NCEA Level 2 Physics: standards, the exam and how to practise

NCEA Level 2 Physics standards

These are the current Level 2 Physics achievement standards listed by NZQA. Your school chooses which internals to offer, so your course may not include all of them.

That is 16 external credits and 10 internal credits. Find NZQA's past exams, assessment schedules and examiner reports on its Physics past exams page; the schedules show exactly what earns Achieved, Merit and Excellence.

The NCEA Level 2 Physics exam

Each external standard has its own section in the exam and its own grade, so you can do well in mechanics even if waves goes badly. Questions build from Achieved-level calculations and descriptions to Merit and Excellence explanations that link several ideas, so a full answer explains the physics, not just the number.

What each external standard covers

Mechanics (91171)

Motion with constant acceleration, free fall, projectiles and circular motion; forces, including components, equilibrium with torques, centripetal force and springs; and momentum, impulse, work, power and conservation of energy. It is the biggest external at 6 credits.

Electricity and electromagnetism (91173)

Uniform electric fields and the force on a charge; DC circuits with voltage, current, resistance, energy and power; and electromagnetism, including the force on a current or a moving charge in a magnetic field and the voltage induced across a conductor moving through one. Also 6 credits.

Waves (91170)

Light, including curved mirrors, lenses, refraction, total internal reflection and the critical angle; and waves, including reflection and refraction at a boundary, superposition of pulses, diffraction through a slit and two-source interference. Worth 4 credits.

Worked examples

Mechanics: force from acceleration

A 1,200 kg car speeds up steadily from rest to 15 m/s in 6.0 s. Find the net force on it and how far it travels.

With steady acceleration from rest, the distance is the average speed times the time: (0 + 15) ÷ 2 × 6.0 = 45 m. An Excellence answer would also explain why the driving force must be larger than 3,000 N once friction and air resistance act.

Electricity: resistors in parallel

Resistors of 6.0 Ω and 12 Ω sit side by side in parallel across a 12 V battery. Find the total current and the power supplied.

The power is P = VI = 12 × 3.0 = 36 W. Checking each branch confirms it: 12 ÷ 6.0 = 2.0 A and 12 ÷ 12 = 1.0 A, which add to 3.0 A.

Momentum: a collision

Try a momentum question from our Laws of Motion course, then press Mark to check it in the course:

Grades, credits and endorsements

Every NCEA standard is graded Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit or Excellence, and earns its credits at whatever grade you reach. Achieved shows you meet the standard, Merit shows deeper understanding, and Excellence shows it applied to harder, unfamiliar problems.

• The certificate: NCEA Level 2 needs 60 credits at Level 2 or above, plus the 20-credit literacy and numeracy co-requisite, which you can gain any time before you leave school. Since 2024 you can no longer carry 20 credits over from the level below.
• Certificate endorsement: 50 credits at Merit or better gives a Merit endorsement; 50 at Excellence gives an Excellence endorsement.
• Course endorsement: 14 or more credits at Merit or Excellence in one subject in one year, with at least 3 from internal and 3 from external standards in most subjects.

Use the daily paper as a practice exam

Uni-Sine publishes a free daily paper on the NCEA Level 2 Physics track. It is a short timed paper: 8 questions worth 25 to 35 marks, marked instantly, with worked answers. It is not a full NCEA exam and it is not written by NZQA, so treat it as a quick daily practice test alongside NZQA's past papers.

• What it covers well: motion and projectiles, forces, momentum, work, energy and power, DC circuits, and waves including refraction, diffraction and stationary waves, which together match much of the mechanics, electricity and waves externals.
• What it does not cover: electric fields and electromagnetism from 91173, curved mirrors and lenses from 91170, and the internals, including atomic and nuclear physics. It also includes some topics that are not in NCEA Level 2, such as particle physics and material properties, which you can skip.

A good routine is one daily paper under timed conditions, then a careful look at every mark you dropped, then one NZQA past paper a week in the weeks before the exam.

NCEA changes for 2026, 2027 and beyond

NCEA still applies in 2026 and 2027, so the standards on this page are the ones you will sit. New Level 2 standards are due to be fully in place by 2028, and in 2029 a new New Zealand Certificate of Education (NZCE) replaces NCEA Level 2 for Year 12. The Government agreed the structure of the new qualification system on 26 March 2026, and the Ministry of Education confirmed further details and the timeline on 16 May 2026.

Common mistakes in NCEA Level 2 Physics

• Stopping at the number. Merit and Excellence need the physics explained in words, linked to the situation.
• Forgetting units and significant figures. Give every final answer a unit and a sensible number of significant figures.
• Mixing up series and parallel. In parallel the voltage is the same across each branch; in series the current is the same.
• Treating momentum as a scalar. Direction matters: choose a positive direction and keep to it.

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