Estonian Basic-School Physics Exam

The full basic-school physics curriculum, not one textbook chapter. Typical tasks combine a concept question with a calculation or a graph, so you must both recall a relationship and apply it with correct units. Topics range from forces and pressure to heat, circuits, optics, sound, and radioactivity.

Those details are set for each session by the examination centre and published in its current instructions. They are not fixed in this guide and should not be assumed from past papers. Check the official examination centre website for the structure and duration that apply to your sitting.

The passing threshold is decided by the examination centre for the current examination and stated in its official materials. It is not a figure you should take from a forum or an older paper. Confirm it on the examination centre website before you plan your revision targets.

The level is basic-school physics, but the paper is broader than a single school test and rewards precision: units, significant figures, and clear reasoning steps. Students usually lose marks on careless unit conversion and on explanations that state a result without justifying it, not on obscure content.

Retake and repeat arrangements are governed by the examination centre and the school's own rules, and they can differ by year. Ask your school's physics teacher or the examination centre directly rather than relying on what previous candidates experienced.

Start with measurement, units and graph reading, because every other task depends on them. Then take mechanics, which carries the most weight and underpins pressure and energy. Follow with thermal physics and electricity, then optics and waves, and finish with atomic physics, which is short and largely factual.

Mixing units such as grams and kilograms or minutes and seconds; writing a number without a unit; confusing mass with weight; and describing what happens without saying why. In circuit and optics tasks, drawing the diagram before calculating prevents most errors.

You should know the basic relationships and, more importantly, when each applies. Many tasks give data in a form that requires rearranging a formula, so practise solving for any variable. Also practise estimating whether an answer is physically plausible before writing it down.

Do them closed-book and timed, then mark them strictly against the official criteria, counting units and reasoning as marks. Keep an error log by topic and revisit the weak topics a week later. One carefully analysed paper is worth more than three papers read with the answers open.