Physics › Past papers › AQA 7408
AQA 7408 past papers
The A-level is three written papers of two hours each. Papers 1 and 2 are 85 marks and carry 34 per cent apiece. Paper 3 is 80 marks and the remaining 32 per cent, split into a compulsory Section A of 45 marks on practical skills and data analysis and a Section B of 35 marks on one optional topic. The scaled marks add to 250: 85, 85, 45, and one option’s 35.
Read off AQA’s 7408 specification, version 1.3 dated 1 June 2017, at printed pages 8 to 10, 71, 72 and 73, and confirmed against the June 2025 and June 2019 question papers, which agree with it on the durations, the marks and the section structure. Every claim on this page is made against that named version. AQA has since reissued it as version 1.4 (July 2026), which the paper pages cite, with the same durations, marks, weightings and entry codes. Always confirm the year you are sitting against AQA’s own site.
25 of the 85 marks on each of Papers 1 and 2 are multiple choice. AQA gives both papers as “60 marks of short and long answer questions and 25 multiple choice questions on content.” On the June 2025 and June 2019 Paper 1 those 25 sat in a Section B of their own at the back, questions 09 to 33, each with four responses. We did not see Paper 2’s front matter, so we do not claim the same two-section labelling for it; the mark count is the sourced part.
Your option is fixed at entry, by entry code, not chosen in the exam hall. AQA’s wording for Section B is “Students enter for one of sections 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13”, and the codes are 7408A for Astrophysics, 7408B for Medical physics, 7408C for Engineering physics, 7408D for Turning points in physics and 7408E for Electronics. Your centre’s entry decides which Section B booklet lands on your desk.
The papers
- Paper 17408/1 · 2 hours · 85 marks · 34.0% of the A-level
- Paper 27408/2 · 2 hours · 85 marks · 34.0% of the A-level
- Paper 37408/3A, and 7408/3BA to 7408/3BE for the five options · 2 hours · 80 marks · 32.0% of the A-level
Each paper has a page of its own naming what it assesses, how it is marked and which parts of this library it draws on. A candidate is marked out of 250.
Where to get them
AQA publishes its own past papers and mark schemes on the A-level Physics (7408) assessment resources page. A series appears there about a year after it was sat: AQA published the June 2025 papers on 10 July 2026. It then stays up, and nothing has been withdrawn since the first assessment. Your teacher can reach the most recent ones sooner through Centre Services. Always take a paper from AQA rather than from a revision site, so that you get the right version with its insert and its mark scheme.
The series the board publishes
AQA currently publishes 9 examined series, June 2017 to June 2025. AQA lists every series it still publishes on one page and serves the files themselves from its content delivery network. Each series below has its own page listing what is published for it.
Every link below goes to AQA’s own copy on its own servers. InkPhysics hosts no past paper and no mark scheme, and links no mirror of one. Checked against AQA’s own listing on 31 August 2026; papers are added and withdrawn without notice, so if a link has moved, use AQA’s own page instead.
Where the mapping is rough
This is the cleanest of the four mappings, because the library’s units were drawn on AQA’s sections in the first place. Papers 1 and 2 share no unit at all. The three “part of the unit” markers each leave out a lesson kept for other boards: fluids and viscosity in Materials, lenses in Waves, and rectification and smoothing in Magnetic fields.
The point-by-point view is the AQA specification map.
Links to AQA, Pearson, OCR and Cambridge International are provided for convenience. InkPhysics is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, and none of them is responsible for the content of this site. AQA’s copyright policy does not permit its materials to be reproduced on third-party websites in any format, and we take the same line with the other three: every paper link on this site goes to the board’s own file.