11 Plus Exams Forum

1. Looking for past GCSE papers from AQA subjects such as sciences, foreign languages. I was only able to find papers from 2018. Why are there no papers from 2017, 16 and 15? There are some older past papers available for old specifications, 2013 and before, on the internet, but why not the last 4 years?

2. Also, audio for the listening part of the German / French AQA GCSE can only be listened by clicking on the link on their website, I cannot seem to be able to download it. Anyone knows if it is possible to download it, so that I can play it away from the computer or without internet?

3. Once the schools start GCSE preparation, do they usually cover a lot of past papers at school with the children, or do the6 expect the kids to do it themselves at home?

4. Are old specification papers still relevant and good practice for new GCSEs?

5. If a child is sitting GCSE AQA for instance, is it OK for them to do some old papers from Edexelor OCR as practice? Would it in any wa6 confuse them or is it as good as sny other subject relevant practice?

thank you for your help

According to its website, AQA does not authorise the publication of its resources on third party sites (although they may link to it), but an internet search found that this is apparently not observed. Also according to its website, there are copyright reasons why some past papers are no longer available.

The new specification for Maths, English Literature and English Language was introduced for first teaching in 2015 and for other subjects in 2016, so there are only 9-1 papers dating back to 2017 for the former and 2018 for the latter. Only registered users (teachers) have access to the papers initially, to allow centres to use them unseen for the next year as mocks.

Has your DC downloaded the specification for each of their subjects?

Yes it is definitely due to the new specifications which for science have only been examined for 2018 and 2019. For exam question practice you can look at physicsandmathstutor.com which, despite its title, has some specimen papers for science, maths and other subjects.
Try also https://www.wjec.co.uk/qualifications/q ... ?pastpaper" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; which has tons of past papers from the old specifications on there.
It doesn't matter too much that it isn't the current spec (but check against the new specs so as not to waste time) as science is still science.
I would focus very much on recall of knowledge as well. A chap called Adam Boxer does a very good blog with excellent resources. Google "a chemical orthodoxy" and look for his SLOPs (shed loads of practice) by topic. If you Google biology and physics SLOPs you should find them for those subjects too.
Hope this helps.
Mrs C

And to answer the OP’s other question yes, papers will be used for mocks and in lessons/homework so don’t break too early! My two only looked at past papers from Easter only, until then they used their text books/school handouts and cgp.

Thank you! I am not goingto touch them in this case, if they are going to be used as mocks! However, I found my dc recently looking at AQA past papers on the internet. It was totally his own idea, I have never mentioned to him a tad bit. He said he was curious what they looked like.

Anyway, I also found Pearson Target and Revise workbooks. Has anyone used them and would you recommend them? They have workbooks and full practice papers too from what I have noticed, so possibly that wouldn’t interfere with school work as I don’t suppose they use them..?