CBSE class 12 physics syllabus with unit-wise marks

Unit-wise marks in the class 12 physics syllabus

Notice that marks are given for pairs of units. Optics alone has two long chapters inside the 18 mark block, so it usually decides a big share of your score.

Detailed topics, unit by unit

Electrostatics and current electricity

• Coulomb's law, superposition, electric field and field lines, electric dipole, Gauss's theorem and its uses
• Potential, equipotential surfaces, conductors and dielectrics, capacitors in series and parallel, energy stored
• Drift velocity, Ohm's law, resistivity and temperature, cells, EMF and internal resistance, Kirchhoff's rules, Wheatstone bridge

Magnetism and electromagnetic induction

• Biot-Savart law, Ampere's law, force on moving charges and on conductors, torque on a current loop, moving coil galvanometer
• Bar magnet as a dipole, magnetic materials and magnetisation
• Faraday's and Lenz's laws, self and mutual inductance
• AC peak and rms values, reactance, impedance, LCR series circuit with phasors, power factor, wattless current, AC generator and transformer

Electromagnetic waves and optics

• Displacement current, transverse nature of EM waves, the electromagnetic spectrum and uses
• Mirrors, refraction, total internal reflection, optical fibres, lens formula, power of a lens, prism, microscopes and telescopes
• Wavefronts and Huygens' principle, Young's double slit experiment and fringe width, single slit diffraction (qualitative)

Modern physics

• Photoelectric effect, Einstein's equation, matter waves and the de Broglie relation
• Rutherford's model, Bohr's model and hydrogen spectrum, nuclear size, mass defect, binding energy per nucleon, fission and fusion

Electronic devices

• Energy bands, intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors, the p-n junction, diode characteristics and the diode as a rectifier

Practical exam: how the 30 marks are given

Section A experiments are electrical: resistivity from a V-I graph, metre bridge, series and parallel combinations, galvanometer resistance and figure of merit, converting a galvanometer into an ammeter or voltmeter, and AC frequency with a sonometer. Section B covers optics and electronics: focal lengths of mirrors and lenses, the prism's angle of minimum deviation, refractive index of a slab or a liquid, and the p-n junction diode curve.

What the theory paper looks like

The board paper mixes multiple choice and assertion-reason questions, very short and short answers, case-based questions and long answers that ask for derivations or numericals. The section-wise split is printed in the sample paper that CBSE publishes each year, so solve that paper first and check its marking scheme to see how steps are rewarded. You can find past board papers on our class 12 previous year papers page.

Chapters that give the best return

Ray optics, current electricity and electromagnetic induction with AC are long but very formula-driven, which suits steady practice. Modern physics chapters (dual nature, atoms, nuclei) are short and score well for their size: 12 marks from three compact chapters. Semiconductor electronics is now limited to the diode and rectifier, so it is a quick 7 marks once you can draw the circuits cleanly.

A twelve week revision plan

1. Weeks 1 to 3: electrostatics and current electricity, with NCERT examples and exercise questions.
2. Weeks 4 to 6: magnetism, EMI and AC; make one page of formulas and phasor diagrams.
3. Weeks 7 to 9: ray and wave optics, practising ray diagrams until you can draw them in under a minute.
4. Weeks 10 and 11: modern physics and semiconductors.
5. Week 12: two timed sample papers, record file completion and viva questions.

Keep the practical file updated through the year rather than writing it in the last week; the record and viva together are worth 10 marks.

Books and official sources

The two NCERT physics textbooks for class 12 are the base, and the exemplar problem book is useful for tougher questions. The class 12 physics syllabus ncert alignment means the board does not test excluded parts of those books, so check the curriculum PDF on the CBSE academic site each year. If you studied the class 11 physics syllabus carefully, many tools carry over. For your other subjects, see the full CBSE class 12 syllabus and the class 12 chemistry syllabus.