ISC Class 12 Physics Previous Year Question Papers (2020-2026)

There was no ISC board exam in 2021, because CISCE cancelled it during COVID-19, and CISCE's archive library has no ISC papers for 2022.

Good news for 2027: CISCE's 2027 specimen paper for Physics uses exactly the same layout as the 2026 board paper, so the 2026 paper is the closest real practice you can get.

ISC Physics 2026 question paper: chapter-wise marks

We counted every sub-part of the 2026 paper and put it under its chapter. The paper had 20 questions for 70 marks, and all of them had to be answered.

• Electrostatics and current electricity: 14 marks (6 each, plus a 2-mark question that was Gauss's law in one option and Kirchhoff's junction rule in the other)
• Magnetic effects of current and magnetism: 10 marks
• Electromagnetic induction and alternating current: 6 marks
• Electromagnetic waves: 2 marks
• Optics: 18 marks (ray optics and optical instruments 11, wave optics 7)
• Dual nature of radiation and matter 7, atoms and nuclei 6, semiconductor devices 7: 20 marks for modern physics
• Layout: Section A had 14 one-mark parts (7 MCQs, one of them assertion-reason, and 7 very short answers). Section B had seven 2-mark questions, Section C nine 3-mark questions and Section D three 5-mark questions. Two questions in each of Sections B, C and D had an internal choice.

Source: CISCE ISC 2026 Physics Paper 1 (Theory), Gradehunt analysis. Each sub-part is counted under one chapter.

Optics and modern physics together made up 38 of the 70 marks. Section C, with 27 marks, is where the paper is won or lost: it held two compulsory derivations (the axial field of a dipole in Q9 and reflection by Huygens' principle in Q16), a third derivation in one option of Q11 and the telescope ray diagram in Q14.

Drawing showed up all over the paper. Apart from the telescope, candidates had to draw a Zener diode symbol, a binding energy per nucleon graph (in one option of Q19) and a half-wave rectifier circuit in Q20. Eight of the 20 questions came with a figure, a photo or a graph that you had to read before answering.

How much time per question in ISC Physics

With three hours for 70 marks, you have about 2 minutes 35 seconds a mark. A sensible split is 35 minutes for Section A, 35 for Section B, 70 for Section C and 40 for Section D. Use the 15 minutes of reading time to pick your internal choices, so you do not start one option and switch.

Where ISC Physics students lost marks in 2025

CISCE's Analysis of Pupil Performance for 2025 reports 51,557 ISC Physics candidates, an average of 70 out of 100, a highest score of 100 and a lowest of 1. Its examiners listed these among the topics candidates found difficult or confused:

• Combination of cells, Kirchhoff's laws and the link between current density and electric field
• Magnetic field between two parallel conductors, radial magnetic fields and magnetic properties of substances
• Motional emf, transformers and AC numericals, including power factor
• Sign convention in lenses, prism and lens maker numericals, and telescope numericals
• Applications of Huygens' wave theory
• Threshold frequency and work function, de Broglie wavelength, and rectifier circuit diagrams

The 2026 paper tested a long run of these again: a battery of three cells in Q10, force between parallel wires in Q12, the radial field of a galvanometer in Q11, motional emf in Q1, power factor in Q18, a Huygens' derivation in Q16, work functions in Q8 and a rectifier in Q20. The report's advice is to practise derivations with complete labelled diagrams, solve plenty of numericals for each concept and get comfortable with assertion-reason questions.

ISC Physics 2027: the specimen paper and the new weightage

• The 2027 specimen has the same instructions as the 2026 paper: 20 questions, 14, 14, 27 and 15 marks in Sections A to D, and choice in two questions per section from B to D.
• Every specimen question is tagged with the skill it tests, such as Recall, Understand, Apply or Analyse. CISCE's circular of 9 October 2026 says apply, analyse, evaluate and create questions will carry about 50% of the marks in the 2027 exams.
• The specimen sets questions in real situations, such as a thundercloud treated as a parallel plate capacitor and a charged bird diving towards a charged plate. Expect more questions where you first have to spot the physics in the story.

How to practise with these papers

• Write the 2026 paper in three hours without notes, then mark it against the solution.
• Do the 2027 specimen next, and then 2025, 2024 and 2023 as timed papers.
• Use the 2020 paper for extra topic practice once the recent papers are done.
• Redraw every diagram you lost marks on until the labels come without thinking.

For the board questions from 2016 to 2026 worked out step by step and sorted chapter by chapter, get Gradehunt's ISC Class 12 10 Years Solved Papers (PYQ).

See the full chapter list in our ISC Class 12 Physics syllabus guide. Solved past papers are also available for ISC Maths and ISC Chemistry.