£10

A Level Maths Mastery 7 - How to really revise from past papers

Course
38 Lessons

A lot of students use past papers for revision, but what you may not know is that this can sometimes set you back in the exam room. Learn some techniques for getting the most from your past paper work, and avoiding some of the "thinking traps" that can lead to problems later on down the line.

Buy now

The pros and cons of revising with Past Papers

Welcome to the past papers library!

There are, of course, no shortage of worked past papers available on YouTube and other websites - its a fantastic resource if used correctly!

However, many students don't, and rather than boosting their understanding and exam readiness, they set themselves up for disappointment by gaining a false sense of security.

How many times have you or your friends walked out of an exam saying things like this?

"I've never seen any questions like THAT on past papers!"
"We never learned that in class!"
"The question style was so different!"
"There were none of the questions I'd worked so hard on!"

A lot of the time, this reaction is linked to what goes on in the back of our brains when we invest a lot of time working through past papers.

So, first of all, let's understand how do make best use of this resource.

Your FREE bonus course!
As a thank you for signing up to one of my courses, here's a little extra for you. This foundations recap course includes lessons and exercises for Indices, Surds, Quadratics, Function Transformations and the basics on Exponentials and Logarithms, as well as links to some of my favourite resources on the web.

Access the free course

The "thinking trap"

How to use past papers effectively

"Toolboxing" a Paper Together

In the main section of this course, I'm going to take you through a complete paper, using the "toolbox" and "what if?" methods you've already read about.

Here's what we're going to work through

I'll show you an exam question. Your job is NOT to answer it, but rather to make a "toolbox" of everything you think a person needs to know about that entire topic in order to be able to answer not just that question, but any question on that topic.
I'll show you what my toolbox for that topic looks like. Compare notes, add to yours, reflect on your subject knowledge. If I included something you didn't, take a moment and think about what it might be useful for.
Try and use your toolbox to do the question.
Check your solution against my video. I'll also bullet point some possible "what if's" for how that question might be extended or changed.

IMPORTANT!
What I'm attempting to do here is model a behaviour for you. Whether you find my toolboxes helpful or not is irrelevant - by going through this exercise together, its giving you a chance to see how this revision strategy can adapt to fit your needs, for where you are in your exam preparation journey.

A final note

When you are creating your toolboxes for the first time, it usually takes a while - there's a lot of reflection and recall to go through. You should absolutely use your notes, textbook, revision guide, google skills and anything else you can think of to do this job (especially the first time). It might take quite a while to organise your thoughts and subject knowledge - that's absolutely fine.

Not only is this great revision, you are also creating a resource to use, develop and improve as your exam preparation progresses - so don't worry how long it takes, it's all part of the process.

Question 1a - Differentiation

Question 1a - Toolbox

Question 1a - solution

Question 1b - Integration

Question 1b - Toolbox

Question 1b - Solution

Question 2 - Vectors

Question 2 - Toolbox

Question 2 - Solutions

Question 3 - Trigonometry

Question 3 - Toolbox

Question 3 - Solutions

Question 4 - Binomial Theorem

Question 4 - Toolbox

Question 4 - Solutions

Question 5 - Polynomial Sketching and Integration

Question 5 - Toolbox

Question 5 - Solutions

Question 6 - Quadratics and Exponential Equations

Question 6 - Toolbox

Question 6 - Solutions

Question 7 - Intersection

Question 7 - Toolbox

Question 7 - Solutions

Question 8 - Histograms

Question 8 - Toolbox

Question 8 - Solutions

Question 10 - Binomial Hypothesis Testing

Question 10 - Toolbox

Question 10 - Solutions

Question 11 - Probability

Question 11 - Solutions

Question 11 - Toolbox

Next Steps

You should now have a very different idea as to what past paper work can be:

A much broader perspective on each question
A chance to build up a useful reference in your toolboxes
A more reflective and slower-paced revision activity.

What you can do next:

Keep doing papers in this style. Where you have a toolbox already in place, try and recall it first. Then look at it, and attempt to use those tools to answer the question.
Try and see the similarities between questions that initially feel very different.
When your toolbox seems to be "done" - make a really nice version as an "I'm done" exercise. This really helps to lock that knowledge in your head.

Confidence in your toolbox leads to confidence as a problem solver.

I want you to imagine you've been given a jigsaw puzzle to do.

Now, if you know you have all the pieces - you are more likely to persevere, even when you can't find that piece you need. "It must be in here somewhere!", you tell yourself, and you keep looking.

But...if you aren't sure that you have all the pieces to begin with, you will be more inclined to give up on the puzzle when you get stuck. "That piece is probably missing", you say, and abandon the attempt - because there's no point trying if you don't have all the pieces.

But there is something you could have done beforehand to avoid this situation. The box tells you how many pieces are there, and you can count them. Seems like a big job, its not a job many people want to do - but once you know you have all the pieces, you can proceed with confidence. That's what toolboxing is - making sure you have all the pieces before you begin trying to solve the puzzle.

When you think about it like this, the concept of toolboxing just seems like rather obvious common sense.

Next Steps:

I've included a couple more exam papers with worked solutions for you. I haven't toolboxed them - but you've got the idea by now. Do the same with these papers as you did with the first one - toolbox each question, then try and use that toolbox to answer the question, then check against my solutions. Don't revert back to trying the whole paper all at once!

Once you feel like all your toolboxes are done, and you're starting to internalise them - at that point you can start attempting papers under exam conditions, and pressure testing that understanding.

OCR October 2020 AS Paper 2

Edexcel AS Pure Paper (May 2018)

Edexcel FULL A level Pure Mathematics 1 - October 2021