Getting more from past papers

Getting more from past papers 22 April 2025

Steven Walker, Maths Subject Advisor

Steven Walker.jpg

We are conscious that the main resource that teachers and students look to the exam board for is past papers and the insight into what makes good responses to those questions.

In this article I’ll outline what a mark scheme is (and what it is not), ideas for using examiners’ reports, and how you might use them in class and at home. I promise it is not all about sitting collections of exam questions under timed conditions!

Where to find past exam materials

For each subject, we make available the last five years (up to ten years for maths and the sciences), with all but the most recent series on our open website.

The latest series of papers are held on Teach Cambridge for centres to use as unseen material for formative assessment. The past paper schedule outlines when these are released to the open website.

For a student, the past paper finder option allows access to all subjects in one place. However, the best way to find them is to select your qualification, such as GCSE Maths (9-1), from the Subjects page and then, on the left hand side, click ‘Assessment’. The question papers, mark schemes and examiners’ reports are held for all the available exam series.

The qualification pages of the website will also have the specification and any pre-release material, exam guides, student revision support and links to useful websites.

What can I expect from the mark scheme?

Mark schemes are the documents we give to examiners to mark the candidate scripts. A draft mark scheme is written by the author which is then finalised during a standardisation meeting. This is where a panel of senior examiners will use a large sample of actual candidate scripts to ensure fair, consistent and valid marking.

Take a read of the marking instructions at the beginning of the mark scheme. This will explain the annotations used in marking and provides subject specific marking instructions.

For example, in maths there are annotations for method working (M marks) and for correct answers (A marks); generally, the A mark cannot be awarded if the M mark is not scored (unless the guidance states that the method can be implied from the correct answer). There may also be independent marks (B marks) which must be awarded for full credit.

Other subjects sometimes include what we call ‘indicative content’, which is an explanation of the kinds of things assessors could expect to see in exam responses. Mark schemes often include a grid breaking down the assessment objectives (AOs) for each question into levels.

Mark schemes do not provide model answers and are not a replacement for good class notes or a textbook. The mark scheme will only cover the more commonly seen solution routes; the guidance notes should cover the key points that need to be seen in order to award the marks and the assessors will use their professional judgement, or pass to their team leader or the principal examiner (basically the lead examiner for the paper), in order to mark more unusual approaches.

Mark schemes reflect the approaches taken by the specific cohort of students that sat the paper as an unseen external summative exam. Teachers using past paper questions as formative assessment, especially two or more years after the original exam date, may wish to adapt the mark scheme to be more lenient or more strict, depending on when in the academic cycle the work is done.

What is an examiner’s report?

Examiners’ reports are written by principal examiners to reflect on the ways students responded to the exams in a particular series. They may not cover every question, or part question, but will draw together common issues seen across the cohort to help inform teachers and students preparing for future exams. Reading the reports from a number of years will give an overview of recurring themes, even though the individual questions are different each year.

Using question papers

The obvious activity is to sit the full exam paper under exam conditions using the published time constraint. Consider if you felt there was plenty of time (exams are not designed to put you under time pressure).

If you ran out of time, was it because you wasted time with elaborate diagrams, or over planning of responses to the easier questions?
Did you optimise your time to gain the greatest number of marks on the questions you felt most confident with?
It is important to accept that you may find some questions particularly challenging. Make sure you attempt every question, write down anything that you feel is relevant, but move on to the next question as quickly as possible. Go back to any unfinished questions at the end once you have completed the straightforward stuff.
If you finished well within the time limit, did you go back to check your work, add in extra diagrams or supporting notes, and have a second attempt at any challenging unfinished questions?

Rather than sitting the paper under exam conditions, why not complete a paper as an open book (without the mark scheme) test.

Make sure your responses answer the given question and are not just generic textbook responses.
Try different approaches to get the feel of which would be the most efficient when a time constraint is in place.

Sitting the questions with the mark scheme visible can be useful to help visualise model solutions laid out in the available answer space.

Sight of the mark scheme does remove any problem-solving element to a question.
Check for key information that must be given for full credit.
Match the question command words (defined in the specification) to the allocated marks and guidance notes.

Old fashioned cut and paste, or ExamBuilder, can be used to target specific topics, assessment objectives or command words in shorter worksheets. These can also be used under exam conditions, as open book exercise or with the mark scheme visible.

Making the most of mark schemes

Students can use mark schemes to mark their own work, obviously. However, there are other ways these can be used:

Pick a level to look at and write down all the repeated words for that level to make a key descriptors list.
Comb through the mark scheme to build a list of key terminology/studies/concepts you can use as a glossary.
Turn anything from the indicative content column into a bullet point list. Then, rank them from things you are most to least confident on. Use this as a study order for when you are making notes.

In Maths and related subjects:

Look through the mark scheme to identify where there are marks for showing your method, marks for showing an answer and to what degree of accuracy (for example, rounding correctly) and marks for interpreting the answer. Are these all where you would expect? Make a note of any surprises.
Before using a mark scheme to mark a practice question, write a summary of what you think needs to be in your answer to gain full marks, thinking about method, answer, accuracy and explanation. Then, check to see if you were right.
Choose three questions where showing your method gains several marks. Work out where you might lose marks for your method.

Using examiners’ reports

Use examiners’ reports to help direct students to what they need to focus on, or to think about skills the examiners are looking for. You could:

Summarise comments in a table for points about strong responses vs weaker responses.
Reduce what the examiner is trying to say into only ten bullet points.
Note down areas of weakness the examiner points out and rate how confident you are with that idea/skill.

Other useful materials

Sample assessment materials/practice papers/alternative papers are papers written to the same criteria as those sat as summative assessment, but the mark schemes will not benefit from the insight gained from the standardisation meeting discussions.

Exemplar candidate work is real student responses taken from actual exams. These are scanned by our team and selected to exemplify particular levels or approaches. These are often accompanied by a commentary from an examiner, explaining why the response achieves the level it has been given. It is important to say here that for subjects where there are optional questions, not every combination will be covered by these exemplars.

Suggestions for using these:

Evaluate your understanding of the mark scheme by reading the first section of the response and trying to give it a level using the relevant mark scheme (don’t look at the mark or commentary first!)
Mark up the exemplar, using the commentary to guide you if you want, for strengths and weaknesses. You could also write notes for: Assessment Objectives, ideas/phrases you want to use for your own work, subject specific terminology.

Stay connected

If you have any questions, you can email us at support@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or message us on X @ocrexams.

If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use our online form to let us know, so that we can help you with more information.

About the author

Steven originally studied engineering before completing a PGCE in secondary mathematics. He has taught secondary maths in England and overseas. Steven joined OCR in 2014 and worked on the redevelopment of OCR’s FSMQ and the A Level Mathematics suite of qualifications. Away from the office he enjoys cooking and to travel.

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