How can I find past O/A Level Curriculum + Exam Papers 1982 / 1983 / 1985 ...

[MsAdaLovelace]

Hello Mumsnetters,

Can you help!

Andy idea how I can find past O' Level and A' Level Curriculum/Course information and Exam Papers for 1982 / 1983 / 1985 ...

I am going down a rabbit hole!

Thank You MN!

Having thought more about this, and as an ex-FE-lecturer (admittedly in Computing), I'd like to see the marking scheme for that exam question.

Going back even further, I did Oxford Board and for O’level we did Romeo and Juliet, Tennyson’s poems, and Brighton Rock (which I never read, just the revision notes and learned a few quotes). For A’level French we did Le Grand Meaulnes, Un Balcon en Foret, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (Moliere) and short stories by Maupassant. Afraid I don’t have the papers. My DD is 24 and I would say her GCSEs were harder than my O’levels. They required critical thinking rather than just memorising stuff. I can’t comment on A’levels as we did different subjects.

O’levels would have been in 1977.

Having a look at some other threads we also did the fabulous UNDER MILK WOOD too!

It is all coming back bit by bit ... well, with the help of your posts MN!

Thank you MN!

x

I did O levels in 1984 and A levels in 1986 and still have some O level papers in a box somewhere.

I did JMB (northern unis) so our set texts for English Lit were Henry IVth part 1 (the most tedious thing ever), short stories that I cannot remember for the life of me, and Hardy poetry. I was told I was one step up from illiterate so have blotted out a lot of what we studied. However, I did ok in other subjects and have taught in secondary schools for over 30 years (not English Lit!) I also read some of the Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy novels mentioned above when I was in my 20s and really enjoyed them.

I did French A-level on a new syllabus that wouldn't put boys off by having literature, so we didn't have any set books at all - no poetry, no novels, just essays about violence in society and similar stuff, and 35 years later, I'm still bitter about it.

Also, we weren't allowed to keep our exam papers, because they were reused for next year's mocks.

My O Level English Lit in 1983 was Oxford or Ox & Cantab Board I think, can’t remember exactly but I was at school in Oxford so it will have been one of them. Texts were Orwell’s 1984, Twelfth Night and the Pardoner’s Tale. I was really put out that my friend who was at a local private school did some other board where they could take their books into the exam! Unless that was just something a private school could do back then that my school couldn’t have got away with.

I believe I still have my O level and A level papers. O level 1983 and A level 1985. O level was Cambridge board. If I have maths that would be Nov 1982 sitting. A level was sciences and Oxford and Cambridge I think. Didn’t do History O level or German.

https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/search/gcsearch.aspx?q=o+level+papers#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=o%20level%20papers&gsc.page=1

Not quite what you are looking for, though.

I'm sure that I have come across a website with a more diverse range of archived papers, but I can't find it atm.

We did the University of London board exams (except for Geography O level, which was the Cambridge board).

O levels in 1982 and A levels in 1984, I can remember many of the English lit texts but not which exam they were for:

Hamlet
The Winters Tale
Julius Caesar
Keats poetry
The White Devil
Howard’s End
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Hard Times
Death of a Salesman

The following were definitely 1984:
1984
Waiting for Godot

I remember thar Chaucer was an option at A level, but our teacher loathed it so we did something else instead.