Tag: Mock exams

  • Free 2027 Paper 2 for IGCSE First Language English: Four Days

    Free 2027 Paper 2 for IGCSE First Language English: Four Days

    Paper 2 · Directed & Composition2027 specificationFree resource0500 / 0990

    Paper 2 changes in 2027 too. Students read two texts, answer a short question on one writer’s attitude, and write a directed response that weighs up both, then choose one composition task: descriptive or narrative. With just one specimen paper published, good practice material is scarce. Four Days is a complete, full-length mock written for the new format, and it’s free to download.

    The two texts

    • Text A: The long weekend (feature article) – a look inside a school that has switched to a four-day week, and what students, teachers and parents make of it.
    • Text B: Who pays for the day off? (opinion article) – a sharper take that asks who is left looking after the children on Fridays.

    For the directed writing task, students write a speech for a school debate on whether their own school should adopt a four-day week, using ideas from both texts. It’s a topic every student has an opinion on, which makes it ideal for practising evaluation rather than just retelling.

    What’s inside

    • The insert with both texts
    • The full question paper: Section A (Questions 1(a) and 1(b)) and Section B composition, with four titles to choose from, 80 marks
    • A detailed mark scheme set out in the familiar Cambridge table layout
    • A full-mark 1(a) answer, a colour-coded model speech for 1(b), and top-level descriptive and narrative model answers
    • Level descriptors written in plain English, so students can mark their own work

    How to use it

    Sit it as a timed mock. Spend proper time planning the speech: the best answers don’t just list points from the texts, they judge them and come to a clear view. Then use the mark scheme to compare your speech with the model, paying attention to how ideas from Text A and Text B are combined and challenged. For the composition, pick the title you would really choose in the exam.

    Want more practice? The Paper 2 Complete Bundle (£40) has more resources written to the 2027 format. Live online classes start in March 2027.

    Teachers are welcome to use the paper with their own classes. If you try it, I’d love to hear how your students get on.

  • Free 2027 Paper 1 for IGCSE First Language English: Lighthouses

    Free 2027 Paper 1 for IGCSE First Language English: Lighthouses

    Paper 1 · Reading2027 specificationFree resource0500 / 0990

    From 2027, Cambridge IGCSE First Language English Paper 1 has a new shape: three texts, a summary built around a writer’s views, a writer’s-effect question on the narrative, and an extended response written from inside the story. There is only one specimen paper so far, which means students have almost nothing to practise on. Lighthouses is a complete, full-length mock written for the new format – and it’s free.

    The three texts

    • Text A: The keepers who vanished (non-fiction) – the 1900 mystery of the three keepers who disappeared from the Flannan Isles lighthouse, off the Outer Hebrides.
    • Text B: Keep the lights burning (opinion article) – a yacht skipper of thirty years argues that lighthouses still matter in an age of satellite navigation.
    • Text C: The night the light stood still (narrative) – in the 1960s, sixteen-year-old Nell spends the summer with her father, the principal keeper of Gannet Rock, twenty kilometres from the mainland.

    The theme links all three: isolation, duty and what we lose when something old is switched off. Question 4 asks students to write Nell’s journal entry.

    What’s inside

    • The insert with all three texts, line-numbered just like the real thing
    • The full question paper: Questions 1(a)–(f), 2(a)–(b), 3(a)–(d) and 4, 80 marks, 2 hours
    • A detailed mark scheme set out in the familiar Cambridge table layout
    • All 12 summary points, plus model answers for 2(a), 2(b), 3(c), 3(d) and Question 4
    • Level descriptors written in plain English, so students can mark their own work

    How to use it

    Sit it as a timed mock in two hours, ideally once the course content has been covered. Then go through the mark scheme question by question: the model answers show what a top-band response looks like, and the 3(d) model shows exactly how to pick and explain three precise choices. Students working alone can mark Questions 1 to 3 themselves and use the level descriptors to place their Question 4.

    Want more practice? The Paper 1 Complete Bundle (£35) has four full teaching units and a mock exam, all written for the 2027 format. Live online classes start in March 2027.

    Teachers are welcome to use the paper with their own classes. If you try it, I’d love to hear how your students get on.