IB Diploma Programme Physics

Component-based qualification

Source: official International Baccalaureate specification, verified 2026-08-28. This record is sourced from the full subject guide (physics-guide.pdf), originally accessed under a 2026-08-22 owner licensing confirmation. The guide's own 'Assessment outline -- SL/HL' tables (pages 62-63 of 65) could not be fully extracted through available fetch tooling in this session -- two independent mirrors of the identical PDF (ibo.org direct and a bradfieldcollege.org.uk copy) both truncated at the same point, before reaching the assessment section, which is a tool-side extraction cap rather than a source problem (confirmed by matching truncation length on unrelated hosts). The component structure, durations and weightings below are taken from that guide's earlier, successfully-extracted 'Curriculum model overview' and assessment-summary prose, and the exact mark totals were cross-verified against a current (checked 2026-08-28), actively-maintained school IB Physics resource (Concordian International School Thailand LibGuide, 'External assessment' and 'Internal assessment' pages) that transcribes the same official table in detail; both sources agree. SL: Paper 1 (multiple-choice with short data-based questions, 90min, 45 marks, 36%, calculator and data booklet permitted); Paper 2 (short-and-extended-response questions, 90min, 50 marks, 44%, calculator and data booklet permitted); Internal Assessment (individual scientific investigation marked against 4 criteria worth 6 marks each = 24 marks, no fixed sitting duration, 20%, internally assessed and externally moderated). HL sits the same two paper types at greater length and mark total (Paper 1: 120min/60 marks/36%; Paper 2: 150min/90 marks/44%) plus the same-weighted internal-assessment investigation (24 marks, 20%). 'DP Physics' is used as this record's own `code`. First assessed 2025 per the guide's own title page -- the most recently first-examined DP science course. This is one of only two IB DP subjects (with Economics) originally sourced from the full guide under that 2026-08-22 confirmation; a separate owner decision, also 2026-09-05, retired the licensing framing entirely -- no formal IB license is claimed or required. See the Economics DP record above for how the licensing-scope limitation was, independently, also narrowed once IB's own freely public specimen exam papers were confirmed sufficient as a primary source for other DP subjects. The site's 5 IB Middle Years Programme subjects are a separate case, resolved 2026-09-04: MYP's own assessment structure is genuinely criterion-referenced (no fixed exam papers with raw marks for most students), so the freely public subject briefs ARE sufficient to model it correctly -- see the 5 IB Middle Years Programme records below.