Mock GCSE maths paper: how to sit, mark and grade your maths mock

What a GCSE maths mock paper looks like

A mock uses the same format as the real exam, so the paper depends on your exam board. Your school decides whether you sit all three papers or only one or two.

In 2027 every paper comes with a formulae sheet, so sit your mock with it next to you. The GCSE Maths guide lists what is on the sheet, the real exam dates (14 May, 27 May and 14 June 2027) and the full grade boundaries.

Where GCSE maths mock papers come from

Most schools set a paper from the exam boards. Pearson, which runs Edexcel, keeps its newest papers for teachers only, so that there is always at least one paper students haven't seen for a mock. Most papers go public once they are nine months old. That means your mock can be new to you even if you have done every paper online.

For practice at home, download past papers and mark schemes free from AQA, Edexcel and OCR. If you want to give it a grade, prefer a paper from 2019 or earlier, or from 2023 onwards: Ofqual advises against using the boundaries from 2020 to 2022, when grading was unusually generous.

Higher and Foundation maths mock papers

Sit your mock at the tier you expect to be entered for. Foundation papers lead to grades 1 to 5 and Higher papers to grades 4 to 9, and you can only be entered for one tier in an exam series (AQA), so your mock result can help your school decide. The GCSE Maths Higher and GCSE Maths Foundation guides cover what each tier tests.

How to sit a GCSE maths mock test at home

1. Pick a paper you haven't seen, at your tier. Print it if you can, because you will work on paper in the exam.
2. Set out only what the exam allows: pen, pencil, ruler, protractor, compasses, the formulae sheet, and a calculator unless it is the non-calculator paper.
3. Set a 90 minute timer and don't stop it. Put your phone in another room.
4. Mark it strictly with the board's mark scheme. Give method marks only where your working shows that method.
5. Add up the total and list the topic of every question where you dropped marks.

Time is the hidden test. AQA and Edexcel give you 90 minutes for 80 marks, about 1.1 minutes a mark, so a 5 mark question deserves about 6 minutes. On OCR's 100 mark papers it is 0.9 minutes a mark. If a question has taken twice its share, move on and come back.

Turn your mock mark into a grade

The boards only set grade boundaries for your total across all three papers. If you sat one paper, a fair estimate is a third of each total boundary. This table does that with the June 2026 boundaries from AQA, Edexcel and OCR, rounded up.

Treat the result as a rough guide. Your three papers won't be equally hard, and the 2027 boundaries will be different. The useful number is how far you are from the next grade: on an Edexcel Higher paper, a 7 is about 49 out of 80, so a mark of 45 is 4 marks away, often one slip and one unfinished question.

A typical mock question, worked through

Simultaneous equations appear on both tiers, which makes them a favourite in mocks. Question: solve 3x + 2y = 16 and x − y = 2.

1. Rearrange the simpler equation: x = y + 2.
2. Substitute into the other: 3(y + 2) + 2y = 16, so 5y + 6 = 16.
3. Solve: 5y = 10, so y = 2.
4. Find x: x = 2 + 2 = 4.
5. Check in the first equation: 3 × 4 + 2 × 2 = 16. Correct.

The check takes ten seconds and catches most sign errors. On a non-calculator paper, write every line: the mark scheme rewards method, so a correct method with one slip still scores. Now try one yourself from our Algebra course, then press Mark.

Common mistakes in GCSE maths mocks

• An answer with no working. If it is wrong, it scores nothing. With working, it can still earn method marks.
• The calculator in the wrong mode. Check it shows degrees (D) before any trigonometry question.
• Ignoring the instruction. "Give your answer to 3 significant figures" or "in its simplest form" is worth a mark on its own.
• Blank answer spaces. Write down the first step at least. A blank is always zero.
• Getting stuck. One hard question can eat ten minutes that three easier ones needed. Mark it, move on, come back.

Use a daily paper as a short timed mock

A full paper needs 90 minutes. On the days you don't have that, sit today's Foundation or Higher paper instead. For dates, whether mocks count and how to revise across all your subjects, see the GCSE mocks guide.

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