Elite Scholars

Physical Sciences Grade 10

This is every topic in the CAPS Physical Sciences curriculum for Grade 10, 22 in total, organised by content strand, the way the Department divides the subject. It is the same curriculum your school teaches from, and the same one the NSC examines.

Mechanics

4 topics · 18.75%

30 teaching hours in CAPS

  • Introduction to vectors and scalars
  • Motion in one dimension: position, displacement and distance, speed, velocity, acceleration
  • Describing motion in words, diagrams, graphs and equations
  • Energy: gravitational potential, kinetic and mechanical energy, and its conservation

Waves, Sound and Light

5 topics · 10.00%

16 teaching hours in CAPS

  • Transverse pulses on a string or spring
  • Transverse waves: wavelength, frequency, amplitude, period, wave speed
  • Longitudinal waves and sound waves
  • Sound: pitch, loudness, quality and ultrasound
  • Electromagnetic radiation: its dual nature, the EM spectrum, and photon energy

Electricity and Magnetism

3 topics · 8.75%

14 teaching hours in CAPS

  • Magnetism: magnetic fields, poles, field lines and the earth’s magnetic field
  • Electrostatics: two kinds of charge, forces between charges, polarisation, charge conservation and quantisation
  • Electric circuits: emf, potential difference, current, resistance and resistors in parallel

Matter and Materials

5 topics · 17.50%

28 teaching hours in CAPS

  • Matter and classification: mixtures, pure substances, metals and non-metals, conductors and insulators
  • States of matter and the kinetic molecular theory
  • Atomic structure: models of the atom, protons, neutrons and electrons, isotopes, electron configuration
  • The periodic table: position of the elements and similarities within groups
  • Chemical bonding: covalent, ionic and metallic

Chemical Change

4 topics · 15.00%

20 teaching hours in CAPS

  • Physical and chemical change, conservation of atoms and mass, law of constant composition
  • Representing chemical change: balanced chemical equations
  • Reactions in aqueous solution: ions, electrolytes, conductivity, precipitation and reaction types
  • Stoichiometry: the mole concept

Chemical Systems

1 topic · 5.00%

8 teaching hours in CAPS

  • The hydrosphere

Knowing the topics is the easy part

The list above is public. It is what your teacher works from. What it does not do is explain a topic you are stuck on, show you a worked example, or tell you which mistakes cost marks in the exam. That is what an Elite Scholars account is for: study notes written against these exact topics, past papers, and tools that show their working.

See how we help

Source: CAPS FET Physical Sciences, Grades 10-12, Department of Basic Education, checked on 2026-08-05. Schools sequence topics differently within a year, so treat this as what is examined rather than the order your class will meet it in.

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