Get GCSE/A Level Past Papers Online

So you're taking a GCSE or A Level examination, and are looking for some past papers to revise from? Well look no further. A whole host of these can be found free and legally on the internet with minimal effort.

Steps

  1. Find out what exam board your qualification is in. If you aren't sure, the best and most reliable way to find out is to ask your teacher. It might also be stated in any textbooks you have been given or any specifications or past papers you have already. Check at the bottom of the page, or at the front of a past paper for a logo. In all likelihood, all of your qualifications will not be from the same exam board, so be prepared to search around a little to find past papers for all of your exams.
  2. Once you have the exam board, be wary and make sure you have the right qualification. Take a look at some of the documents and check whether it seems like the things you are being taught. You may be taking something like an IGCSE (International GCSE), which will have a different specification to a normal GCSE. Some exam boards, notably OCR, will have different types of a similar qualification, e.g. Mathematics A, Mathematics B and so on.

AQA

  1. Go to http://www.aqa.org.uk/
  2. Look about halfway down the page. There should be a section entitled "Specification Finder". Click on "Select a qualification type". A box will come up with all of them - chances are you're looking for A Level (GCE) or one of the GCSE boxes. For these, the year corresponds to what year that specification will first be examined. If you're not sure which one yours is, open them all up and have a look to make sure.
  3. Click on the box to the right entitled "Select a specification". Once you have picked a qualification type in the first box, upon clicking the second a scroll box should appear with all of the subjects they examine in at that qualification level. Pick yours and you should be taken directly to the relevant page.
  4. Select "Key materials". Just under the subject header there should be a couple of options for you to choose from. Overview will give you a very brief introduction to the qualification, Noticeboard will have any notices, and there may also be some resources for older versions of the qualification, denoted by the old specification number - in this case: "6181 materials". These can also be good resources for you to use, but you must bear in mind that those papers aren't a totally accurate representation of what you will get in the exam, as since then the specification has changed.
  5. Click on "Past question papers and mark schemes" from the list of options. There are also more useful things in the options, like the Specification, which will tell you everything that you can be examined on. There are also specimen papers and mark schemes, which are like past papers, except they have never been examined, just set by the examiners as example question papers.
  6. Select a series. This is the month and the year in which the paper was examined, usually twice per year - so you can get a set of papers for every date you see there.
  7. Pick your paper! Once the series has been selected, a list of available papers and their associated mark schemes should show up. There may be one for each module that was examined at that time. Upon clicking on the link, the relevant paper or mark scheme will open in PDF format.

OCR

  1. Go to http://www.ocr.org.uk/
  2. Find the box on the left side of the page. Select "Past papers materials" from the options there.
  3. Pick "Qualifications by type". Under the Past papers materials header there should be three boxes - it will be on the left. You will then be taken to a list of all the qualification types that OCR currently offers.
  4. Select your qualification type. This is where it gets tricky. As usual, A Level papers can be found quite easily, this time under "AS/A Level GCE". However, there are lots of different GCSE types to choose from, including the Cambridge IGCSE and around 5 different types of regular GCSEs, from ones that will soon be discontinued to ones that will be examined for the first time in 2011. As always, look around and check to see whether you have selected the right one. Bear the year you will be taking the specification in mind - if it starts being examined in 2011 and your exam is in 2010, it's obviously not the right one.
  5. Pick the subject you want from the list. Keep aware of the title of your qualification, and don't get confused by things like History A, History B, etc. Also note that some qualifications are found under broader names, e.g. A Level Latin is found under "Classics: Latin".
  6. Click on "View all documents". The qualification homepage will show a few of the most popular documents, but they're probably not what you're looking for.
  7. Scroll down and you will see all of the associated documents. Under "Assessment materials" there will be some specimen papers, and you may also be able to find some past papers for older versions of the qualification under "Legacy Qualification". These legacy papers will contain quite a bit of useful material, but they will be in ZIP format, and it must again be bore in mind that the specification has changed since they were examined.
  8. Choose a paper. Past papers will be listed by series with a list of PDF documents underneath them. Their related mark schemes will probably be found separately a little further up.

Edexcel

  1. Go to http://www.edexcel.com/
  2. Look at the homepage. One of the boxes there should be entitled "Past papers". You need to click on whether you are a teacher or a student, although it won't make a difference, except that only teachers with a valid password can access the most recent papers, as schools use those themselves for testing/mock exams. The student page can be found here.
  3. Select the "qualification family". A Levels will be under either "GCE (Curriculum 2000)" or "GCE from 2008", or you can find GCSEs and iGCSEs from the year they were first examined, e.g. "GCSE from 2001".
  4. Choose the subject. You won't be taken to a new page, but the past paper search facility you just used to put in a qualification level will then show a list of subjects.
  5. Find the paper you are looking for. Here you can narrow your search by either choosing a document type (mostly just mark scheme or question paper) or an examination series. If you would like to go back at any point, there's a lighter blue button in the top left hand corner of the little past paper search facility. Alternatively, you can just click the orange bar labelled "Show all results", which is a complete list of documents.
  6. Choose a paper or mark scheme. Whether you chose to see the complete list, or narrowed the search a little, it should come up with a list of PDFs. You can click on them and they will open, as usual, but there is also an arrow button on the right side of each paper listing. If you click on it, the paper will download directly.

WJEC

  1. Go to http://www.wjec.co.uk/
  2. Look down the "Quick Links" bar on the left hand side of the page. You should see a link entitled "Free Past Papers" - you can also find it here. Click on it.
  3. Select your qualification level. Choose either "GCSE Past Papers" or "GCE Past Papers" (GCE is another name for the A Level qualification - the General Certificate of Education). Thankfully with WJEC there are no iGCSEs, or different syllabi, or exam years on this page, just GCSEs!
  4. Choose your subject. Once you have scrolled down there should be a list of all available subjects, so click the one you are looking for, again being conscious of picking the right one.
  5. Upon clicking you will immediately be taken to a list of past papers. They will say the exam series, unit, whether it was foundation or higher, etc. Unfortunately there are no mark schemes here, but you could always ask your teacher to take a look at it once you've finished. Just click on the link and the relevant PDF will open. Enjoy!

Tips

  • Once you're there, don't stop at past papers. Most of these boards will have a multitude of related documents to each qualification, including the specification, which is an invaluable revision tool.

Related Articles

You may like

Retrieved from "https://kipkis.com/index.php?title=Get_GCSE/A_Level_Past_Papers_Online&oldid=319962"