Where Can I Find Legitimate Past Exam Papers for My Child? A Secondary Teacher’s Guide
The rain was dripping off the school awning and I was fumbling for my car keys when Sarah, Leo’s mum, caught up with me last month. Her rain jacket was slipped off one shoulder, she was clutching a crumpled pack of popcorn she’d grabbed from the vending machine for after his football practice, and she got straight to the point: “Is there any actual site or shop where I can get real past papers for his math mocks? I’ve spent three nights scrolling, and everything is either full of ads, wants £30 a month, or the papers are from 2015 before the syllabus changed.”
I nodded, because I’d been there. Three years ago, when my oldest was prepping for her A-levels, I spent an entire Saturday afternoon falling down the Google rabbit hole for chemistry past papers. I clicked a link that promised “free full download” and ended up with a browser toolbar that I still haven’t fully managed to delete, and I paid £12 for a “premium bundle” that turned out to just be the same papers I could have downloaded directly from the exam board for free. I’d been asked this question so many times as a part-time tutor and former classroom teacher that I had my go-to list of trusted sources memorized, right there in the rain.
The first place I always tell people to check, and it’s not some fancy third-party site, is the official exam board website. Most people don’t think to look here because the interface is clunky, like every large education website, but every major awarding body has every past paper from the last 10 years, plus mark schemes and even examiner reports that tell you where most kids lose marks, all for free. No sign up, no subscription, just download and print. I pulled out my phone right there in the rain and showed Sarah: go to AQA’s homepage, hover over “Qualifications”, pick GCSE Maths, click “Assessment Resources”, filter by year, and there they are. She stared at my screen for a second and said she’d never even thought to look there, because all the ads for paid sites popped up first in her Google search.
If you can’t find what you need there, or your kid is doing entrance exams like the 11+ where past papers aren’t all posted freely, the next best step is to email their teacher. I know every department keeps a bank of past papers sorted by current syllabus, and 9 times out of 10, they’ll send over what you need for free. You don’t need a long, fancy email, just something like: “Hi, my kid is doing extra practice ahead of their exams, would you mind sharing any extra past papers you have for the current spec? Thanks a lot.” Most teachers are happy to do it – it means your kid is motivated to practice, and that’s all we care about. A lot of schools don’t advertise that they have extra papers because they assign most of them in class, but they’re almost always willing to share more if you ask.
If you prefer printed copies, or you need practice papers for 11+ entrance exams that aren’t available for free, there are legitimate low-cost shops and sites that don’t scam you. First, the exam board’s own shop sells printed booklets of past papers for usually between £5 and £10, which is way cheaper than any random monthly subscription. For 11+ and common entrance, reputable publishers like CGP or Bond sell printed books of practice papers written to match the current syllabus, so you don’t have to worry about out of date question formats. I used CGP papers for my daughter’s 11+ prep, and they were a perfect match for the format our local grammar school used. The only thing I warn people against is random sellers on Etsy or auction sites selling “original past papers” – I bought one of those a few years ago, half the questions were the wrong type, and the scanning was so bad I could barely read half the pages.
There are also a few legitimate free third-party sites if you need extra practice. The one I recommend most for GCSE and A-level is Physics and Maths Tutor, which is run by a working teacher, all sorted by exam board and spec, no paywall, and only minimal unobtrusive ads. Just make sure you double check that the paper you’re downloading matches the current syllabus – the site marks them clearly, but it’s always good to cross check with the official exam board page to be sure.
The big thing to avoid is any site that asks for your credit card details to access papers that are more than a couple of years old. Nine times out of 10, those sites just scrape the free papers from the exam board website and charge you for access to something that’s already public. I’ve had at least five parents tell me they accidentally signed up for a £19.99 monthly subscription that they had to cancel, because they thought they were just paying for one single paper.
After I talked Sarah through all this, she asked how many papers Leo should be doing. I told her one a week in the eight weeks leading up to mocks is more than enough. Past papers are great for getting used to timing and question format, but doing more than that just leads to burnout. I’ve seen parents buy 10 different paper books and have their kid do one every night, and that just makes them hate the subject before the exam even starts.
Last week, I saw Sarah at the school gate before drop off. She said Leo got a grade 8 in his mock, which is exactly what he was aiming for, and he’s been working through one paper a week to keep up his practice ahead of the real exams in the summer. She did say she still gets reminder emails from that subscription site she clicked on by accident, asking her to resubscribe. I told her that’s just part of the process – I still get random pop-ups from that toolbar I downloaded three years ago when I was looking for my daughter’s chemistry papers. It’s still a bit of a maze out there, with all the paid sites crowding out the free legitimate resources. But most of the time, the materials you need are right at your fingertips, for a lot less money than you’d think. You just have to know where to look first.
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