Physics (MDCAT & FSc)

Physics: Reasoning Under a Clock

Physics is the section where preparation shows up fastest in marks, because the question types are narrow: a definition, a unit, an order-of-magnitude estimate, or a single-step calculation. In MDCAT it carries 50 marks, and in CSS/PMS General Science & Ability it forms the quantitative half of the Everyday Science paper.

What the examiner actually tests

• Units, measurement & vectors: SI base and derived units, dimensional analysis, significant figures, error and uncertainty, and vector resolution.
• Mechanics: Newton’s laws, friction, circular motion and centripetal force, work-energy-power, conservation of momentum and collision types, gravitation and orbital velocity, torque and equilibrium, and simple harmonic motion.
• Waves & sound: wave parameters, superposition, resonance, beats, the Doppler effect, stationary waves in pipes and strings, and ultrasound applications.
• Optics: reflection and refraction, Snell’s law and critical angle, total internal reflection, thin-lens and mirror formulae, magnification, dispersion, interference, diffraction, and polarisation.
• Electricity & magnetism: Coulomb’s law, Ohm’s law and resistor combinations, Kirchhoff’s laws, power and energy in circuits, capacitors, magnetic field around conductors, Fleming’s rules, electromagnetic induction, transformers, and AC circuits.
• Thermodynamics: heat transfer modes, specific and latent heat, the ideal gas equation, the first law and its sign convention, processes (isothermal, adiabatic, isobaric, isochoric), and Carnot efficiency.
• Modern physics: photoelectric effect and work function, de Broglie wavelength, atomic spectra and the hydrogen energy levels, radioactivity and half-life decay calculations, nuclear reactions, and basic electronics (diodes, transistors as switches and amplifiers, logic gates).

How to use these sets

Every calculation carries the formula and the substitution, so practise the arithmetic without a calculator — MDCAT does not allow one. When an explanation checks dimensions or units first, copy that habit: option-elimination by unit is the fastest legitimate shortcut in a physics MCQ.

Formulas that appear every year

• v = u + at, s = ut + ½at², v² = u² + 2as.
• F = ma, p = mv, KE = ½mv², PE = mgh.
• Ohm’s and power: V = IR, P = VI = I²R = V²/R.
• Waves: v = fλ; lenses: 1/f = 1/v − 1/u; mirrors: 1/f = 1/v + 1/u.
• Gas and heat: PV = nRT, Q = mcΔT, Q = mL, η = 1 − T₂/T₁.
• Modern: E = hf, λ = h/mv, N = N₀(½)^(t/t½).