Education Advice of the Week - Past Paper Practice

Even though GCSE and A level exams have been canceled during the UK lockdown, there remain many ways to prepare for attaining great grades at GCSE or A level. Students will have the option to sit their examinations early in the academic year if they are not happy with their results granted by schools in July. For this reason, preparing for your GCSE and A level exam papers is still as important as ever.  For this reason, here is our guide on using past papers and mark schemes effectively for both students and tutors:

  1. Ensure that you have covered and understand the core material of any topic first before attempting to answer past paper examination questions on a topic. If you do badly on any past paper examination question, take the time to revise the content once more before trying a past paper again.

  2. Once you are comfortable with the underlying content as well as the nature of the questions, begin completing your past papers in timed conditions to mimic the format of the exam. Don’t worry if you frequently run out of time; with practice, you will get quicker.

  3. Use mark schemes to mark your work whether individually, with a parent, teacher or tutor to track your performance and give you further insight into what the examiners are looking for and how to adapt your answers to fit the requirements of the mark scheme.

  4. Practice makes perfect - Repeat your revision practice AND your testing using past examination papers. than once. Continually revise topics and apply your knowledge by using past papers multiple times in the manner above.

Finally, one element that students can frequently struggle with is the nature of command words in questions. Below is a summary of command words used in past examination paper questions from :

Command words and their definitions

  • Describe: say what you see - no need for reasons

  • Explain: give reasons

  • Outline: give a brief summary

  • Analyse: go into detail

  • Compare: what are the similarities and differences?

  • Contrast: what are the differences?

  • Calculate: use numbers given to work out the value of something

  • Define: give the meaning of something

  • Evaluate: consider both sides - pros and cons

  • Justify: give evidence to explain something

  • To what extent: Judge the importance or success of something - has it worked or not

  • Argue: present a case with evidence or reasons

  • Assess: Weigh up / give an informed judgement

  • Comment on: give your opinion on something

  • Debate: give different perspectives

We hope that this will help students to structure their revision and apply their knowledge in helpful ways that accurately portray how they will perform in exams as well as how to improve their performance. From all of us at Libra Education, never stop learning!

Oscar Hardy