Ace
Short answer: do past papers as a test, not as reading. Shut your notes, set a timer for the real exam length and answer everything from memory, guessing where you have to. Then mark it strictly against the mark scheme, list every question you dropped marks on, and revise those topics before you do the next paper. A paper done with your notes open mostly tells you that your notes are good.
Why past papers work (when they do)
A past paper is a practice test, and practice testing is one of the best-supported study methods there is. In a large review of ten common techniques, Dunlosky and colleagues (2013) gave only two a high utility rating: practice testing and spreading study out over time. Rereading, highlighting and summarising were rated low.
The effect is not small or fragile. A meta-analysis by Adesope, Trevisan and Sundararajan (2017) pooled studies of practice testing and found that practice tests were more beneficial for learning than restudying and every other comparison condition they looked at. In the classic experiment by Roediger and Karpicke (2006), students who restudied a passage did better on a test five minutes later, but students who had been tested on it remembered more when the final test came days or a week later. The exam is always later.
Past papers add something a generic quiz cannot: the exact style, wording and mark allocation of your exam. You learn how much a four-mark question wants, which topics come up every year, and how long you really have per question.
The notes-open trap
Here is how a lot of past papers actually get done. Paper on one side, notes on the other. Read a question, find the page, write the answer, move on. Mark it afterwards, score well, feel ready.
That session was reading with extra steps. You never had to pull anything out of memory, so you never found out what you cannot pull out. The score belongs to your notes, and your notes are not sitting the exam. It is the same problem as rereading versus active recall: recognising the answer when you see it feels like knowing it, and it is not the same thing.
Peeking at the mark scheme halfway through does the same damage. So does stopping the clock "just for a second" to check one thing. Each one turns a test back into revision notes.
How to do a past paper, step by step
- Get the paper and the mark scheme from your exam board. Most boards publish past papers and mark schemes on their own websites; AQA, for example, has a past paper and mark scheme search. Check you have the right specification, because old papers can include topics that have since been dropped.
- Clear the desk. Notes, textbook and phone go in another room. Keep only what you are allowed in the exam, such as a calculator.
- Set a timer for the real length. Timing is part of what you are practising. If the paper is too long to do in one go, do one full section under its share of the time instead of the whole thing loosely.
- Answer everything, including guesses. Leave nothing blank. Kornell, Hays and Bjork (2009) found that attempting an answer and getting it wrong, then seeing the correct one, still improved later learning compared with just studying the answer. A guess you then correct is not wasted.
- Mark the uncertain ones as you go. Put a small dot next to any answer you were unsure about, even if it turns out right. Lucky guesses are gaps too.
Exam conditions also matter for a reason beyond realism. In a study of 120 students, Smith, Floerke and Thomas (2016) found that people who learned material through retrieval practice remembered it about as well after a stressful task as without one, while people who had learned by restudying remembered less after the stress. Practising under pressure is practising for the day itself.
How to mark it so it actually helps
The marking is where most of the value is, and it deserves about as much time as the paper.
- Be strict. Give the mark only if your answer contains what the mark scheme asks for. "I basically said that" is not a mark.
- Read the examiner's report if there is one. Boards often publish reports describing where students commonly lost marks on that paper.
- Make a misses list. For every question where you dropped marks or put a dot, write the topic and why: did not know it, half knew it, ran out of time, or misread the question. These need different fixes.
- Go back to the source for the misses only. Find each missed topic in your notes or textbook and relearn that part, not the whole chapter.
- Test the misses again before the next paper. Turn each miss into a question and answer it from memory a day or two later. Our spaced repetition schedule shows when to come back to them.
Your score matters less than your misses list. A paper where you score badly but find ten gaps is a more useful hour than one where you score well with your notes open.
What to do when you run out of papers
Most courses only have a handful of past papers, and many university modules have none. Once you have done them, doing the same paper again mostly tests whether you remember that paper.
- Save one or two papers for the final week so you have an unseen paper to check where you are.
- Mine the old ones for patterns. Note which topics come up every year and how questions on them are phrased.
- Write your own questions in the same style from your lecture notes, or swap with a friend so neither of you knows the answers in advance. Our guide to studying with friends covers how to do that well.
- Practise from the material you will be examined on. Questions written from your own course notes cover the topics your papers do not.
That last step is what Ace is built for. You give it your own lecture PDF, slides or notes, choose the chapters, and it writes practice questions from that material only, with the sentence from your file that backs each answer shown underneath. It does not replace your exam board's papers; it fills the gap after you have used them up.
Frequently asked questions
When should I start doing past papers?
Once you have covered most of a topic, not only in the final week. Doing papers earlier shows you what the exam asks for while there is still time to fix the gaps. Keep one or two unseen papers back for the end.
Is it fine to do past papers with my notes open?
Only as a learning exercise the very first time you meet a question style. As practice, no: you will not find out what you cannot recall. Do them closed-book and look things up afterwards.
Should I redo the same past paper?
Redo the questions you got wrong, a few days later. Redoing the whole paper soon after mostly tests your memory of that paper rather than the topic.
How many past papers should I do?
There is no magic number. A smaller number done properly, under time and marked strictly with a misses list, is worth more than many done loosely.
Sources
- Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students' learning with effective learning techniques. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58.
- Adesope, O. O., Trevisan, D. A., & Sundararajan, N. (2017). Rethinking the use of tests: A meta-analysis of practice testing. Review of Educational Research, 87(3), 659–701.
- Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
- Kornell, N., Hays, M. J., & Bjork, R. A. (2009). Unsuccessful retrieval attempts enhance subsequent learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35, 989–998.
- Smith, A. M., Floerke, V. A., & Thomas, A. K. (2016). Retrieval practice protects memory against acute stress. Science, 354(6315), 1046–1048.
- AQA. Past papers and mark schemes.
