A-Level

A Level Maths past papers are available for all exam boards - AQA  , OCR , OCR MEI , Cambridge CAIE and WJEC. There was a syllabus change in 2017 and all papers from 2018 are for the latest syllabus. The content covered in an A Level course is now similar across all the main UK exam boards AQA, Edexcel, OCR and OCR MEI.  All older legacy papers (pre-2017) are also available below.

Exam Boards And Difficulty Levels

The most common A Level exam boards in order of difficulty from least to greatest are as follows: AQA, Edexcel, OCR, OCR MEI and Cambridge.  

Edexcel is the most common exam board taken. AS Year 1 and A Level Year 2 each consist of Pure, Mechanics and Statistics.  AS has 2 papers (pure and statistics/mechanics) each lasting 2 hours and out of 80 marks.  A Level has 3 papers (pure 1, pure 2 and statistics/mechanics) each lasting 2 hours and out of 100 marks.  The Further AS and A Level Maths subjects consist of Core Pure 1 and 2 , FP1 , FP2 , FS1 , FS2 , FM1 , FM2 , D1 and D2.  AS Further students must take 2 papers, whereas A Level Further students must take 4 papers. For Edexcel Further Maths, most schools only offer Core Pure 1, Core Pure 2, FS1, FM1 and FM2. Only specialist schools offer FP1, FP2 and FS2. FP1 and FP2 offer topics such as groups and number theory which is taught at university. Decision maths is mainly for students who want to goand study computer science at university. 

Edexcel Exam Paper Setup

The paper setup for Edexcel AS and Edexcel A Level is fixed and as follows:    

Edexcel AS Level Year 1:

• Paper 1 - Pure (2 hours, 80 marks)
• Paper 2 - Statistics and Mechanics (2 hours, 80 marks)

Edexcel A Level Year 2:

• Paper 1 - Pure 1 (2 hours, 100 marks)
• Paper 2 - Pure 2 (2 hours, 100 marks)
• Paper 3 - Statistics and Mechanics (2 hours, 100 marks)

Edexcel Further AS Level Year 1:

Further AS Level students must take Core Pure 1 for paper 1 and then have an option for their other subjects for paper 2.

• Paper 1 - Core Pure 1 (1 hr 40 mins, 80 marks)
• Paper 2 - Choose 1 of the following 10 options  (1 hr 40 mins, 80 marks)

• • FP1 AND FP2
  • FP1 AND FS1
  • FP1 AND FM1
  • FP1 AND D1
  • FS1 AND FM1
  • FS1 AND D1
  • FS1 AND FS2
  • FM1 AND D1
  • FM1 AND FM2
  • D1 AND D2

Note:  Most schools do not offer all modules for paper 2.  The most commonly offered modules are FP1, FS1 AND FM1.

Edexcel Further A Level Year 2:

Further A Level students must take Core Pure 1 and Core Pure 2 for papers 1 and 2 and then have an option for their other subjects for papers 3 and 4

• Paper 1 - Core Pure 1 (1 hr 30 mins, 75 marks)
• Paper 2 - Core Pure 2 (1 hr 30 mins, 75 marks)
• Paper 3 - Choose 1 of the following 4 options  (1 hr 30 mins, 75 marks)

• • FP1
  • FS1
  • FM1
  • D1

• Paper 4 - Choose 1 of the following 7 options (1 hr 30 mins, 75 marks)

• • FP2
  • FS1
  • FM1
  • D1
  • FS2
  • FM2
  • D2

All of the paper setup can be nicely summarised in a chart:

AS Exams are taken at the end of  year 1 and A Level exams are taken at the end of year 2. The highest grade achievable is an A for any exam board at AS level.

Further Maths is like an add-on to the main maths A level and works slightly differently.   You won't be able to take Further Maths unless you are also taking A Level Maths, but it doesn’t matter whether sequentially or concurrently.  Obviously, you need A Levels maths to understand Further Maths, but schools tend to choose their preferred order of teaching the content and when the exams are taken.  For Further Maths students,  A Level Maths’ exams can be completed in the first or second year of study. Content-wise, some schools teach all of A Level in year 12 and Further Maths content in year 13, and some schools try to do both alongside each other over the 2 years. Exam-wise, some students sit A Level Maths in year 12 and then sit Further Maths in year 13, straight after.  Some sit all exams in the final year. 

As you can see form the table, there are no choices in Edexcel A Level Maths, but there are in Further Maths.  Also notice how there are some some disallowed options for Further Maths. There are 10 allowed combinations which are either:

• 2 papers suffixed with 1 - for example FS1 and FS1 is allowed, but FP1 and FS2 is not 
• 2 twin papers with the same prefix - for example FS1 and FS2 

Most schools do not offer all modules for papers 2-4 of Further Maths.  The most commonly offered modules are FM1 and FS and students usually do this option.  If a student prefers mechanics and the school offers it they should do FM1 and FM2.  Similarly if a student prefers statistics they should do FS1 and FS2.  D1 and D2 are good modules for students wanting to study computer science. FP1 and FP2 are rarely offered unfortunately (only at specialist schools), but are great modules for those wanting to get an exposure to the begining of university maths and inlcude topics such as groups and number theory.

There are 2 core pure textbooks with different topics (core book 1 is usually covered in year 1 and core book 2 is usually covered in for year 2) .  The papers Core Pure 1 and Core Pure 2 however do not correspond to the books meaning topics can tend to overlap across the two papers and one isn't really harder than the other paper.  This is expecially true with Core 1 content appearing in Core 2 papers.  Therefore one should revising the content for the papers separately, they should be revised collectively. 

Similary for regular A Level Maths there are 2 pure textbooks with different topics (pure year 1 and pure year 2).  The papers Pure 1 and Pure 2 also do not correspond to the books 1 and 2 and hence both papers contain everything learnt in pure and there is no splitting of content.  Topics can also be repeated across papers, so there is no narrowing down of what might not come up for the second paper once you've taken the first paper. 

Edexcel IAL Exam Paper Setup

There is also an international exam board, Edexcel IAL.

Edexcel IAL exams do not have to be taken at the end of the course in June like with Edexcel since they are modular. Edexcel IAL exams use the popular and flexible modular approach which means exams can be taken at the end of each unit of study, or throughout the programme of study when a student feels prepared and ready, or all together at the end the course. This flexibility, together with exam series in January, June and October, for most subjects, means that students have more opportunities to get feedback to improve their performance and get the grade they need to progress.  It allows students to split the unit exams into separate exam periods helping them to focus their preparation.

It is important to realise that P1, P2, M1, S1 and D1 for AS are the exact same module (exact same content and same exam) as for an A Level student. The only difference is that an AS student has to take them as some point within their first (and only) year, whereas an A Level student can sit them at any point in their first or second year. You need P1 and P2.  I’d recommend S1 for AS, then P3 and P4 with M1 for A Level.

For example one could do all of the P1- P4 exams in January (if those exams are available there and then), get your results and know how much more you need to do with your applied units in the summer.

• The old C1, C2 and C12 modules are similar to the current P1 and P2 modules
• The old C3, C4 and C34 modules are similar to the current P3 and P4 modules

You can find similar charts for all exam boards (AQA, OCR and Cambridge)  by clicking on the relevent folders of your modules below

For very detailed exam paper information for all exam boards click here

Link to Older Syllabus Pre 2017

Note:

S2 has much more in it than A Level Statistics such as continuous distributions, Poisson, Poisson approximation to Binomial, Normal approximation to Poisson etc. 

AS and A Level Mechanics has a few extra things now added such as non-constant acceleration, moments with ladders, hinges etc. 

The FP1 and FP2 odules have no equivalent as they are more advcned than any previos pure model and contain some univeristy maths topics.  They are great moduels for aspiring math degree students. 

You might be wondering what the differences are between AS and A Level Further FP1 modules as they both come from the same textbook.   These papers are based upon the same content , but AS FP1 has half the number of quesitons as it is paired with another paper and the questions are slightly easier than A Level FP1. AS Core and A Level Core 1 are not the same in content since Core 1 has content from Core 2 and vice versa.

Extra Explanations

A Level Maths Explained - All You Need To Know

A Level Old Syllabus vs New Syllabus

A Level Scoring System

Click the relevant folder below for further explanations of each exam board, exam and paper format. . 

A Level Maths Grade Boundaries vary greatly dependent on how students did for that particular year and have been very low recently. Click the link to see the grade boundaries for each year. 

Note: Students cannot get an A* for an AS, only for an A Level.

A Level Maths 2020, 2021 and 2022 Past Papers are available below.  Contact me with a verified teacher account for the October 2020 and 2021 and June 2022 Pearson Edexcel AQA and OCR Maths past papers and mocks.