What you will get from this guide
- Use the report from the exact qualification, component and exam series.
- Read it beside the paper and mark scheme so comments retain their context.
- Translate general observations into specific actions you can rehearse.
- Treat comments about candidates as patterns, not claims about your own response.
- Never use reports to predict future topics or memorise last year's content.
An examiner report is one of the most useful official revision documents that many students never open. It is written after an exam series and comments on how candidates handled the paper. Depending on the board and subject, it may discuss questions that caused difficulty, common misreadings, features of stronger responses and advice for future teaching or preparation.
The report is not a list of what will come up next, and it is not a secret mark scheme. Its value comes from connecting three views of the same assessment: the paper shows the task, the mark scheme shows how credit was awarded and the report shows what happened when a large group of candidates attempted it. Your job is to turn that commentary into a small piece of practice.
Find the matching official report
Use your exam board's qualification or past-paper page. Match the specification code, paper or component and series. A report for an older specification, a different option or a similarly named international qualification may discuss different content and assessment objectives. OCR's finder includes papers, mark schemes and reports, while AQA's finder and Pearson's exam-material pages group documents by series and subject.
Some recent resources are restricted to schools for a period, and availability differs by board. Ask your teacher whether your school can share an authorised report. Do not use a reposted document whose series or component is unclear. Save links rather than uploading copies to a public revision folder, particularly where papers contain third-party material.
- Qualification and level
- Specification code
- Paper, component or unit
- Option, text or topic route where applicable
- Exam series and year
Know what each document can tell you
The paper gives you the exact question and its context. The mark scheme gives marking instructions, acceptable approaches, indicative content or level descriptors. The examiner report comments on candidate performance after marking. None replaces the others. A report may say many candidates described a trend without explaining it, but you need the original graph and command word to understand what explanation was required.
Reports are also selective. They may focus on questions that produced useful teaching points rather than covering every possible weakness. Their comments describe a cohort, not a fixed rule about all students. If a report praises a particular route, that does not always mean it was the only creditworthy route. Official mark schemes often allow equivalent, unexpected or alternative correct answers within their principles.
| Document | Best question to ask |
|---|---|
| Question paper | What exactly was the candidate asked to do? |
| Mark scheme | What evidence or quality could receive credit? |
| Examiner report | Where did real responses commonly succeed or break down? |
| Your script | Which of those patterns, if any, appears in my work? |
Use a three-column reading method
Do not highlight the whole report. For each relevant comment, record the observed pattern, what it means for the task and one action you can practise. Keep the wording in your own notes. This forces you to interpret the report rather than collecting authoritative-sounding sentences.
Suppose a report says that responses often quoted source material without using it to support the argument. Your interpretation might be that selection alone was not enough for the relevant assessment objective. The practice task could be: choose three details from a new source and write one sentence after each that explains precisely how it changes or supports the judgement. That is much more useful than writing “use sources better”.
| Report observation | Meaning for this task | My rehearsal |
|---|---|---|
| Candidates often used data without making a comparison | Quoting two values did not automatically state the relationship | Write five comparisons that name direction and use paired figures with units |
| Some answers evaluated before developing analysis | Judgement had little reasoning to weigh | Build two complete causal chains, then add one condition that changes their importance |
| Several candidates answered a related issue | A key limit or context in the question was missed | Rewrite five prompts as a checklist of command, content, context and constraint |
Read reports differently across subjects
In maths, science and computer science, reports may reveal common method choices, interpretation errors, missing working, unit problems or difficulty transferring knowledge to an unfamiliar context. Use the comment to choose a family of decisions to practise, not to memorise the values or situation from that paper. If the issue was failure to show reasoning, check the board's marking conventions before deciding what working is necessary.
In English, history, geography, economics and psychology, reports often discuss assessment objectives, use of evidence, relevance, development and judgement. A comment about “evaluation” will only make sense beside that subject's descriptors. In languages, reports may separate receptive and productive skills and comment on task coverage, communication, grammar or listening strategies. Practical, performance and coursework components can have different reports and criteria again.
Compare the report with evidence in your own script
Read the report after completing and marking the paper if you want a clean diagnostic attempt. Find comments about questions you answered, then locate exact evidence in your script. Did you make the described error, avoid it or reveal a different problem? Add only relevant findings to your mistake log.
If you have not attempted the paper, the report can still guide targeted practice, but it may prime you with the difficulty and make that paper less useful as a future mock. Consider using an older attempted paper for report analysis while protecting a newer unseen paper. Your teacher may also use reports to identify patterns across classwork without disclosing a secure paper.
- Attempt and mark
Complete the chosen material honestly and use the official scheme before opening the report.
- Locate evidence
For each relevant comment, underline where your response shows the same pattern or a stronger alternative.
- Choose one repair
Write a small practice task with an independent check and add it to the next revision session.
Do not turn reports into predictions
A report describes a paper that has already happened. A comment that candidates found one topic difficult does not mean the board will repeat it, avoid it or increase its weighting next time. Pearson's own student guidance says past papers should be used to check learning and find gaps, not to predict the questions or topics likely to appear.
Revise from the current specification and your course, then use reports to improve how you apply that content. Be cautious with online videos that claim an examiner's comment proves a particular topic is “due”. It does not. The defensible conclusion is narrower: when this skill appeared in this context, many responses showed this difficulty, so you should check whether your method handles similar tasks.
Run a useful twenty-minute report session
Choose one component you have already attempted. Spend five minutes scanning the report for the questions or skills that mattered to you. Spend five minutes connecting two comments to your script and mark scheme. Use the final ten minutes to complete one repair: rewrite a paragraph, redo a calculation, plan an answer or annotate a new source.
Finish by writing one instruction for the next attempt. It might be “For compare questions, name the similarity or difference before presenting paired evidence” or “Before substituting, convert every value to the units used by the formula.” Review that instruction when you next meet the skill, then judge it by the response, not by whether you remembered the sentence.
- One matching report
- One attempted paper or section
- Two relevant observations at most
- One fresh rehearsal
- One visible instruction for next time
Questions people ask
Short answers to the practical questions that usually come next.
What is the difference between a mark scheme and an examiner report?
A mark scheme sets out how examiners award credit on that paper. An examiner report is written after the series and comments on how candidates approached the assessment. Use the scheme to mark and the report to understand patterns in real responses.
Should I read the report before doing the paper?
Usually not if you want the paper to act as an honest diagnostic or mock, because the report may reveal difficult areas and expected approaches. Read it afterwards. If you are using the material purely to learn one skill, reading first can be appropriate.
Why can I not find a report for every paper?
Boards differ in what they publish and how long materials remain public. Some recent documents are restricted to registered centres. Check the exact qualification page and ask your teacher, rather than downloading an uncertain third-party copy.
Can examiner reports tell me what will be on my exam?
No. They discuss completed assessments. Use them to identify transferable issues in knowledge, interpretation, method and communication, while revising all required content from the current specification.
Sources and further reading
We use official and first-party sources wherever the detail could affect a decision, specification or exam approach.