Checkpoint Practice Pack: 12 Original Practice Papers with Mark Schemes — Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint English

Twelve real-format Checkpoint papers. Zero hours of your weekend.

Finding good practice material for Cambridge Lower Secondary Checkpoint English is hard: there are only a handful of past papers, students have often seen them already, and writing your own takes days. The Checkpoint Practice Pack solves that in one download – twelve complete, original practice papers built to the 2026 Stage 9 format, each with a full mark scheme and a top-band model answer.

Every text, every question and every model answer is new. Your students will not have seen any of them before.

What’s included

• 6 × Paper 1 (Non-fiction) – a memoir, a news feature, a campaign speech, a science magazine feature, a food opinion column and an interview profile. Section B covers all six writing forms students need: recount, formal letter, speech, report, review and opinion article.
• 6 × Paper 2 (Fiction) – a mystery, a survival story, a First World War historical story, and three novel extracts (near future, family drama and school comedy) written to start mid-action and end unresolved, just like the real insert. Section B is a story task on every paper.
• Every set has three files: an Insert (the text, with numbered lines and a glossary), a Question Paper (25 reading marks + 25 writing marks and answer lines, laid out like the real paper) and a Mark Scheme.
• A 9-page Teacher Guide – the whole pack at a glance, how to run the papers as mocks or homework, a skills map, marking tips, a student mark tracker and a class record sheet.

Mark schemes teachers actually want

• Clear answers for every question, with what to accept and what not to credit – so marking is fast and consistent across a department.
• The five Section B strands (Wc, Wv, Ws, Wg, Ww) decoded into plain English for each writing form.
• A top-band model answer for every Section B task, shown clean first so students can spot what makes it work, then broken down strand by strand.
• A “Which skills did each question test?” table on every paper, so a student’s lost marks turn straight into targets.

Built the way Checkpoint is built

The question types, mark allocations and layout mirror the real 2026 papers – from the technique and punctuation questions to the 40-word summary, the five-word phrase, the change of point of view and the 4-mark “take a side” question. The texts are pitched at a challenging, IGCSE-coursebook level while the questions stay short and clear, so strong students are stretched and weaker students can still get started.

And every paper has been through an independent quality review before release.

Perfect for

• Year 9 teachers running mock exams and timed practice
• Tutors who need fresh papers week after week
• Parents helping a child prepare at home – the mark schemes do the hard work

Format: 37 Word files (A4, editable, ready to print) – 12 sets × Insert, Question Paper and Mark Scheme, plus the Teacher Guide.

Want the whole course too? Checkpoint Everything gives you the complete 25-lesson Checkpoint Ready course and this pack for £59.

Independently produced by Thorogood English. Cambridge Checkpoint is a trademark of Cambridge University Press & Assessment; this resource is not endorsed by or affiliated with Cambridge. Licensed to the purchasing teacher, tutor or family for use with their own students or children.