CBSE Class 10 Science Previous Year Question Papers with Solutions (2020-2025)

This page has CBSE Class 10 Science board papers from 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, three sets for each year, with full solutions. You can download them free from the table below. There is no 2021 paper, because CBSE cancelled the Class 10 board exams that year.

Past papers are the closest thing to the real exam that you can practise with. They show which topics CBSE keeps returning to, how much is expected in a 3-mark answer compared with a 5-mark one, and how long a full paper actually takes you.

How the CBSE Class 10 Science paper is set

• Theory paper: 80 marks, 3 hours. Internal assessment adds 20 marks, for a total of 100.
• Unit-wise marks: Chemical Substances (Nature and Behaviour) 25, World of Living 25, Natural Phenomena 12, Effects of Current 13, Natural Resources 5.
• Question types: objective and assertion-reason questions, short and long answers, and case-based questions built around a passage, a table or a diagram.

CBSE's sample paper for 2026-27 notes no change in the question paper design, so the most recent papers are the best guide to what you will face.

The section rule that started in 2026

For the 2026 exams, CBSE split the Science answer book into three labelled parts: Section A for Biology, Section B for Chemistry and Section C for Physics. An answer written in the wrong section is not evaluated, and CBSE has said this will not be corrected at verification or re-evaluation either.

The older papers on this page mix the three subjects, so practise the habit deliberately. Before you start a paper, divide your sheets into Biology, Chemistry and Physics, and write every answer in its own part. It takes two minutes in the exam hall and saves you from losing marks you have already earned.

How to use these papers

• Start with 2025, then 2024 and 2023. They follow the current pattern most closely.
• Use the 2022 papers for extra questions only. That year CBSE ran a term-wise system, so the paper is shorter and structured differently.
• Write each paper by hand in one sitting of three hours, with no phone and no notes.
• Check your answers against the solutions step by step, not just the final answer. Note every mark you dropped and why.
• Two days later, redo only the questions you got wrong, from memory.

Where Science marks are usually lost

Checking Class 10 answer sheets, we see the same small mistakes cost more marks than gaps in knowledge:

• Chemistry: an unbalanced equation, or a reaction written in words when the question asks for the chemical equation.
• Biology: diagrams with missing or wrong labels, and process answers (digestion, reflex arc, the menstrual cycle) that skip a step.
• Physics: numericals without the formula or the unit, and ray diagrams without arrows or with the wrong focal point.
• Case-based questions answered from memory instead of from the passage given.

None of these needs new study. They need practice on full papers and someone to point them out. Gradehunt's CBSE Class 10 Science test series checks every answer sheet step by step and marks exactly these errors, so you fix them before the board exam.

Other CBSE Class 10 past papers

Practising more than one subject? We have past papers with solutions for Maths, Social Science and English too.