Which Pre-2025 Past Papers Still Apply

The 2025–2027 syllabus refreshed 0606, and a common worry is that older past papers are now useless. They are not. Most of the syllabus is unchanged, so the large majority of old questions are still excellent practice. What you need is awareness of the three specific changes, so you use old papers for what they still cover and fill the gaps deliberately.

What changed, in brief

Three things matter for past-paper practice:

1. Coordinate geometry of the circle was added. This is genuinely new, so no pre-2025 paper has questions on it.
2. Indices and surds became assumed knowledge. They are no longer a standalone taught topic, but they now appear woven through other questions, especially on the non-calculator Paper 1.
3. Paper 1 became non-calculator. Older Paper 1 questions were written expecting a calculator, so their arithmetic wasn’t chosen for by-hand working.

Everything else, calculus, trigonometry, functions, series, vectors, logarithms, is essentially unchanged and fully practisable from older papers.

How to use old papers safely

The practical rules:

• For the unchanged topics, old papers are gold. Practise calculus, trig, functions and the rest freely, the question types are the same ones you will meet.
• Add circle geometry separately. Since no old paper covers it, use current-syllabus material and the specimen paper for this topic. Our circle worked examples are built to the new spec.
• Treat old Paper 1 as calculator practice, then wean off. An old Paper 1 question is fine content practice, but redo the harder arithmetic by hand to prepare for the real non-calculator conditions.

Don’t be thrown by old topic labels

Older papers and mark schemes sometimes labelled or grouped topics slightly differently, and a handful of old questions lean on indices/surds as if they were the focus rather than assumed. None of this makes the maths wrong, it is the same mathematics, just organised under the previous syllabus’s headings. Focus on the question, not the labelling.

The honest summary: old papers remain the bulk of your practice; add circle geometry from current resources and adjust for the non-calculator Paper 1. A specialist can point you to exactly which older questions map cleanly onto the current syllabus and which need a caveat, that guidance is part of what the trial class and ongoing tutoring provide. Message us on WhatsApp to book.