What is the IOE entrance Physics syllabus?
Six areas worth 40 marks: mechanics, heat and thermodynamics, optics, waves and sound, electricity and magnetism, and modern physics.
Physics carries 40 of the 140 marks, second only to Mathematics. The official syllabus names six areas, and the sixth is broader than most candidates expect.
Mechanics. Vectors and kinematics, Newton’s laws and friction, work, energy and power, circular motion, gravitation and SHM, rotational dynamics, elasticity, and fluid mechanics including surface tension, viscosity, Reynold number and Bernoulli’s equation.
Heat and thermodynamics. Quantity of heat and thermal equilibrium, thermal expansion, conduction, convection and radiation, Stefan-Boltzmann law, kinetic theory, and the laws of thermodynamics including Carnot, Otto and Diesel cycles and entropy.
Geometric and physical optics. Reflection and refraction, total internal reflection, lenses and lens maker’s formula, optical fibre, dispersion and aberration, Huygen’s principle, interference, diffraction and polarization.
Waves and sound. Travelling and stationary waves, velocity of sound in solids, gases and liquids, waves in pipes and strings, resonance, and acoustic phenomena including intensity level and Doppler’s effect.
Electricity and magnetism. Electrostatics and Gauss law, capacitors and dielectrics, DC circuits and Kirchhoff’s law, thermoelectric effects, magnetic effects and Biot-Savart’s law, magnetic properties of matter, electromagnetic induction and transformers, and alternating currents.
Modern physics. Electrons and Millikan’s experiment, photons and quantization, semiconductors and logic gates, radioactivity and nuclear reactions, and recent trends: particle physics, cosmology, seismology, telecommunication, environment, and nano-technology and superconductors.
The sub-topics people are surprised to find listed
Several items on the official Physics syllabus sit outside what a +2 course emphasises, and they are named explicitly rather than implied. Fluid mechanics carries Reynold number, Stoke’s and Poiseuille’s formulae and Bernoulli’s equation. Electricity and magnetism carries the thermoelectric effect in its own sub-topic — Seebeck, Peltier, Thomson and the thermopile — alongside Hall’s effect, Biot-Savart’s law and hysteresis. Modern physics carries Millikan’s experiment, Bragg’s law, the uncertainty principle, logic gates and carbon dating.
None of that is obscure, but it is the part of the syllabus most likely to be skimmed on the assumption that the paper follows the school course. It does not: the syllabus is set for this examination and the model questions draw on it directly.
What the paper actually asks
The booklet prints model questions, and the Physics samples show the expected shape. From Section B, reproduced as printed: “To what depth, below the surface of a sea should a rubber ball be taken so that its volume decreases by 1%? Bulk modulus of the rubber is 9 x 10⁸ Nm⁻².” And: “The ratio of the areas within the electron orbits for the first excited state to the ground state for the hydrogen atom is — (a) 16:1, (b) 8:1, (c) 4:1, (d) 2:1.”
Both are two-step problems: the first needs the bulk-modulus relation rearranged before pressure converts to depth, the second needs the n² dependence of orbit radius squared into an area ratio. That is the Section B pattern across subjects — a standard relation, then one transformation. Section A questions at 1 mark are the single-step versions of the same material.
Summarised from the Detail Syllabus of B.E./B.Arch. Entrance Examination-2083, Physics, Full Marks 40, printed pages 27 and 28 of the booklet. Model questions transcribed from the booklet’s Model Questions section, printed pages 29 to 31, which is set in Latin type and extracts reliably. The recent-trends section is explicitly on syllabus and is the part most coaching notes shrink.
Sources
- IOE B.E./B.Arch Booklet 2083 · published 7 August 2026 · read 18 August 2026
Last reviewed by Ram Raj Thapa, Admissions Officer, Imperial College of Engineering. Every figure on this page is cited to the document it came from.