Examaced vs PapaCambridge and other past paper archives
By the Examaced team. , 6 min read
For most Cambridge International students, past papers start with a PDF archive: PapaCambridge, Physics & Maths Tutor, or the papers your school shares. Archives are where you find papers. Examaced is where you work through them. Here's how they differ, and when each is the better choice.
The short answer
- PapaCambridge is a large archive of Cambridge papers across IGCSE, O Level and AS & A Level: question papers, mark schemes and other documents, listed by subject and session.
- Physics & Maths Tutor is a revision site covering many exam boards, with past papers and mark schemes, notes and topic questions for many subjects.
- Examaced covers five CIE A Level subjects and turns their past papers into single questions sorted by topic, with the mark scheme beside your working and your scores saved.
If you need a paper Examaced doesn't cover, or you want the whole PDF to print, an archive is the right tool. If you're practicing Maths 9709, Further Maths 9231, Physics 9702, Chemistry 9701 or Biology 9700 and want to track what you get wrong, read on.
Side by side
| Examaced | PDF archives | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of practice | One question at a time | Whole papers as PDFs |
| Sorted by topic | Every question, by paper and topic | By subject and session; topic sets vary, check their site |
| Mark scheme | Opens beside the question in a split view | A separate PDF you find and open yourself |
| Multiple choice | Choose A, B, C or D for instant marking | Check against the answer key |
| Scores and mistakes | Saved per question, with an error log and topic accuracy | On paper or in your own spreadsheet |
| Subjects | 5 CIE A Level subjects | Many subjects and levels |
| Printing | Download a solved question as a PDF | Print any full paper |
Where PDFs slow you down
Practicing from PDFs works, but it adds friction at every step. You open a question paper, then hunt for the mark scheme with the same component number, scroll both to the right question, and keep your score somewhere else. Doing one topic across ten sessions means twenty files. Most students give up on the scoring part, and that's the part that tells you what to practice next.
Getting the matching file right matters, too. The scheme for 9709_s25_ms_12 doesn't fit paper 13. Our guide to CIE past paper codes explains how to read them.
What Examaced does differently
- Topic first. Choose Further Pure Mathematics 2, then Integration, and you get all 114 integration questions from 2020–2026 in one list. Filter by year, session or marks.
- Scheme beside your working. Toggle the mark scheme into a split view and compare line by line. Some written questions don't have a scheme added yet; the viewer says so.
- Scores that add up. Enter your mark and save it. Your accuracy builds up topic by topic, and Review keeps your question history and error log together.
- Mocks when you're ready. Choose a practice paper, set your own timer and work through it question by question.
Where Examaced is narrower
- Five subjects only, all CIE A Level. No IGCSE, no other boards.
- Years start at 2020 for Mathematics and Further Mathematics, and 2022 for the sciences. Archives go back further.
- No revision notes. Learn the topic elsewhere, then practice it here.
Using both
Plenty of students use an archive and Examaced together: older papers or other subjects from the archive, and topic practice, marking and score tracking for their CIE A Level subjects in Examaced. For a wider comparison including revision-notes sites, see Examaced vs Save My Exams vs Exam-Mate.
Try one topic and see whether it fits how you study.