Revision that works
Where do I find past papers and mark schemes?
Exam boards publish past papers and mark schemes free on their own websites - AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and WJEC Eduqas - though the newest series stays locked for a while so schools can use it for mocks; your teachers can share those. Physics & Maths Tutor collects papers and topic-sorted questions in one place. Whatever you download, take the mark scheme too: it teaches you what actually earns marks.
Last updated 29 July 2026 · Written and fact-checked by the GCSEwiz team
Start at the source: the exam boards
Every UK exam board publishes its past papers and mark schemes free - searching the board's name plus your subject and "past papers" takes you straight there. Two things matter before you download anything. First, use your board and your specification: a "GCSE maths" paper from the wrong board has a different structure, different question styles and a different formula-sheet policy, so check which board and spec code your school enters you for (ask your teacher - it can differ subject by subject). Second, download the mark scheme alongside every paper, and the examiners' report where one is offered - that report is examiners telling you, in plain terms, where students lost marks.
Why the newest papers are missing (and how to get them)
You will notice the most recent exam series is not on the public site. That is deliberate: boards hold new papers back for a period so schools can use them as unseen mocks, releasing them publicly later. The lock-up is not a wall for you, though - teachers can access those papers through their school's board account, and schools use them for mocks and in class. So the newest material comes through your teacher; asking is entirely normal. It also means your mock papers are precious: treat a returned mock as a premium past paper, and mine it with the mark scheme like any other.
The one-stop collections
For maths and the sciences especially, Physics & Maths Tutor (PMT) is the site students actually use: past papers across boards gathered in one place, plus questions re-sorted by topic - which is gold in mid-revision, when you want twenty questions on one weak topic rather than a full mixed paper. Other sites offer similar collections (Maths Genie is a popular one for maths). Two honest cautions: unofficial collections can lag or occasionally mismatch a paper to a spec, so for the definitive version of anything, the board's own site wins; and topic-sorted questions are for building skills - closer to the exam, switch to full papers, because the mixed, unlabelled format is itself the thing you need to practise.
Using them well (the part that actually moves marks)
A pile of PDFs is not revision - the method is what pays:
- Do papers under timed, exam-like conditions: no notes, phone elsewhere, the real time limit.
- Mark honestly against the mark scheme, giving yourself nothing generous. The point is finding gaps, not feeling good.
- Study how the mark scheme awards marks - method marks, required keywords, what a "developed point" means. This is learnable and worth marks by itself.
- Log every lost mark by topic; that log is your revision priority list, written by real exams.
- Space papers out across your revision rather than hoarding them all for the final week.