Using Past Papers

One of the best ways to revise and to test yourself is to use past papers. These are papers from your subject that have been created by your exam board for previous years’ exams. These are so useful as they allow you to test knowledge from different topics at once and develop your exam technique. They also help you to understand what the mark-scheme is looking for, and when you go over any mistakes you make, you’ll be able to see what areas you need to improve on. Without this practice, it’s harder to find out what exactly you’re struggling with and the type of scores you’re getting. It will also make the actual exam papers a lot more familiar to you when you do them which means they will be less of a shock, reducing the chances of getting nervous.

How do I use past papers?

To start with, it’s better to do past papers not under timed conditions, so they're more relaxed and you can just get a feel for the paper and pinpoint where exactly mistakes are being made. As the exam approaches, start to do them more regularly and under timed conditions. This means that by the time the exam comes, you will be very familiar with the style of the paper and what it feels like to do a timed exam. They will probably feel quite boring to do, but if you do them in small quantities but regularly, they will have a great impact on your revision. Try not to look at the answers until you have finished the whole paper, this could affect your confidence for the rest of the questions, and it won’t let you get into the rhythm of a proper paper.

It’s also a good idea to look at the examiners reports when you’re doing papers. These are really useful, especially with essay-based subjects as it tells you what the examiners are looking for in your answers and once you read them you can start including these points in your own work.

Make sure you keep track of your scores in each paper you do. Having a log of all the papers you complete, the date you do them, the topics where you went wrong and the scores you get helps you to make sure you don’t repeat them again and you can see how you're progressing with each paper. As well as this, once you know what topics you’re struggling with, you can pay more attention to them in the other parts of your revision. The best way to do this is to usually create a table or a spreadsheet where it's easy to keep track. Here is an example of a tracker we have put together. You can download this from www.zahraclassroom.com