Are Old Specification A-level Papers Worth It?

those have will be down in the description below so from absinthe of maps for these subjects I don't think I did more than maybe two or three or spoke past papers and that's mainly because they're all specification papers were really structured in their questions and you get caught up more in learning a method rather than actually learning the concepts and applying it this in different situations because for the old spec papers they mostly just like changing numbers and change a few small things here and there but it's largely the same every year roast for the new spec that's not really the case their questions are much less structured and that also harder and they like really test your understanding but of course it doesn't mean that the questions from all the spec papers on useful at all when whenever we learn something new in my maths and fed maths class my teacher used to pick out I go too hard a question from one of our spec papers especially for further maps to help us consolidate our topic for when we learn set so I think picking up a few questions here in therefore certain topics can be useful especially those topics which he learnt have learned so recently or are struggling with but sitting down and doing a whole paper from start to finish I don't think it's the best use of anyone's time you can have a flake for you some other specification papers and pick out questions which will look quite hard and you might need some more practice on those topics but remember that when you're doing these individual questions if you choose to do them that in the actual exam it will be less structured and because of that what my teacher also did she removed certain parts of the questions in making less structured for us and make it seem more like a new spec question if you want to find some harder papers to do I would recommend their old specifications Solman papers because their questions are harder and less structured so I think they're more representative of their what a new spec exam will be like ultimately ask your teachers for more harder questions and make the most out of any new specification papers you have and watch my video on making the most of past papers it should be links above somewhere but don't sit down and do a bunch of all the specification papers instead if you want to just pick out a few questions here and there would seem worth doing or even do the Soliman papers and that should say you're pretty well alongside of doing the actual new specification papers and the practice set papers and made by exam boards on the new spec and whatnot so for

chemistry and physics I did every other specification past paper in which ting the paper and marking and making Corrections and whatnot took about three hours in total for each paper what I say was useful not really I don't think it was a useful I would only suggest doing a few of the old spoke papers because you do notice they do tend to get quite repetitive and ended up skipping some questions just because I got bored of them and I had seen them so many times before and their questions and topics tend to repeat every few years and because of that I think it's worth doing a few spec papers just before the change so maybe a few years free or four or five years just before the change depending on how much time you have I would say in the case of a QA during the most recent papers just before the change to the new spec was helpful because I could see the questions beginning to change and get harder and you'd also end up doing a question on mostly everything in the specification because I heard somewhere that exam boards have to work have to cover everything from the spec over the course of a few years within their exams which is why you end up seeing a bit of repetition over the years the most useful part about doing the auto spec papers was learning what the mark scheme is looking for rather than actually having to think hard about how I'm going to apply this concept as it was in the case of the new spec like doing these papers I felt like I had an intuition for what kind of thing as a mark scheme what kind of words they would be looking for even when doing it the new spec papers but of course this isn't really the case in maps because they're not really looking for many words all day I didn't sit down for the full time in doing the paper an old spec paper I think it's better to do the new spec paper under time conditions in an amount of time they gave you but I think for the old spec I found and got quite repetitive and I was skipping questions which became quite easy or too repetitive and I just subtracted that mark from the total mark and just marked it out other questions I did do I would say all the spec a new spec papers if your exam board does have multiple choice doing the old smoke papers to develop your technique for maybe doing multiple choice faster or working on the timed conditions it can be quite useful for topic papers when we had multiple choice I found myself spending too long and said certain multiple-choice questions and telling myself like I almost had to answer but I just said no wasting more time and I think practicing multiple-choice using old spec papers I learned she recognized when to cut my losses and just move on to the next question rather than being stubborn and like trying to figure out um this multiple choice for another mark which may well take a number to three minutes and of course doing these multiple choice you may find you develop some techniques to do some of them faster especially in the case of physics and proportionality and whatnot for multiple choice also for chemistry because meeting OCR some topics were removed when it came on some new spec and when I came across these questions and doing all the specifications all specifications papers then I would just sort of ignore the question and remark it out of the questions actually they do and whatnot and then scale it up if I could so ultimately I think it's worth for doing all the spoke papers for a few years before the specification has changed for physics and chemistry but don't take them as seriously as a new ones so now you may wonder well shall I start off

doing the old spec papers and then start doing the new spec papers or does it no matter or which I do new spec the newest bank and I think in the fade in case of physics and chemistry I did the old specification papers first and I just did a few of them so I could get to grips of the content and I knew which thing they understand too well before I made a start on the new specification papers and so I could really make the most of these new spec papers I knew which topics I had to learn better before making a solid ten attempts at the new spec questions because of the whole spectacle papers so I think doing a for you can be useful just before the old spec just before the new spec was introduced as for maths we just saw them did all the spec papers drawing class but I never made a real effort to sit down into a whole paper I would suggest if you want to do one then you should do your Salomon paper rather than actually a old spec paper or follow the advice I said previously about picking out questions from all spectators instead but of course you still do the whole of the new spec paper in the case of maths with maths physics and chemistry and whatever other subjects you sit down and do the whole paper because that's much more realistic more or more representative of what your exam is going to be like so that's it if you want to watch any of my videos and how I got a star in the subjects I did then there should be a playlist linked above or if you want to watch the video about how are you just pass papers effectively that should also be in the playlist and if you found this video useful then leave a like subscribe to my channel it really helps me out and comment and suggest whatever videos you'd like to see in the future but that's all for now thanks for watching and I'll see you next time