| The research objects are College Entrance Examination (CEE) Physical Volume and Chinese Physics Olympiad (CPHO) which are two vital examinations for high school students in the subject of physics. Physics as an interesting yet difficult subject which explores the laws of nature demands a lot on each level of cognition. Therefore, physics exam questions could be ideal materials to detect all stages of cognitive structures during the period of secondary education.This thesis includes two major tasks: analysis and classification. In the part of analysis, the emphasis is put on the specific steps to solve problems. By looking into the solution to exam questions of CEE and CPHO, we can get a clear concept of the requirements for fundamental knowledge and necessary skills. The other essential part is to classify the exam questions under the instructions of two taxonomy theories. All the questions are put into five SOLO taxonomy levels and six Bloom's taxonomy categories respectively. This classification shows us the distribution of exam questions on those taxonomy categories, which indicates the relationship of exam paper to cognitive structures. By comparison, it can reveal the different standards of CEE and CPHO for knowledge, skills and other relative abilities as well. Since the examinees of CEE are ordinary high school graduates while the candidates of CPHO are elites in physics classes, the differences of cognitive requirements between the two examinations are reasonable.Through thorough analysis and precise classification of ten sets of exam paper, we also discover the overall trend of development of CEE and CPHO during recent five years.This investigation is trying to offer a scientific method to interpret the special relationship between exam questions and cognitive development. It combines the cognition theories and educational practice in order to make the training process more effectively. Hopefully, this research could provide teachers and learners with some useful implications.
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