The difference between a physics question bank and a drawer of past papers is the difference between a library and a skip. Both hold the same questions. Only one lets you find the seven structured questions on the wave equation, graded easy to hard, at the Extended tier in under a minute. For Cambridge IGCSE Physics 0625, where the same skill — say, applying v = f λ, or reading a value off a distance–time graph — recurs in slightly different clothing across a decade of papers and across two tiers, that retrieval is the whole job. This guide is about using a 0625 question bank to set work by topic and difficulty, not about admiring how many questions it holds.

What “by topic” actually means in 0625

A genuinely useful 0625 question bank is tagged to the topic structure of the syllabus, not to a vague chapter list. Cambridge organises 0625 into a set of major content areas, and a bank worth using lets you filter to them:

• Motion, forces and energy (general physics) — speed and acceleration, motion graphs, Newton’s laws, moments, work, energy, power and pressure.
• Thermal physics — particle model, thermal expansion, specific heat capacity, melting and boiling, conduction, convection and radiation.
• Waves — properties of waves, light (reflection, refraction, lenses) and sound.
• Electricity and magnetism — circuits, current, p.d. and resistance calculations, electrical energy and the magnetic effects of a current.
• Electromagnetic induction — the generator effect and transformers.
• Nuclear physics — atomic structure, radioactivity, half-life and decay.
• Space physics — the Solar System and ideas about stars and the wider Universe.

The reason this matters: when you can pull every past-paper item on, say, specific heat capacity and order it from a one-step substitution to a multi-step “calculate, then explain the energy transfer” question, you can set a homework that does one thing well instead of a whole paper that does fifteen things shallowly. That’s the core argument of the parent guide on what a teacher question bank should actually cover — and 0625 is a near-perfect case for it, because its content areas are so cleanly separable.

Topic and difficulty — the second filter most folders lack

Topic on its own isn’t enough in physics. “Electricity” spans a one-mark “name the component” item and a five-mark series-and-parallel problem that asks students to calculate total resistance, then a current, then an energy transferred — with units credited at each numeric step. Set both to the same class and you waste the strong students’ time and drown the weaker ones. A 0625 bank that also grades by difficulty — and lets you filter by Core and Extended tier — lets you:

• Hand a Core group the straightforward recall and single-step calculations to build fluency before the mock.
• Stretch an Extended group with the multi-step calculation-and-explanation questions and the six-mark extended responses that actually separate the top grades.
• Build a single homework that ramps — a few accessible recall items, a few standard calculations, one or two extended questions — so every student has somewhere to start and somewhere to aim.

For the principle behind setting work this way, see assigning past-paper questions by topic and difficulty; this page is the 0625-specific version of that workflow.

Three ways teachers actually use a 0625 bank

Targeted homework after a topic. You’ve just taught the wave equation. Instead of “do the exercise,” pull seven genuine past-paper items on waves — a couple of v = f λ substitutions, a refraction question, an extended “explain” — ramped in difficulty, and set them. Students practise on the real thing: Cambridge’s phrasing, Cambridge’s command words, the unit requirements they’ll actually meet.

Closing a gap the data exposed. Your last assessment showed the class haemorrhaging marks on half-life and decay. A topic filter lets you assemble a short, focused set on precisely that — including the questions that ask students to read a decay curve and the ones that ask them to explain it — rather than hoping it recurs. This is where a question bank and your markbook work together: find the gap, pull the questions, re-test.

Calculation discipline. A lot of 0625 marks live in showing working and carrying units. A bank lets you set the multi-step numeric questions — energy, power, resistance, pressure — where the habit of right-equation, clean-substitution, correct-unit is built and tested. It’s worth setting these deliberately, because it’s the discipline the mark scheme rewards, covered in the 0625 mark scheme marking guide.

What “good” looks like — and what to be wary of

A 0625 question bank earns its place when it has: accurate topic tags mapped to the syllabus content areas; a tier signal (Core vs Extended) you can trust; a difficulty signal that holds up; the full mark scheme alongside each question — including where the unit is required and the indicative points for extended answers; and enough breadth that you’re not recycling the same six questions every term. Be wary of banks that tag loosely (“Electricity” with no sub-structure), that strip the mark scheme, that don’t distinguish tier, or that quietly mix in questions from other boards whose style and command words differ from Cambridge’s. The phrasing conventions of 0625 — “state and explain,” “show that,” “give your answer to an appropriate number of significant figures” — are part of what students need to rehearse.

A note on honesty about scale: the platform reports a large shared question bank across subjects (200,000+ questions), but the number that matters to you is coverage of your topics at your tier. Judge a 0625 bank by whether it has a deep, well-tagged set across the content areas above — Core and Extended — not by the headline total.

How this looks on the platform

Tutopiya’s Cambridge IGCSE Physics 0625 resources let you filter past-paper questions by the syllabus content areas, by tier and by difficulty, set them as homework or a quiz, and have the structured and multiple-choice ones auto-marked to the Cambridge scheme so you see exactly which sub-skills a class dropped. It’s free to start with one class. For the wider toolkit, see the teacher platform these guides put to work.

This is one of four 0625 guides. The others cover marking 0625 to the Cambridge mark scheme, building a 0625 mock exam from past papers, and 0625 lesson resources mapped to the syllabus.

FAQ

Can I pull 0625 questions for a single topic like half-life or refraction? That’s the main reason to use a question bank over a stack of papers. A bank tagged to the 0625 content areas lets you filter to one sub-topic and assemble a focused set in minutes, rather than scanning whole papers for the two questions you want.

Can I filter by Core and Extended tier? You should be able to. The two tiers differ in depth and in which questions appear, so setting Extended-only calculations to a Core group, or vice versa, mis-pitches the work. A bank that distinguishes tier as well as topic lets you set the right thing for the group in front of you.

Does it include the mark scheme with each question? A 0625 bank worth using keeps the Cambridge mark scheme alongside each question — the marking points, where the unit is required, and the indicative points for extended answers — so students see how credit is earned and you can mark consistently. A bank that strips the scheme is much weaker for exam preparation.

Can I set the calculation questions specifically? Yes — and it’s worth doing deliberately. The multi-step numeric items (energy, power, resistance, pressure, the wave equation) are where students rehearse the working-and-units discipline the mark scheme rewards. A good bank lets you pull exactly those.

How does this differ from just giving students past papers? A whole past paper tests every topic at once and takes a long evening to mark. A question bank lets you target one content area, grade it by difficulty and tier, re-test a gap your data exposed, and mark the structured parts automatically — turning the same questions into something you can act on week to week.

The bottom line

A 0625 question bank is worth using when it’s tagged to the syllabus content areas, split by Core and Extended tier, graded by difficulty, and carries the mark scheme with every question. Used that way, it turns “set some physics homework” into “set seven ramped questions on the exact topic this class is dropping” — which is the difference between practice that fills time and practice that moves grades.

Build targeted 0625 homework from real past papers — free with one class →

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