European Baccalaureate Physics common mistakes
European Baccalaureate Physics · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the L1 written paper, the candidate answers the prompt descriptively - summarising the text or narrating a personal anecdote - instead of constructing an argued response that takes a position and defends it with evidence from the source material.
School essays in many national systems reward length, narration and personal voice, and candidates transfer that habit. The Bac L1 paper is assessed on argumentation, structure and critical engagement with the documents, so a well-written but thesis-less essay lands mid-band regardless of fluency.
What to do instead
Before writing, draft a one-sentence thesis and a three-part outline (claim, counter-claim, resolution) in the planning space. Open the introduction with the thesis, not with a general statement about the theme. In the final five minutes, check that every paragraph either advances or qualifies the thesis; delete any paragraph that only describes.
In L2, the candidate writes the essay or does the oral presentation as a translation of an L1-style answer, producing grammatically correct but idiomatically foreign prose, and loses marks on lexical range and register rather than on accuracy.
Candidates rehearse content in their strongest language and translate under time pressure. Translation preserves the source syntax, so sentence structures and collocations sound unnatural, and the candidate avoids the very complex structures the assessment grid rewards.
What to do instead
Build a personal bank of 20–25 discourse markers, connectors and hedging phrases in the L2 and practise inserting them into timed paragraphs. During the exam, write the plan in the L2, not in L1. Reserve the last ten minutes for a register pass: replace any phrase you know you translated word-for-word with a memorised idiomatic equivalent, and check that at least two subordinate or conditional structures appear.
In the L2 oral, the candidate delivers a memorised monologue and then freezes or gives one-word answers when the examiner asks a follow-up question that departs from the prepared script.
Preparation usually means scripting answers to predictable questions. The oral is interactive and examiners probe, so candidates who have not practised unscripted response lose interaction marks even with strong pronunciation and vocabulary.
What to do instead
Practise with a partner who is instructed to ask one unscripted follow-up per answer and to interrupt once. Train three repair strategies out loud: asking for clarification, paraphrasing a word you lack, and buying time with a natural filler. Record yourself and check that you never drop into L1 or into silence longer than a few seconds.
In Mathematics, the candidate writes only the final answer or jumps straight to a formula, omitting the justification, the statement of the theorem or method used, and the treatment of domain/validity conditions.
Many national curricula mark mainly the result, so candidates optimise for speed. The Bac marks the reasoning and communication of the method, and also penalises answers that ignore restrictions such as a non-zero denominator, a positive argument of a logarithm, or the direction of an implication.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed layout for every exercise: state the property or theorem invoked, show the algebraic steps, state the conclusion, and add a validity line where relevant. When a question says 'show that', never assume the result - derive it. Practise past papers writing full solutions and self-mark against the official marking scheme to see where method marks are awarded.
In Mathematics, the candidate misreads what is being asked - solving an equation when the question asks to discuss the number of solutions, or giving a numerical value when a parameter-dependent answer or a proof of existence is required.
Under time pressure candidates pattern-match to the type of exercise they rehearsed rather than reading the exact wording. Parameter problems and 'discuss according to the value of m' questions are the most frequently misread.
What to do instead
Underline the instruction verb and the object in every question before starting (solve / show / deduce / discuss / determine). For parameter questions, immediately write the discriminant or the relevant condition and split the answer into cases with explicit intervals. Spend thirty seconds restating the task to yourself in your own words before writing.
In History, the candidate writes a narrative of events in chronological order rather than answering the question analytically, and never engages with the source documents' provenance, purpose or reliability.
Candidates learn content as a story and reproduce it. The paper is built around questions and document analysis, so chronology without argument scores low, and documents are treated as neutral illustrations instead of as evidence to be evaluated.
What to do instead
Answer the question in the first two sentences and make the structure thematic, not chronological. For each document, write one line on author, date, audience and purpose before using it, and include at least one explicit evaluation of its limits. Use documents as evidence for a claim, not as a summary to be paraphrased.
In Geography, the candidate answers with general knowledge and vague claims, without specific case studies, named examples, figures or located data, and without using the maps, graphs or statistics provided.
Geography rewards the systematic use of concrete examples and data interpretation, but candidates revise themes abstractly and then cannot supply cases under exam conditions. Provided data is often ignored because candidates fear misreading it.
What to do instead
Build a revision sheet of six to eight named case studies (location, key figures, scale, outcome) that can be adapted to several themes. In the exam, extract at least three quantitative facts from any data provided and cite them explicitly. Structure each paragraph as claim, evidence with a figure, interpretation, and link back to the question.
In the scientific subject, the candidate writes the correct final numerical value but loses marks for missing or inconsistent units, wrong significant figures, or an unrounded intermediate carried into a rounded final answer.
Candidates focus on getting the number and treat units and precision as decoration. Marking grids award separate marks for units and for appropriate precision, and inconsistent rounding propagates errors in multi-step calculations.
What to do instead
Write the unit at every step of the calculation, not only at the end, and convert all quantities to SI before substituting. Decide the significant figures from the least precise given data and state the rounding explicitly. Do a dimensional check on the final expression and a magnitude sanity check on the value.
In the scientific subject, the candidate describes an experiment or explains a phenomenon in everyday language, omitting the underlying law, the controlled variables and the causal mechanism, so the answer is descriptive rather than physical.
Candidates memorise procedures and observations without the model behind them. Questions asking to 'explain' or 'justify' require the governing relationship and the reasoning chain, and answers that only report what happens earn limited credit.
What to do instead
For every practical in the syllabus, write three lines in advance: the law or equation involved, the variable manipulated and those held constant, and the expected relationship with its justification. In the exam, name the law explicitly, state the proportionality or conservation principle, then apply it to the described situation before giving the observation.
In Philosophy, the candidate presents a list of authors' positions one after another without reconstructing their arguments, and offers personal opinion as the conclusion instead of a reasoned judgement on the question.
Revision is organised by author rather than by problem, so the essay becomes a catalogue. The assessment rewards argument reconstruction, conceptual precision and critical evaluation, and an unsupported 'I think' conclusion does not satisfy the evaluative criterion.
What to do instead
Revise by problem, not by author: for each question, prepare two or three competing positions with their strongest arguments and standard objections. In the essay, reconstruct each argument in premise–conclusion form, raise a specific objection, and answer it. Conclude with a defended judgement that states which position survives the objections and why, not with a personal preference.