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NSEP Practice Questions with Explained Answers

Original NSEP foundation and bridge practice with single- and multiple-correct questions and worked explanations.

2026–27 cycleChecked 20 October 2026
18 original foundation and bridge questions. These are learning exercises, not past NSEP questions, a full mock examination or a predictor of qualification. Practice scoring uses the brochure scheme: +3/−1 for single-correct and +6/0 for multiple-correct.

Choose a question and check your reasoning.

Mechanics Foundation · One correct
1. A trolley starts from rest and moves in a straight line with a constant acceleration of 2.0 m/s². How far does it travel in the first 5.0 s?
Mechanics Bridge · One correct
2. A 2.0 kg trolley moving at 3.0 m/s collides with a stationary 1.0 kg trolley. They stick together. The track is horizontal and frictionless, and external impulse during the collision is negligible. How much kinetic energy is lost in the collision?
Mechanics Bridge · One or more correct
3. A ball is projected at 20 m/s at an angle of 30° above horizontal ground and lands at the same height. Ignore air resistance and take g = 10 m/s². Select every correct statement.
Thermal Physics Foundation · One correct
4. A fixed amount of ideal gas is sealed in a rigid container. Its pressure is 2.0 × 10⁵ Pa at 300 K. What is its pressure when its temperature reaches 450 K?
Thermal Physics Foundation · One correct
5. Water of mass 0.10 kg at 20°C is mixed with 0.20 kg of water at 50°C. No heat escapes, no water evaporates, and the container absorbs negligible heat. Treat the specific heat capacity of water as constant. What is the final temperature?
Thermal Physics Bridge · One or more correct
6. One mole of an ideal monatomic gas is heated from 300 K to 600 K while expanding quasistatically at constant pressure. Use R = 8.31 J mol⁻¹ K⁻¹ and assume only pressure–volume work occurs. Select every correct statement; numerical values are rounded.
Oscillations and Waves Foundation · One correct
7. A 0.25 kg block attached to a horizontal spring of spring constant 100 N/m oscillates on a frictionless surface. The spring obeys Hooke's law. What is the period of oscillation?
Oscillations and Waves Foundation · One correct
8. A stretched string of length 1.20 m is fixed at both ends. Transverse waves travel along it at 120 m/s. What is its fundamental frequency?
Oscillations and Waves Bridge · One or more correct
9. An air column is closed at one end and open at the other. Its length is 0.85 m, and the speed of sound is 340 m/s. Ignore end corrections. Which of the following are its natural resonance frequencies? Select every correct value.
Electricity and Magnetism Foundation · One correct
10. A 6 Ω resistor and a 3 Ω resistor are connected in parallel across an ideal 12 V battery. What total current does the battery supply?
Electricity and Magnetism Foundation · One correct
11. A positive charge of 2.0 μC moves 0.30 m in the direction of a uniform electric field of magnitude 500 N/C. What work is done by the electric field on the charge?
Electricity and Magnetism Bridge · One or more correct
12. A charged parallel-plate capacitor is disconnected from its battery. Initially its capacitance, charge magnitude, potential difference and stored energy are C, Q, V and U. A dielectric of relative permittivity 2 is then inserted to fill the entire gap. Ignore leakage and edge effects. Select every correct statement about the final state.
Optics Foundation · One correct
13. A small object is placed 30 cm in front of a thin converging lens of focal length 10 cm in air. Where does the lens form its image?
Optics Bridge · One correct
14. In a double-slit interference experiment in air, coherent light of wavelength 600 nm illuminates slits separated by 0.30 mm. The screen is 2.0 m from the slits. Using the small-angle approximation, what is the separation of adjacent bright fringes near the centre?
Optics Bridge · One or more correct
15. A light ray in glass of refractive index 1.50 strikes a flat glass–air boundary at an incidence angle of 60° to the normal. Take the refractive index of air as 1.00 and treat the media as transparent and non-absorbing. Select every correct statement.
Modern Physics Foundation · One correct
16. What is the energy of a photon whose wavelength in vacuum is 400 nm? Use hc = 1240 eV·nm.
Modern Physics Foundation · One correct
17. A radioactive isotope in a sample has an initial activity of 800 Bq and a half-life of 6.0 h. What is the activity of this isotope after 18 h? Ignore any activity from daughter nuclei.
Modern Physics Bridge · One or more correct
18. A metal of work function 2.0 eV is illuminated by photons of energy 3.0 eV. The light intensity is doubled without changing its frequency or illuminated area. Assume ordinary single-photon photoelectric emission, constant absorption and quantum efficiency, and complete collection when measuring saturation current. Select every correct statement about the new situation.

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