The most underused revision resource in the country.
After every exam series, examiners publish a candid report on what students did well and — more usefully — what they got wrong. It’s free, official, and almost nobody reads it.
AQA examiner reports
Filter the past-papers tool by "Examiner reports" to read what students got wrong each series.
Open archive →Edexcel examiner reports
Bundled alongside past papers and mark schemes by series.
Open archive →OCR examiner reports
Same finder tool — toggle the "Examiner reports" filter.
Open archive →WJEC examiner reports
Listed under each unit alongside the past paper PDF.
Open archive →The seven complaints that appear in nearly every report
We’ve read several hundred examiner reports across boards and subjects over the last decade of tutoring. The same handful of phrases come up year after year. If you fix even half of them before the exam, you will pick up marks.
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1. "Candidates failed to read the question carefully"
The classic. Students answer the question they expected, not the one printed. Underlining the command word (analyse / evaluate / explain / describe) takes 5 seconds and prevents this. So does re-reading the question after writing the first sentence of your answer.
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2. "Many candidates wrote everything they knew about the topic"
Examiners call this the data dump. It’s the default failure mode under stress: write down every relevant fact and hope marks attach. Mark schemes reward focus, not volume. AO weightings tell you what to actually answer.
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3. "Working was not shown"
In maths and sciences, method marks are awarded even when the final answer is wrong — but only if the working is visible. "Just the answer" is the costliest habit in GCSE Maths. Show every line.
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4. "Generic responses to the source"
English and humanities. Quoting without analysing. Examiners want technique, effect, and writer’s choice — not a paraphrase of what the source already said.
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5. "Confusion between cause and correlation"
Sciences and social sciences. Stating a relationship is observed is not the same as explaining a mechanism. Examiners flag this every series.
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6. "Insufficient time spent on the high-tariff question"
Most papers have one big question worth 20–25% of marks. Students often write the most for the first questions on the paper and run out of road on the highest-tariff one. Mark-per-minute math says spend the most time on the longest question.
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7. "Technical terminology used incorrectly"
Mass vs weight in physics. Effective vs efficient in business. Theme vs motif in English Lit. Subject-specific vocabulary used loosely loses marks. The mark scheme uses precise terms — your answer should too.
How to read an examiner report
- Skip the praise — the early paragraphs are usually general and unhelpful.
- Read the "candidates often..." sentences — these are the high-frequency mistakes you’re statistically likely to make.
- Cross-reference with the mark scheme — examiners flag specific question numbers; go check what the mark scheme actually wanted.
- Re-do those questions — three days later, with the report fresh. Most students get them right second time and never lose those marks again.
A good rule: an hour with the examiner report typically saves 5–10 marks on the next paper. That’s a grade boundary in some subjects.
Want a tutor to walk you through one?
Most TheTutorLink tutors structure sessions around examiner reports + past papers.