Students who enjoyed IGCSE Physics often assume A Level is the same subject with harder numbers. It is not, and the difference is published rather than folklore.

Two things change substantially: how much of your grade comes from practical work, and how much of the physics is actually mathematics.

What 9702 assumes you arrive with

The entry statement is broader than most students expect.

Cambridge recommends that learners starting Physics 9702 should have completed a course in Physics or Co-ordinated Science equivalent to Cambridge IGCSE or Cambridge O Level.

Co-ordinated Science counts. If you took a double award rather than separate Physics, you are on an accepted route rather than a compromised one. That is worth knowing, because it is a common source of unnecessary worry in September.

What the statement does not say is anything about a grade. Cambridge frames prior study as a completed course. Schools then add their own entry thresholds on top, and those are the school’s policy rather than a syllabus rule.

The maths is inside the physics

This is the change that costs the most marks and gets the least warning.

Physics 9702 prints a mathematical requirements list covering arithmetic, standard form, graphs and related skills. It then states that teaching those requirements should be included in the AS & A Level Physics course.

Read that as the syllabus telling you plainly that the maths is examined content, not a background assumption. Rearranging equations, handling powers of ten, reading and interpreting gradients: all of it appears inside physics questions, and all of it is marked as physics.

The practical consequence is that students who found IGCSE Physics comfortable but IGCSE Maths a struggle hit trouble around week three. It presents as not understanding the physics. Usually it is an algebra step that has to be done before the physics starts.

If you are also taking Mathematics 9709, there is an overlap worth noticing. That syllabus offers a Mechanics component covering forces and motion, which is the same territory from the other direction.

Practical work becomes a fifth of your grade

At IGCSE, practical work is assessed but modest. At A Level it is a major, separately examined component.

Physics 9702 splits its assessment objectives three ways: knowledge and understanding 40%, handling, applying and evaluating information 40%, and experimental skills and investigations 20%. Chemistry 9701 and Biology 9700 use exactly the same split, so this is a science-wide design rather than a physics quirk.

That 20% is assessed in two papers:

• Paper 3, Advanced Practical Skills. 2 hours. Worth 23% of the AS Level and 11.5% of the A Level.
• Paper 5, Planning, Analysis and Evaluation. 1 hour 15 minutes, 30 marks, two compulsory questions. Worth 11.5% of the A Level.

Together, 23% of your final grade.

The sentence that changes how you prepare

Both practical papers carry the same note in the syllabus: the context of the questions may be outside the syllabus content.

That is unlike anything at IGCSE. You can be given an experimental setup you have never studied and be expected to plan an investigation, analyse data from it, and evaluate the method.

Revision cannot cover this, because there is no content to revise. What is being assessed is whether you can do experimental science in an unfamiliar situation: identify variables, judge a technique, spot the limitation, work out what the uncertainty does to the conclusion.

Which means the preparation is different in kind. You get better at Paper 5 by doing and writing up practical work, not by rereading a chapter.

What actually changes, summarised

	IGCSE Physics	A Level Physics 9702
Practical weighting	Modest	20% of the qualification, two papers
Practical contexts	On the syllabus	May fall outside the syllabus content
Maths	Assumed background	Printed requirements, taught inside the course
Guided learning hours	About 130	About 360

The hours line is the quiet one. Cambridge designs each A Level around roughly 360 guided learning hours against about 130 for an IGCSE, so the subject demands close to three times the teaching time it used to.

How to prepare before Year 12

Four things, and none of them involve reading ahead in the textbook.

Fix the algebra first. Rearranging equations, indices, standard form, and reading gradients off graphs. If any of that is slow rather than automatic, it will cost you physics marks. Practise until it stops taking thinking time.

Practise writing up experiments. Not doing them, writing them up. Variables, method, sources of uncertainty, what the result actually supports. That is the Paper 5 skill and it can be rehearsed on any experiment you have already done.

Read the mathematical requirements list. It is in the syllabus, it is short, and it tells you exactly which maths is fair game.

Read the command words table. Cambridge publishes what Calculate, Describe, Explain and Evaluate each require, and those definitions are the ones the mark scheme uses.

That is a few hours of targeted work, which is the right size. The summer before Year 12 is worth about twenty hours in total across all your subjects.

The AS checkpoint, if your school offers it

Worth asking about early, because it changes the shape of two years.

Physics 9702 publishes routes in the same way other Cambridge subjects do. An AS Level is designed around about 180 guided learning hours, half the full A Level, and exists as a qualification in its own right. Some schools enter students for AS components at the end of Year 12 and complete the A Level in Year 13, carrying the AS result forward.

For a science the checkpoint has a particular value. Paper 3, Advanced Practical Skills, is worth 23% of the AS but only 11.5% of the A Level, so an AS entry tells you early and clearly how you handle examined practical work, which is the component students most often misjudge.

Two caveats. Candidates on an AS route are eligible for grades a to e, while A Level candidates are eligible for A* to E, so there is no A* at AS. And carry forward is subject to rules and time limits set out in the Cambridge Handbook, which your exams officer administers.

Is it the hardest A Level?

There is no single ranking, and the question is less useful than it looks.

Physics is hard in a specific way: it punishes weak algebra and rewards genuine experimental thinking. Biology 9700 puts a higher share on content recall at 40% knowledge. Literature in English 9695 puts only 20% on knowledge and spreads the rest across four other skills.

So the hardest subject is the one weighted towards your weakest skill. If your algebra is fluent and you like working out unfamiliar problems, Physics suits you better than its reputation suggests. If algebra is the thing you avoid, the difficulty is real and it is also fixable in a few hours.

Next steps

For how Physics compares with the other sciences, IGCSE to A Level Chemistry and Biology covers what changes there, and which A Level subjects have the biggest jump puts all of them side by side.

For the general picture, the gap between IGCSE and A Levels explains the window before term, and the summer before A Levels has a week-by-week plan you can adapt.

Tutopiya’s A Level Preparation programme is built for that window. You can get started with Pre-A Level Mathematics, which is a sensible move for a physicist given how much of 9702 rests on algebra, and more subjects are on the way. For the physics-specific work above, the 9702 syllabus and your own written-up practicals are the tools today.

Frequently asked questions

Is A Level Physics hard compared with IGCSE? +

The step up is real and specific. Cambridge Physics 9702 puts 20% of the qualification on experimental skills, assessed in two practical papers whose question contexts may fall outside the syllabus content. It also prints a mathematical requirements list and expects it taught inside the Physics course.

Do I need A Level Maths to do A Level Physics? +

Not as a formal requirement, but the maths is examined inside the physics. Physics 9702 lists the mathematical skills expected, covering arithmetic, standard form and graphs, and states that teaching them should be included in the Physics course. Weak algebra becomes a lost physics mark rather than a maths problem.

What does A Level Physics assume I already know? +

Cambridge recommends learners starting 9702 should have completed a course in Physics or Co-ordinated Science equivalent to Cambridge IGCSE or Cambridge O Level. Note that Co-ordinated Science counts, so a double-award background is an accepted route rather than a disadvantage.

How much of A Level Physics is practical work? +

Twenty per cent of the qualification. Paper 3, Advanced Practical Skills, runs 2 hours and is worth 23% of the AS and 11.5% of the A Level. Paper 5, Planning, Analysis and Evaluation, runs 1 hour 15 for 30 marks and is worth 11.5% of the A Level.

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