PAT 2025 Syllabus

So the 2025 PAT is very soon - I'm taking it on the 23rd of October. I have so far done all the past papers 2006-2013, as practice.

I have just noticed, however, that the latest update to the syllabus was in 2018 - do we know what changes this constituted? I did the 2012 PAT recently, and was blindsided by a few things. For example, that last question (the force acting on the particle... drawing all the graphs, so on...)... that was absolutely horrific. Obviously it's all multiple choice now, but could there still be a question like that, just picking the appropriate graph from a number of options?

Do we know what kind of changes the multiple choice format is likely to bring... therefore, what to focus more on now?

I've also seen various things about the scoring system, like people saying that some options on the multiple choice questions may score partial credit, if they are an answer that one might have arrived at with the correct method but some slight mistake... is this true? If so, surely people can do well just by guessing?

Reply 1

curious_wisdom

Original post

by TobyAS

So the 2025 PAT is very soon - I'm taking it on the 23rd of October. I have so far done all the past papers 2006-2013, as practice.
I have just noticed, however, that the latest update to the syllabus was in 2018 - do we know what changes this constituted? I did the 2012 PAT recently, and was blindsided by a few things. For example, that last question (the force acting on the particle... drawing all the graphs, so on...)... that was absolutely horrific. Obviously it's all multiple choice now, but could there still be a question like that, just picking the appropriate graph from a number of options?
Do we know what kind of changes the multiple choice format is likely to bring... therefore, what to focus more on now?
I've also seen various things about the scoring system, like people saying that some options on the multiple choice questions may score partial credit, if they are an answer that one might have arrived at with the correct method but some slight mistake... is this true? If so, surely people can do well just by guessing?

Hiiii! I'm preparing as well, I take it on the 22.

I don't exactly know what changed in the syllabus, but tests previous to the 2018 one are probably still useful to get used to problem solving, time management and stuff like that. I've done the recent ones and there's multiple questions that include drawing graphs and diagrams. I asked and they told me that you could get a question in which you had to pick one (boths for graphs and diagrams).

The other perk to the multiple choice is that if you really have no idea you can guess, and make an 'ingelligent' guess meaning you choose an option that is reasonable (units, order of magnitude, etc). But it's supposed to be just as hard though.

And yeah, all of the options are there because you just might get to it. None of them were randomly made up because they needed more options, they're answers that you can get to due to common mistakes you make in the process. And some of these might give you partial credit, because they know pretty well how you got there, so even if it's not correct you can scrape off some marks. There're going to be lots of options though, I think, so no, if you just guess you probably won't do very well.

Hope that helped! Good luck!

Reply 2

WerkaS

Original post

by TobyAS

So the 2025 PAT is very soon - I'm taking it on the 23rd of October. I have so far done all the past papers 2006-2013, as practice.
I have just noticed, however, that the latest update to the syllabus was in 2018 - do we know what changes this constituted? I did the 2012 PAT recently, and was blindsided by a few things. For example, that last question (the force acting on the particle... drawing all the graphs, so on...)... that was absolutely horrific. Obviously it's all multiple choice now, but could there still be a question like that, just picking the appropriate graph from a number of options?
Do we know what kind of changes the multiple choice format is likely to bring... therefore, what to focus more on now?
I've also seen various things about the scoring system, like people saying that some options on the multiple choice questions may score partial credit, if they are an answer that one might have arrived at with the correct method but some slight mistake... is this true? If so, surely people can do well just by guessing?

Hi, mine is on the 23rd and I am dreading it.

I completely understand the frustration with the 2012 paper. I would actually recommend 2015 paper personally as it was pushing more complex questions on some topics (electricity for the last questions) but also had some nicer physics and maths questions.

However, that is where the fun ends, doing some of the papers post 2018 made me cry as (assuming it allowed calculators as it said nothing on the front) the questions seemed more wordy and the physics questions were honestly making me rethink my choice. But, the first 10-12 questions where in the style of the multiple choice online format, each worth two marks. This is what most of the tests might look like, with the long questions being broken down into parts (these parts would be multiple choice, sort of checking your progress through out the question) and worth more marks.

I am also certain that partial credit for questions must be given in some way. If you got down to two out of five possible answers, one surely would give partial credit (especially on the longer questions as you somehow did get to that specific answer). I would also recommend getting familiar with the online calculator as that would take some time to get use to in during taking the test.

We know it is a challenge but we have to persevere through it. Good luck to all of you and don't let your passion for physics fail because of this test.
Hope this helps.

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PAT 2025 Syllabus

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