Every GCSE physics exam has a formula sheet — but it's shorter than most students expect, and that trips people up in both directions. Some students waste hours memorising equations they'll be handed on the day. Others assume everything will be given and get caught out. Here's the actual split.
Equations you have to memorise
These won't appear anywhere on the exam paper — you're expected to recall them:
- force = mass × acceleration
- kinetic energy = 0.5 × mass × speed²
- work done = force × distance
- power = work done ÷ time
- efficiency = useful output energy transfer ÷ total input energy transfer
- weight = mass × gravitational field strength
- gravitational potential energy = mass × height × gravitational field strength
- force exerted by a spring = extension × spring constant
- distance travelled = speed × time
- acceleration = change in velocity ÷ time
- wave speed = frequency × wavelength
- charge flow = current × time
- potential difference = current × resistance
- power = potential difference × current = current² × resistance
- energy transferred = power × time = charge flow × potential difference
- density = mass ÷ volume
Sixteen equations, and every one of them comes up constantly across the paper — this is the list worth drilling until it's automatic, not just recognised.
Equations you'll be given, but still have to use
A second, shorter list is provided on an equation sheet in the exam. You don't need to recall these from memory, but plenty of students lose marks not because they forgot the equation, but because they've never actually practised rearranging or substituting into it under time pressure. Being handed a formula isn't the same as being able to use it in twenty seconds flat:
- (final velocity)² − (initial velocity)² = 2 × acceleration × distance
- change in thermal energy = mass × specific heat capacity × change in temperature
- thermal energy for a change of state = mass × specific latent heat
- energy transferred in stretching = 0.5 × spring constant × extension²
- potential difference (primary coil) × current (primary coil) = potential difference (secondary coil) × current (secondary coil)
A couple of others — momentum, and the force on a current-carrying conductor in a magnetic field — only show up if you're sitting Higher tier, and are worth checking against your own exam board's paper rather than assuming either way.
What this actually means for revision
Don't spend equal time on both lists. The sixteen "must memorise" equations deserve flashcard repetition until they're instant. The "given" list deserves a different kind of practice entirely: past-paper questions where you have to spot which given equation applies, rearrange it for the quantity being asked, and get the units right — that's the actual skill being tested, not the memorisation.