PhysicsBowl
Independent guide
PhysicsBowl, field by field.
A 40-question, 45-minute multiple-choice physics exam set by the American Association of Physics Teachers. Most of the students this guide is written for sit it in English, at a test centre in China, alongside an ordinary school year.
This is not the official contest site. AAPT publishes the rules, the dates and the results at aapt.org.
Start with the rules Past papers
Divisions at a glanceI / II
The numbers
The exam in figures
The figures above are the shape of the paper. Here they are with the reasoning attached.
40questions
Multiple choice. No partial credit and nothing to show your working on.
45minutes
One timed sitting, supervised. Both divisions get the same length of paper.
67.5seconds
Derived from 45 minutes across 40 questions. It is where most of the difficulty lives.
- Divisions
- I and IIDivision II is written for a second physics course — and open to anyone who wants the harder paper.
- Team score
- Top fiveA school’s team score is the sum of its five best individual scores.
- Regions
- 22Numbered 00 to 21. Five of them cover China.
- Awards per region
- Top 2 students, top 2 schoolsAwarded per division. Region 00 is eligible for student awards only.
Choosing a paper
Division I and Division II
Decided by how much physics you have studied — not by how strong you are, and not by your age.
Division I
Your first physics course
Written for students taking their first course in physics. The level of that course does not matter.
- Open to
- First-course studentsPast your first course, you enter Division II.
- Paper
- 40 questions, 45 minutes
Division II
A second course, or a harder paper
Written for a second physics course or beyond — and explicitly open to anyone who wants the harder paper.
- Open to
- AnyoneA first-course student may choose Division II.
- Paper
- 40 questions, 45 minutes
The paper
Five strands, one paper
Questions are drawn from the topics of a typical high school physics course. AAPT does not expect any one student or school to have covered all of them.
Motion and forces
The largest single strand in most high school courses.
Charge and fields
Circuits, electric and magnetic fields, induction.
Heat and gases
Temperature, heat transfer and the gas laws.
Light and waves
Reflection, refraction and wave behaviour.
Atomic and modern
Quanta, wave–particle duality, the atom.
Meeting an unfamiliar strand is normal
AAPT does not expect any one student to have covered everything. An equation sheet is provided but is not exhaustive, and every gravity question uses g = 10 m/s². Working a released past paper is the fastest way to find where your course stops and the contest keeps going.
Cycle status
The 2027 cycle has not been announced
Checked against aapt.org on 25 August 2026. What follows is a record of one completed cycle, not a forecast.
| Field | 2027 | 2026, for reference |
|---|---|---|
| Registration deadline | Not announced | 23 February 2026, extended to 25 February |
| Exam window | Not announced | 18 March to 3 April 2026 |
| Fee | Not announced | US$10 per student direct via AAPT; China entries per the test centre’s notice |
Historically the contest runs in March, with the window reaching into early April so schools with different spring breaks can all take part, and registration closing in February. That is a pattern rather than an announcement — a reason to watch aapt.org from January, not a date to plan around.
Why sit it
What sitting it actually trains
Three things, none of which is a promise about where a result leads.
Reasoning against a clock
Sixty-seven and a half seconds a question is the average budget if you attempt all forty. At that pace most of the difficulty is not the algebra; it is deciding quickly which relation applies and committing to it. That is a distinct skill from a two-hour school paper, and it improves with practice.
Breadth in a single sitting
Five strands, one paper. Most school courses run one strand at a time and examine them separately. Being asked to move between mechanics and modern physics inside forty-five minutes is a genuinely different demand.
An external standard
The paper is set and scored by someone who has never met you, against the same standard as everyone else in your region and division. That is worth something regardless of the result — and it is a more honest measure than any internal test.
The organisers
Who sets the paper
The honest case for this contest is its continuity, not any number we could quote.
- Set by
- AAPTThe American Association of Physics Teachers, College Park, Maryland.
- Editors documented since
- 1985Eight named editors across four decades, published year by year.
- Published each year
- Global Top ScoresPlus regional winner lists, going back to 2012.
Independence
PhysicsBowl is a contest of the American Association of Physics Teachers. This site is independent: it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by AAPT. Official contest information is published at aapt.org. How this site handles facts
Sitting it in China
Five regions, one registration route, one rule that catches people out
If you are sitting the exam at a centre in China, three facts decide how your entry works and what you are eligible to win.
China has its own contest regions, numbered 15 to 19
They cover North, South, East, Central and West China. Awards are given per region and per division, so those five regions are the field you are actually ranked in — not the global entry. AAPT publishes the grouping rather than a public mapping of which number belongs to which region, so confirm your exact code when you register and do not accept a guess about it, including one from this site.
Registration runs through ASEEDER, not AAPT
AAPT routes regions 15 to 21 — mainland China, the rest of Asia and the Middle East — through ASEEDER / SEED-ASDAN rather than through its own registration. The contact is physics@seedasdan.org. Writing to AAPT directly is the single most common reason a school in China loses a fortnight.
Region 00 changes what you can win
Test preparation centres and educational services compete in their own region, Region 00, and are eligible for student awards only — not school or team awards. If you are sitting through a training centre rather than through your own school, no team result is available to you regardless of how well the group does. Ask your centre which applies before you set expectations.
Archive
News
Notes on the contest as things are published or change.
Physics Bowl Fluids Prep: Adapting to AP Physics 1 Unit 8 Changes
Explains how the move of Fluids from AP Physics 2 to AP Physics 1 Unit 8 impacts Physics Bowl Division 1 preparation strategies.
20 Oct 2026NewsPhysics Bowl Rolling Motion: Checking Translation and Rotation Constraints
Teaches how to verify no-slip conditions and choose between energy conservation and dynamics methods for rolling motion problems.
17 Oct 2026NewsPhysics Bowl Preparation and BPhO: Share the Physics, Practise the Different Response Styles
Physics Bowl and BPhO share core mechanics but demand different response styles. Learn how to practise both formats with checked worked examples and f…
15 Oct 2026NewsPhysics Bowl Energy Graphs: Connect Potential Energy With Force and Motion
Learn how Physics Bowl energy graphs link potential energy to force and motion. Work through checked examples showing slope-to-force conversion, stabl…
Contact
Questions about sitting it in China?
Tell us the name of your school or centre and the year group of the student. We will point you at the published rule that applies, or at the registration route for your region, and we will tell you plainly when the answer is that AAPT has not published one.
We can also handle the entry itself: tell us the student’s details and we arrange the registration through the official China-region channel, with the fee per your test centre’s notice. Reading this guide costs nothing.