How to use A-level past papers properly, with a worked example

Use them in three rounds: single topics untimed while you are still learning, mixed sections under gentle time pressure, then whole timed papers near the exam. Mark each attempt with the mark scheme straight afterwards and record why you lost the marks. A score on its own tells you very little.

Students often save past papers until the end, burn through them over a weekend and learn only that they are short of time. They are too useful for that, and there are fewer of them than you think, because exam boards hold back the newest ones.

Where to find them, and what you will not get

Each exam board has its own library, so start with the board and specification code your school uses. Pearson, for example, offers question papers and mark schemes free to teachers and students, but papers from the most recent period are locked so that teachers can use them as mocks. Its page mentions both nine and twelve months, so do not plan around the newest paper. Your teachers may be saving those for you anyway. It is worth asking which ones they have earmarked before you use them up.

Check the specification code on any paper you download. Courses change, and an older paper can include topics that have since been dropped or be laid out differently.

Round one: single topics, notes allowed if needed

Begin months before the exam, as soon as a topic has been taught. Pick questions on that topic and attempt them without a clock. Try from memory, and if you get stuck, open your notes but mark the point where you did so. A question answered with notes is not the same as one answered without, and your record should show the difference.

Round two: mixed sections with a rough clock

Once most of the course is covered, take a section at a time. Mixing topics makes you work out what a question is asking before you answer it, which single-topic practice hides. A rough guide to timing is to divide the paper's minutes by its marks, which gives you a time per mark that you can apply to any question. Work it out afresh for each paper, as it varies.

Round three: whole papers, in conditions

Save these for the final stretch. Clear the desk, set a timer, and do not stop for a drink of tea. Then build in the marking time as part of the session on your timetable, ideally the same day. A paper left unmarked for a week has taught you almost nothing.

A worked question, marked up

We wrote the question and the mini mark scheme below ourselves to show the method. It is not from an exam board, and the marks are our own illustration. In our scheme, M is a method mark and A is an accuracy mark. Real schemes set out their own codes and conventions, so read the key on the one you are using.

Now look at what different scripts would earn. Someone who stops at x = 1 and x = 3 has 4 out of 6 and may feel they finished. Their mistake is not about calculus, and no amount of extra differentiation practice would fix it. That is why the reason for the loss matters more than the score.

Marking yourself like an examiner

Mark schemes are written alongside the paper as "a guide for the examiners", AQA explains, and examiners attend standardisation meetings to learn how to apply them. Ofqual's student guide adds that scripts are split into questions, with each examiner marking one question across many students using a scheme they have been trained on. You have had no such training, so be honest about two risks. You may give yourself credit for what you meant rather than what you wrote. And in essay subjects, where the scheme describes levels of quality, you may be too generous or too harsh. Ask a teacher to mark a sample of those so that you can calibrate.

Pearson's library also holds examiner reports. They are worth reading alongside the scheme, since a report can show how students approached a question in practice rather than only what would have earned the marks.

Keep an error log

A single page is enough. For each lost mark, note the question and put it in one of these categories:

• Did not know it. Back to the topic, then make a self-test card.
• Knew it, wrote it badly. Practise that command word or structure.
• Misread the question. Underline what is being asked before you start.
• Ran out of time. Check your time per mark, and move on from sticking points sooner.

After three or four papers, the pattern usually tells you what to do with your next week.

Ignore last year's grade boundaries

It is tempting to convert every score into a grade. Be careful. Ofqual says boundaries are set after marking and that there are no quotas for how many students must pass or fail. AQA describes how senior examiners set them by looking at scripts and statistical evidence. Because they depend on the paper, a mark that earned one grade on an old paper tells you little about what it will earn in your own. Use them as a loose indication at most, and spend the time on the error log.