Q1
ORIGINAL
An unmagnetised iron pin is attracted to the south pole of a bar magnet. Explain why the pin is attracted and what happens after the magnet is taken far away.
[3 marks]
Total for this question: 3
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AQA GCSE Physics · Topic 4.7
Magnetism and electromagnetism questions
Practice questions covering magnetism and electromagnetism from this specification. Every question below is the real AQA question as it is printed on the paper, with its mark scheme.
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6 questions on Magnetism and electromagnetism, each with its mark scheme and worked method. Reveal the answer when you have had a go.
- Q2ORIGINALDescribe how a student can map the direction of the magnetic field around a bar magnet using a small plotting compass.
[4 marks]
Total for this question: 4
- Q3ORIGINALA vertical wire carries conventional current upwards. Describe the field-line shape and how a student determines its direction when viewed from above.
[3 marks]
Total for this question: 3
- Q4ORIGINALA wire section is perpendicular to a magnetic field and carries . Calculate the force on the section.
[2 marks]
Total for this question: 2
- Q5ORIGINALExplain why a rectangular current-carrying coil between magnetic poles begins to rotate rather than simply moving sideways.
[4 marks]
Total for this question: 4
- Q6ORIGINALExplain how an alternating electrical signal makes the cone of a moving-coil loudspeaker vibrate.
[4 marks]
Total for this question: 4
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Printable question pack — 4.7 Magnetism and electromagnetismAll 99 questions across 10 specification points — 93 more than the 6 above — with the full mark scheme. Guest accessible · browser print.Real past-paper questions
26 questions shown as printed, 4 reference-only · newest series first
Question and mark-scheme extracts © AQA. Reproduced for educational use; the original paper is linked on every question. Contact hello@oscarsongtutoring.co.uk for removal.
AQA 8463 · June 2025 · Paper 2F · Q6 · 5 marks
5 marks
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[06.4] Nearly 80 % of the students recognised the shape of the magnetic field around a current carrying wire.
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Iron nails are attracted to a bar magnet and become magnets. A current-carrying wire produces a magnetic field.
AQA 8463 · June 2025 · Paper 2H · Q7 · 5 marks
5 marks
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[7.2] Just over half of the students scored all the marks on this multi-step calculation of acceleration. Those students not scoring full marks often failed to convert the mass correctly or did not rearrange the equation F=ma correctly.
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A copper rod of mass 5.0 g and length 0.070 m carries 2.0 A at right angles to a 0.30 T magnetic field.
AQA 8463 · June 2025 · Paper 2H · Q9 · 8 marks
8 marks
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[9.1] Only about one quarter of the students scored the mark for explaining why a transformer core is made from iron. Many students had failed to include 'easily' with reference to iron being magnetised. Some students had incorrectly written about the conductivity of iron.
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Transformers are used to change alternating potential differences.
AQA 8463 · June 2024 · Paper 2F · Q2 · 5 marks
5 marks
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[02.4] Most students choose identified the correct arrangement of the bar magnets.
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A teacher demonstrated magnetic fields around permanent magnets and a current-carrying wire using a plotting compass.
AQA 8463 · June 2024 · Paper 2H · Q8 · 8 marks
8 marks
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[08.4] The students' understanding of the operation of a microphone was often good, although some did describe the operation of a speaker. Knowledge of the term 'inducing' was widespread although many students failed to appreciate that an alternating current was induced in the circuit. Some students did not appreciate the longitudinal nature of sound waves and described oscillations in the wrong direction as a result. Most students attempted this item, although a thorough knowledge and understanding of the principles was not always evident in their answers. Only 4% achieved full marks, but 49% scored at least one mark.
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A teacher moves a wire upwards through a magnetic field in a complete circuit; the ammeter initially deflects to +0.4 mA. A moving-coil microphone contains a diaphragm, a small coil and a magnet.
AQA 8463 · June 2023 · Paper 2F · Q3 · 5 marks
5 marks
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[03.2] Almost 88% of students knew that increasing the current in the wire would increase the strength of the magnetic field.
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A current-carrying wire produces a magnetic field and an electromagnet operates an electric bell.
AQA 8463 · June 2023 · Paper 2H · Q4 · 7 marks
7 marks
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[04.4] 88% of students knew that it is the motor effect that causes the coil to move..
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A megaphone uses a microphone and a loudspeaker. The loudspeaker has a permanent magnet and a 6.5 m wire coil.
AQA 8463 · June 2023 · Paper 2H · Q9 · 8 marks
8 marks
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[09.2] 17% of students could correctly draw four half-cycles to represent the output of two complete turns of the dynamo. Most drew a sine wave or an incorrect number of half-cycles.
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A dynamo connected to a lamp contains a rotating coil, magnetic field, brushes and a split-ring commutator.
AQA 8463 · June 2022 · Paper 2F · Q1 · 6 marks
6 marks
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[01.1] Most of the students were able to identify correctly which pairs of magnets would attract and which would repel.
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A bar magnet produces a magnetic field. An electromagnet consists of a current-carrying coil around a metal core.
AQA 8463 · June 2022 · Paper 2H · Q7 · 11 marks
11 marks
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[07.5] About three quarters of the students scored either 3 or 4 marks. Very few of the students attempted to convert 60µT to Tesla. Those that did often multiplied by a wrong factor but were able to go on to score 3 marks.
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A transformer has 200 turns on its primary coil and 1200 turns on its secondary. It receives an alternating 230 V input. A separate cable between points A and B carries 50 A in Earth's 60 µT magnetic field and experiences force 0.045 N.
AQA 8463 · November 2021 · Paper 2F · Q7 · 10 marks
10 marks
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A bar magnet is used to introduce magnetic fields. An electromagnet above a conveyor separates steel cans from aluminium cans. A conveyor moves a can 3.3 m at 1.7 m/s.
AQA 8463 · November 2021 · Paper 2H · Q8 · 7 marks
7 marks
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Very few of the students had any idea how a moving-coil loudspeaker works to produce a sound. Generally answers were partially explaining how electric motors, generators or microphones worked. In part 08.3 few of the students scored both marks with 60% scoring no marks. The most frequently seen incorrect answers were to do with lack of data, no repeats or loudness being in arbitrary units.
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A loudspeaker contains a current-carrying coil in the field of a permanent magnet. A student also changes both wave frequency and amplitude in one trial.
AQA 8463 · November 2021 · Paper 2H · Q9 · 13 marks
13 marks
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Whilst many of the students could quote Fleming’s Left Hand rule, few were able to apply it in order to explain how to predict the direction of the copper rod given in Figure 16. In part 09.2 an answer ‘bigger magnet’ is not necessarily the same as a ‘stronger magnet’ and neither is ‘changing the current’ necessarily the same as ‘increasing the current’. In part 09.3 whilst there were few answers scoring all six marks many of the students gained partial credit by showing their working out clearly. A very common error was not to convert 4 g to kg. Concluding Remarks The paper presented to the students was broadly similar to that seen in previous series. Many of the errors made by the students were similar to those seen in previous series. The failure to be able to accurately present information requiring recall from the specification (AO1), for example understanding the term ‘elastically deformed’ or describing the difference between a transverse wave and a longitudinal wave was commonly seen. Incorrect recall of equations stopped many students from scoring marks in calculations. Students often seemed to be unsure what the command word in a question meant. For example being asked to ‘Explain’ an application of Fleming’s Left Hand rule is not the same as ‘Describe’. Areas of the specification that were particularly poorly answered were sections 4.7 (Magnetism and Electromagnetism), 4.8 (Space physics) and 4.6.2.5 (Lenses). Vector diagrams did not appear to be well understood. Many of the students now understand the importance of showing clear working out when completing a calculation. This is crucial in the more complex calculations. Similar to previous series a significant number of the students were unable to read values from graphs accurately and failed to realise when numerical values were not given in standard SI units.
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A 0.050 m wire carrying 1.7 A is perpendicular to a 0.30 T magnetic field. The 4.0 g wire is free to move for 0.15 s. Current is out of the page and the magnetic field points downwards.
AQA 8463 · November 2020 · Paper 2F · Q5 · 11 marks
11 marks
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A floating magnet's north pole moves around a fixed bar magnet. An electromagnetic door lock uses a solenoid, iron bolt and spring.
AQA 8463 · November 2020 · Paper 2H · Q4 · 14 marks
14 marks
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[04.6] It was not always clear if the students were writing about the spring or the solenoid. The most common way of scoring one mark was for ‘increasing the current’ or a correct description of how this could be achieved. Answers simply in terms of ‘increasing the magnetic field’ were insufficient for credit to be awarded.
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A door has a concave security lens and an electromagnetic lock with solenoid, iron bolt and spring.
AQA 8463 · November 2020 · Paper 2H · Q7 · 14 marks
14 marks
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[07.2] 55% of students scored zero, often due to incorrect substitution into the chosen equation.
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A portable power supply has a hand-driven alternator feeding an adjustable-turns transformer. Alternator coil rotates in permanent-magnet field via slip rings.
AQA 8463 · June 2019 · Paper 2F · Q3 · 11 marks
11 marks
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[03.3] Just under half of the students recognised that the arrows should point in the same direction and made the correct choice.
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A bar magnet is horizontal with its south pole on the left and north pole on the right; one compass is immediately to the left of the magnet and another is immediately to its right. A coat fastening uses two facing magnets. A current-carrying coil and an electromagnet lifting an iron bar are investigated. The spring-extension curve has approximate anchors (current A, extension cm): (0,0), (0.2,0.5), (0.4,1.0), (0.6,1.5), (0.8,2.0), (1.0,2.5), (1.2,3.0), (1.4,3.2), (1.6,3.2).
AQA 8463 · June 2019 · Paper 2H · Q4 · 8 marks
8 marks
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[04.4] About half of the students scored this mark. Those that did not score often failed to mention that the strength reached a maximum value.
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A solenoid produces a bar-magnet-shaped field. In a demonstration, two iron rods lie parallel and side by side inside a solenoid, spanning its length. Electromagnet strength is measured by maximum supported weight.
AQA 8463 · June 2019 · Paper 2H · Q9 · 11 marks
11 marks
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[09.2] Just over 60% of the students gave the correct answer.
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Hearing ranges: cat 55 Hz–77 kHz, chicken 125 Hz–2 kHz, dog 20 Hz–30 kHz, gerbil 56 Hz–60 kHz, horse 55 Hz–33 kHz. Ultrasound pulse display shows crack echo 8 μs after transmitted pulse (four 2 μs intervals). Sound speed in aluminium 6300 m/s. A moving-coil microphone has diaphragm attached to coil in a magnetic field.
AQA 8463 · June 2018 · Paper 2F · Q4 · 12 marks
12 marks
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[04.5] 78% of students scored one mark for this question. Few of the students picked up on 18 paper clips being an anomalous result and as such should be disregarded as the three remaining results were similar. A mean of the three similar results could then be found and used in the table. Students scoring one mark calculated the mean of all four results but did not gain a second mark for rounding down to the nearest whole paper clip.
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Two paper clips hang end-to-end from the south pole of a bar magnet: induced polarity makes the top of each clip north and bottom south. Electromagnet results: turns/clips = 10/3, 20/6, 30/9, 40/12; at 50 turns readings 18,16,14,15.
AQA 8463 · June 2018 · Paper 2H · Q7 · 8 marks
8 marks
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[07.1] Many students had the correct idea, but imprecise detail such as ‘wrong number of turns’ or ‘number of turns was miscounted’ were insufficient to score the mark.
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A transformer's primary potential difference is fixed at 2.0 V. A graph plots measured secondary potential difference against the number of secondary turns; the plotted values generally increase with turns, with one anomalously low point. Spot-welder transformer data: Np=640, Ns=4, secondary p.d.=1.75 V, output power 336 W, 100% efficient.
AQA 8463 · June 2018 · Paper 2H · Q10 · 7 marks
7 marks
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[10.3] Very few students gave a coherent, detailed answer to this question. Most concentrated on what made the coil move, although ideas were not always expressed with clarity. It was unusual to see an answer that considered moments. The action of the commutator was not understood well and its function was often not mentioned. Some students appreciated that current direction needed to be reversed but thought an alternating current was the solution. There were significant numbers of students unsure whether the question was about an electric motor or a generator. Many answers made reference to induced currents in the coil and the coil cutting field lines to induce a potential difference. Use of statistics Statistics used in this report may be taken from incomplete processing data. However, this data still gives a true account on how students have performed for each question.
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A straight wire carries current into the page (cross symbol). A simple d.c. motor has current-carrying coil between permanent-magnet poles, split-ring commutator and brushes.
AQA 8463 · sample1 · Paper 2F · Q13 · 6 marks
6 marks
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A straight wire passes down through a card. A car ignition circuit uses a low-current ignition switch to energise an electromagnet, whose iron arm closes contacts in the high-current starter-motor circuit.
AQA 8463 · sample1 · Paper 2H · Q6 · 5 marks
5 marks
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A transformer has an iron core. For transformers J, K and L, secondary potential difference is plotted against primary potential difference. At primary 6 V, secondary voltages are J=4 V, K=8 V, L=12 V. Each primary coil has 50 turns.
AQA 8463 · sample1 · Paper 2H · Q11 · 9 marks
9 marks
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Waves may be longitudinal or transverse. A moving-coil loudspeaker has a coil in the field between north and south poles, attached to a cone.
AQA 8463 · sample1 · Paper 2H · Q12 · 8 marks
8 marks
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A current balance has wire X in a magnetic field. X is 5 cm long and carries 1.5 A. A balancing weight produces a clockwise moment 4.8×10<sup>−4</sup> N m about a pivot 8 cm from X.
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