and magnetic fields · Motion in electromagnetic fields · Induction
Atomic models, spectra, radioactive decay, fission and the physics of stars. Learners often misread binding-energy curves and decay graphs; HL adds the photoelectric effect, de Broglie waves and Compton scattering.
Structure of the atom · Radioactive decay · Fission · Fusion and stars
The skills behind every experiment: measuring, propagating uncertainties, linearising graphs and judging a method. They are tested in Paper 1B and carry much of the weight in the Internal Assessment.
Experimental techniques · Technology · Mathematics and uncertainties · Designing, concluding, evaluating
The IB states that the themes do not suggest a teaching order, so schools sequence them differently. Your child's tutor follows the order used at school.
How lessons run
Every plan starts with evidence and ends with a check; in between, the physics comes first and exam technique second.
The tutor reads recent tests, lab reports and teacher comments, then sets a short mixed task: a few multiple-choice items, a data question and a derivation. The results show whether the gaps are conceptual, mathematical or experimental.
Evenings after the Sunday to Thursday school day suit short concept lessons, while a Friday or Saturday slot in Qatar time (UTC+3) leaves room for a full timed paper. The plan counts back from mocks, the IA deadline and the final papers.
Each topic opens with a sketch, a graph or a rough estimate so the physics makes sense. Only then does the tutor move to IB-style questions, reading command terms such as determine, explain and show that together.
Uncertainty propagation, error bars, gradients and linearised graphs get regular practice, since they appear in Paper 1B and the scientific investigation. Sample data sets and simulations stand in when a school lab is out of reach.
Timed Paper 1A sets and Paper 2 questions are marked against the logic of IB markschemes. After lessons, the family gets a short summary of the topics taught, where accuracy rose and the next target.
During Ramadan, lesson times move with the hours announced officially for that year.
The exam
Two written papers carry 80% of the grade and the scientific investigation 20%. SL and HL share this structure; HL papers run longer and add higher level content.
Exam board
International Baccalaureate (IB) · Physics guide, first assessment 2025
Guide published in February 2023, first taught from August 2023 and first assessed in 2025.
| Paper | Tier | Duration | Marks | Weighting | Calculator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper 1 (1A and 1B) | SL | 1 hour 30 minutes | 45 (1A: 25, 1B: 20) | 36% | Permitted |
Paper 1A has 25 multiple-choice questions and Paper 1B has data-based questions, sat together. How a tutor helps The tutor builds speed on multiple-choice items through quick estimates and unit checks, then practises reading unfamiliar graphs and tables for Paper 1B under timed conditions. | |||||
| Paper 2 | SL | 1 hour 30 minutes | 55 | 44% | Permitted |
Short-answer and extended-response questions on SL material only. How a tutor helps Practice centres on laying out multi-step calculations clearly and writing explanations that name the principle used, so method marks survive even when a final number slips. | |||||
| Paper 1 (1A and 1B) | HL | 2 hours | 60 (1A: 40, 1B: 20) | 36% | Permitted |
Paper 1A has 40 multiple-choice questions across SL and HL content; Paper 1B is data-based. How a tutor helps HL multiple-choice sets draw on rotation, relativity, thermodynamics, induction and quantum topics. The tutor mixes these with core items so recall stays quick across the whole syllabus. | |||||
| Paper 2 | HL | 2 hours 30 minutes | 90 | 44% | Permitted |
Short-answer and extended-response questions on SL and additional HL material. How a tutor helps Longer HL questions link topics, such as orbits with energy or fields with circular motion. Lessons rehearse planning an answer before writing and pacing a paper of this length. | |||||
| Scientific investigation (Internal Assessment) | SL and HL | About 10 hours of class time | 24 | 20% | |
An open-ended investigation of the student's own research question, reported in at most 3,000 words. How a tutor helps The tutor explains the four criteria, teaches uncertainty and graph analysis, and asks questions that sharpen a research question. The report stays entirely the student's own work, as IB rules require. | |||||
Paper 1A has 25 multiple-choice questions and Paper 1B has data-based questions, sat together.
How a tutor helps
The tutor builds speed on multiple-choice items through quick estimates and unit checks, then practises reading unfamiliar graphs and tables for Paper 1B under timed conditions.
Short-answer and extended-response questions on SL material only.
How a tutor helps
Practice centres on laying out multi-step calculations clearly and writing explanations that name the principle used, so method marks survive even when a final number slips.
Paper 1A has 40 multiple-choice questions across SL and HL content; Paper 1B is data-based.
How a tutor helps
HL multiple-choice sets draw on rotation, relativity, thermodynamics, induction and quantum topics. The tutor mixes these with core items so recall stays quick across the whole syllabus.
Short-answer and extended-response questions on SL and additional HL material.
How a tutor helps
Longer HL questions link topics, such as orbits with energy or fields with circular motion. Lessons rehearse planning an answer before writing and pacing a paper of this length.
An open-ended investigation of the student's own research question, reported in at most 3,000 words.
How a tutor helps
The tutor explains the four criteria, teaches uncertainty and graph analysis, and asks questions that sharpen a research question. The report stays entirely the student's own work, as IB rules require.
The IB runs two examination sessions each year, in May and November. The school chooses the session and makes the entries, and the IB publishes each session's timetable in advance on its website.
Each DP subject is graded from 7, the highest, down to 1. SL and HL earn the same points and share grade descriptors; HL candidates must show them across a larger body of physics.
What we look for in a tutor
What we check before an IB physics learner is matched with a tutor.
Confident with rigid body mechanics, special relativity, thermodynamics, induction and quantum physics, so HL questions stay well inside the tutor's own knowledge.
Knows the five themes, the Paper 1B format, the data booklet and the command terms, and which content belongs to HL only.
Understands the four IA criteria and the IB's academic integrity rules, and guides a student's thinking without writing, editing or collecting data.
Explains with sketches, graphs and quick estimates, checks understanding through questions, and sets the pace by the learner in the lesson.
Applies child-safeguarding practice with every learner under 18, keeps contact through the family and welcomes a parent on the call.
Sends short progress notes after lessons and raises concerns early, such as a slipping IA timeline or a weak topic before mocks.
Common difficulties
Problems DP Physics students often describe, with the tutor's response to each.
Why it happens
The IB rewards correctly propagated uncertainties and sensible precision, and small slips repeat across Paper 1B, Paper 2 and the IA.
How a tutor helps
The tutor drills one rule at a time: absolute, fractional and percentage uncertainty, then error bars and gradient ranges, with short checks each lesson until the habits hold.
Why it happens
Data-based questions test reading graphs, tables and methods from unfamiliar set-ups, so memorised practicals rarely transfer directly.
How a tutor helps
Lessons use a new data set each week. Your child learns a fixed routine: name the variables, read the axes and units, then decide what the gradient or intercept means.
Why it happens
A.4 and A.5 are HL-only topics with new variables, new diagrams and ideas that challenge everyday intuition about time.
How a tutor helps
The tutor pairs each rotational quantity with its linear partner, torque with force and moment of inertia with mass, and builds spacetime diagrams step by step before any formula.
Why it happens
A question that is too broad, unsafe or hard to measure well leaves weak data for the analysis and evaluation criteria.
How a tutor helps
The tutor asks about variables, range and measurement precision, and suggests trial runs or simulations. Your child chooses and refines the question, so the work remains fully authentic.
Why it happens
At HL, gravitational potential is negative and electric potential takes a sign, while field lines, equipotentials and forces are easy to confuse.
How a tutor helps
Your child practises drawing field lines and equipotential surfaces together, then works energy changes with one sign convention until each answer can be checked by direction alone.
Questions learners and parents ask
Share your child's level, school and deadlines. Someone on our team reads it and comes back with a tutor for SL or HL Physics.