Reading Time
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Written By
Alyx JordanFounder, Ivy MathsIn this article
Past papers are the closest thing to the real exam you can practise with, so most students do lots of them. The trouble is what happens afterwards. You add up the score, feel good or bad about it, and start the next one. Ten papers later, the same marks are still going in the same places.
A past paper is a diagnostic. Most of its value is in the list of marks you didn't get and what you do with that list.
1. When to start
Full papers are most useful once you've been taught most of the course, which for iGCSE students is usually from the spring of Year 11. Before then, a full paper mostly records topics you haven't covered yet. Earlier in the course, use past paper questions sorted by topic instead.
2. Where to find them
The exam boards publish past papers and mark schemes on their own websites. For iGCSE maths these are mainly Pearson Edexcel and Cambridge. Check which board your school uses and which tier you sit: Foundation or Higher with Edexcel, Core or Extended with Cambridge. The most recent papers are sometimes held back for schools to use as mocks, so your teacher may have papers that aren't public yet.
3. Sit it properly
Do the paper in one go, timed, with only the equipment you'd have in the exam. Stopping to check notes turns it into an open-book exercise, and the score stops telling you anything. If you run out of time, draw a line where you'd got to and finish the rest afterwards in a different coloured pen. Where that line falls is useful information too.
4. Mark it with the mark scheme
Maths mark schemes use a few standard codes, and knowing them shows you where marks are actually won.
| Code | What it means |
|---|---|
| M1 | Method mark, for a correct method even if the final answer is wrong |
| A1 | Accuracy mark, for a correct answer, usually only given if the method mark was earned |
| B1 | Independent mark, for a correct result or statement on its own |
Some boards also use P marks for process. Take a 2-mark question asking you to solve 3x + 7 = 22. Writing 3x = 15 earns M1, and x = 5 earns A1. A student who writes only x = 4 gets nothing, while one who writes 3x = 15 and then slips on the division still gets a mark. Working is worth marks in its own right.
Each board also publishes examiner reports for every exam series, describing the mistakes students commonly made on each question. Read the report for any question you lost marks on.
5. Sort every lost mark by cause
This is the step that makes past papers worth the time. Go through each mark you lost and give it one of four causes.
| Cause | What it looks like | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Didn't know the topic | Couldn't start, or used the wrong method | Relearn the topic, then spaced practice |
| Misread the question | Wrong units, or missed "give your answer to 2 decimal places" | Underline what the question asks for before starting |
| Slip | Right method, then an arithmetic or sign error | Check each line, and add the slip to your mistakes page |
| Ran out of time | Marks lost after your time line | Timed practice and a skip rule |
Each cause needs a different fix. A student losing most marks to slips won't improve by revising more topics, and a student losing most marks to unknown topics needs those topics in their revision plan before another full paper will help.
6. How many papers to do
Three papers marked and sorted properly will tell you more than ten that were only scored. In the final months, a useful rhythm is one paper a week, with the following sessions spent on what it showed, and a fresh paper the next week to see whether the fixes held.
7. Check whether a lost mark is a gap or a slip
From a single question it can be hard to tell whether you don't know a topic or had an off moment. An Ivy Maths Module Assessment tests one topic in depth, which settles it: a secure result means it was a slip, and a weak one means the topic needs relearning. After your next past paper, take a Module Assessment for each topic in your didn't-know column, starting with the one that cost the most marks.