Paper structure, the five Paper 3 options, the practical endorsement and June 2026 grade boundaries by option — sourced from AQA's own specification and grade-boundary documents.
Book a Free ConsultationAQA A-Level Physics is specification 7408, a two-year linear qualification examined across three written papers worth 250 marks in total, with no coursework contributing to the A*-E grade. A centre enters every student for exactly one of five Paper 3 options — Astrophysics, Medical physics, Engineering physics, Turning points in physics, or Electronics — and AQA publishes five separate June 2026 grade boundaries, one for each option, rather than a single Physics boundary.
Whichever of the five Paper 3 options your child's school has entered them for, our expert A-level Physics tutors build revision around AQA's own specification and mark scheme — not a generic syllabus.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThis page describes AQA's single live A-level Physics specification document, cover-dated for AS and A-level exams in 2016 onwards and currently at Version 1.4, July 2026, hosted at aqa.org.uk/7408. No second, differently structured edition of this specific document was found live on AQA's site at the time of writing — this is one specification, not two competing versions behind the same code.
AQA's own live specification page states plainly that the course is designed “for first teaching in 2015”. Ofqual's regulator register confirms this independently of AQA: qualification number 601/4747/7 carries a regulation start date of 2 October 2014 and an operational start date of 1 September 2015 — the same sciences AS-decoupling date that applies to AQA Biology and Chemistry, and distinct from the 2017 date that applies to Maths and Further Maths.
A-level Physics is assessed entirely through three written papers, each 2 hours long, with no non-exam assessment contributing to the grade. Paper 1 covers Sections 1 to 5 and 6.1 (Periodic motion), worth 85 marks and 34% of the A-level, split between 60 marks of short and long-answer questions and 25 marks of multiple choice. Paper 2 covers Section 6.2 (Thermal Physics), Section 7 and Section 8, assuming knowledge from Sections 1 to 6.1, also worth 85 marks and 34% of the A-level in the same 60/25 split.
Paper 3 is different in kind, not just content. Section A is compulsory for every student and covers practical skills and data analysis, worth 45 of the paper's 80 marks. Section B is where the choice happens: candidates answer on exactly one of five optional topics, worth the remaining 35 marks. Paper 3 as a whole is worth 32% of the A-level. Across the three papers, the maximum scaled mark totals 250.
The five Paper 3 Section B options are Astrophysics (7408A), Medical physics (7408B), Engineering physics (7408C), Turning points in physics (7408D) and Electronics (7408E). AQA's specification is explicit that a centre enters students for one of sections 9, 10, 11, 12 or 13 — the five options map directly onto those five specification sections, and a student sits questions on their school's chosen option only, not a general Paper 3 covering all five.
This is the detail most guides skip: Paper 3 is not one uniform synoptic paper. Section A tests every student on the same practical-skills and data-analysis content, worth more than half the paper on its own at 45 marks. Section B then tests a genuinely different 35 marks of content depending on which option a school has chosen, which is also why AQA does not stop at counting Physics as one qualification when it comes to reporting results — see the boundaries below.
Our expert AQA A-level Physics tutors work option by option — Astrophysics, Medical physics, Engineering physics, Turning points in physics and Electronics — so a student is prepared for the specific Paper 3 Section B their school has entered them for, not a generic revision list.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA's specification sets two separate assessment-weighting rules that apply across all three papers, whichever Paper 3 option a student sits. The first: 40% of the overall assessment of A-level Physics will contain mathematical skills equivalent to Level 2 or above — meaning two marks in every five, across the whole qualification, are effectively maths marks wearing a physics question. The second, entirely separate rule: at least 15% of the overall assessment will assess knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to practical work, tested through the three written papers rather than through a practical exam.
Together, these two figures mean a student cannot revise Physics as pure conceptual recall. Close to half of every paper — the maths-heavy 40% plus a meaningful share of the practical-skills 15% — rewards fluency with calculation, graphs and experimental analysis as much as it rewards knowing the physics itself. Neither figure varies by which Paper 3 option a student sits: both are set against the overall assessment of A-level Physics as a whole, so a student taking Astrophysics faces exactly the same 40% maths floor as a student taking Electronics.
In practice this means the two weightings sit mostly in Papers 1 and 2, which carry the bulk of the specification's calculation-heavy content — mechanics, fields and thermal physics — and in Paper 3 Section A's data-analysis questions, which apply to every student regardless of their Section B option. A revision plan built only around recalling definitions and laws, without dedicated practice on graph work, uncertainty calculations and multi-step algebra, is leaving close to two-fifths of the marks unaddressed before a single Physics question is even attempted.
AQA's specification lists exactly 12 required practical activities that every A-level Physics student must carry out, numbered individually from practical 1, an investigation into the variation of the frequency of stationary waves, through to practical 12, an investigation of the inverse-square law for gamma radiation. All 12 apply regardless of which Paper 3 option a student is entered for, since the practicals sit under the compulsory Section A content, not the optional Section B.
A common misunderstanding is that this practical work affects the headline grade. It does not. AQA states directly that A-level grades are based only on marks from the three written exams; the practical endorsement is a separate qualification component, assessed by a student's own teachers against the Common Practical Assessment Criteria, and reported on the certificate as its own pass grade. A student can achieve any A*-E grade with or without a pass in the endorsement — the two never combine into one number. AQA's practical-count structure differs from other boards' own arrangements; our Edexcel A-Level Physics page sets out Edexcel's own count and endorsement rules separately, sourced from Edexcel's own specification.
Because the endorsement is teacher-assessed rather than externally marked, the standard a student is judged against is set by AQA's published criteria rather than by exam-board moderation of individual scripts. A student who is fluent in the 12 practicals well before the written papers is also better placed on Paper 3 Section A, since several of its data-analysis questions draw directly on the same apparatus and techniques the required practicals cover.
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AQA issues every candidate a dedicated data and formulae booklet in the exam room. The current edition, Version 1.5, has been in use since the June 2017 series and carries a distinct set of formulae for each of the five Paper 3 options — Astrophysics, Medical physics, Engineering physics, Turning points in physics and Electronics — on top of the fundamental constants that apply across the whole specification. AQA's specification does not itself publish a single sentence stating that no formulae need to be memorised at all; this page states only what AQA directly confirms — that the booklet exists, is version-dated, and is supplied — rather than a broader claim AQA's own specification does not make.
A results slip only makes sense against the right boundary set. Our expert AQA Physics tutors help students target the specific mark needed for their own Paper 3 option, not an average across all five.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA does not publish one grade boundary table for A-level Physics. It publishes five, one for each Paper 3 option, because each option's Section B questions are marked separately before being combined with the shared Section A and Papers 1 and 2 marks. In the June 2026 series, out of the 250-mark total, the boundaries ran as follows.
| Paper 3 option | AQA code | A* | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Astrophysics | 7408A | 191 | 162 | 136 | 111 | 86 | 61 |
| Electronics | 7408E | 188 | 159 | 134 | 109 | 85 | 61 |
| Engineering physics | 7408C | 190 | 161 | 135 | 109 | 83 | 58 |
| Medical physics | 7408B | 186 | 157 | 132 | 107 | 82 | 57 |
| Turning points in physics | 7408D | 187 | 158 | 133 | 108 | 83 | 58 |
Source: AQA A-level Physics grade boundaries, June 2026 series, out of 250 total marks.
The spread is real, not rounding noise. At grade A*, Medical physics required 186 marks out of 250 while Astrophysics required 191 — a five-mark gap at the very top of the scale. The gap persists all the way down the scale: at grade E, Medical physics and Engineering physics both sat at 57 and 58 respectively, while Astrophysics and Electronics both sat at 61. A family reading a results slip against a generic “AQA Physics boundary” found online is very likely reading the wrong row for their child's actual option.
AQA's confirmed key dates for the June 2027 series set Paper 1 (7408/1) for the morning of 21 May, a 2-hour paper, followed by Paper 2 (7408/2) on the afternoon of 27 May, also 2 hours, and Paper 3 (7408/3) on the morning of 8 June, again 2 hours. Those three dates are what most revision calendars show.
What most calendars leave out is that the practical endorsement is not a written exam and does not sit on the written-paper timetable at all. AQA sets a separate, earlier submission deadline — 15 May for the June 2027 series — by which a school must have completed and submitted its non-exam assessment of a student's practical skills, ahead of every one of the three written papers. Schools and colleges may set their own internal deadlines ahead of that date, which makes it, in practice, the first deadline of the whole A-level Physics assessment cycle.
It is a single specification, 7408, but Paper 3 Section B forces a real choice: a centre enters every student for exactly one of five options — Astrophysics (7408A), Medical physics (7408B), Engineering physics (7408C), Turning points in physics (7408D) or Electronics (7408E) — worth 35 of Paper 3's 80 marks. AQA then publishes a separate set of grade boundaries for each of the five, so which option a student sat changes how their result should be read.
Exactly 12. AQA's specification numbers them individually, from practical 1, an investigation into the variation of the frequency of stationary waves, to practical 12, an investigation of the inverse-square law for gamma radiation. All 12 are compulsory for every student, regardless of which Paper 3 option they are entered for.
No. AQA states that A-level grades are based only on marks from the three written exams. The practical endorsement is assessed separately by teachers against the Common Practical Assessment Criteria and reported on the certificate as its own pass grade — it never contributes marks to the A*-E result.
AQA's specification states that 40% of the overall assessment will contain mathematical skills equivalent to Level 2 or above. A further, separate requirement sets a floor of at least 15% of the overall assessment on knowledge, skills and understanding relating to practical work, assessed through the three written papers.
Only for UK overseas centres, and only from 2028. AQA's own specification states that the last cohort for first teaching is September 2026, the last first sitting is summer 2028, and a final resit opportunity falls in September 2029, after which UK overseas centres can no longer enter students. Physics at UK-based centres is unaffected by this withdrawal.
AQA's own specification page states it is designed for first teaching in September 2015. Ofqual's regulator register confirms this independently, recording an operational start date of 1 September 2015 against qualification number 601/4747/7, with a regulation start date of 2 October 2014.
AQA supplies a dedicated data and formulae booklet to every candidate in the exam. The current version, 1.5, has been in use since the June 2017 series and carries a distinct formula set for each of the five Paper 3 options, alongside the fundamental constants used across the specification. AQA's specification does not itself set out a single list of what a student must memorise instead.
No. In the June 2026 series, out of 250 total marks, the A* boundary ranged from 186 for Medical physics (7408B) to 191 for Astrophysics (7408A) — a five-mark spread at the top grade alone. Every one of the five options has its own full run of boundaries from A* down to E.
Book a free consultation and we'll get your child started with the right AQA A-Level Physics tutor for their Paper 3 option today.
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