A six-week CIE A Level past-paper plan that actually raises your marks
By the Examaced team. , 6 min read
Six weeks before your CIE A Level exams is the point where past papers stop being optional. Doing more of them isn't the trick. What helps is doing them in the right order: topic by topic first, then whole papers, with honest marking and a list of mistakes you go back to. Here's a week-by-week plan that works for any subject.
Three rules before you start
- Mark every question against the real scheme. A question you didn't mark is a question you only read. If the codes confuse you, start with how to read a CIE mark scheme.
- Write down every score. "4 / 9, lost the DM1" tells you what to practice next. "Did question 3" tells you nothing.
- Keep the newest papers for last. Save the most recent full sessions for weeks 5 and 6, so your final mocks use questions you haven't seen.
Weeks 1–2: topics, weakest first
List the topics for each paper and rate yourself honestly. Then work one topic at a time, starting with the ones you're weakest at and the ones with the most questions. The topic breakdowns for Maths 9709 Paper 1, Physics 9702 Paper 1, Chemistry 9701 Paper 1 and Biology 9700 Paper 1 show where the questions sit.
Aim for one topic per session: 8 to 15 questions, marked straight away. Don't time yourself yet. The goal is to see the patterns examiners reuse.
Weeks 3–4: harder questions and your mistakes
Go back over the same topics, this time filtering for the higher-mark questions. Long questions are where method marks, dependent marks and follow-through decide your grade, and where a single missed step costs the most.
Twice a week, spend a whole session on your mistakes list. Redo questions you scored badly on without looking at your old working. If you get one right, cross it off. If not, it stays.
Weeks 5–6: full papers under time
Now sit complete papers, timed, in exam conditions: one sitting, no notes, no pausing. Mark each one the same day and add every lost mark to your mistakes list. Alternate papers so each component gets at least two full timed attempts.
In the last few days, stop starting new papers. Go through your mistakes list one final time and re-read the mark schemes of questions you got wrong. That's the material most likely to give you marks back.
The plan at a glance
| Weeks | Practice | Marking |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | One topic per session, weakest and biggest first, untimed | Every question, straight away |
| 3–4 | Higher-mark questions by topic, plus two mistake sessions a week | Line by line, strict on dependent marks |
| 5–6 | Full timed papers, newest sessions saved for last | Same day, every lost mark logged |
Running the plan in Examaced
Examaced is built around this loop for its five CIE A Level subjects:
- Weeks 1–2: choose a paper and a topic in the question bank, newest first.
- Weeks 3–4: filter by marks, like 9+ marks, and by year and session. Review keeps your question history and error log in one place.
- Weeks 5–6: choose a practice paper, set your own timer and start a mock.
The mark scheme opens beside each question in a split view, and your saved scores collect on the subject page, topic by topic. Start your first topic, or pick a subject: Maths 9709, Further Maths 9231, Physics 9702, Chemistry 9701 or Biology 9700.