What mark schemes and examiner reports are, how to read the abbreviations, and how to use both to win back marks.
A mark scheme tells you what the examiners will give marks for. An examiner report tells you what real students actually wrote, and where they went wrong. Together they are the most underused revision resources available, and both are free from every exam board. This guide explains how to read them and how to turn them into extra marks.
A mark scheme is the set of instructions examiners follow when they mark a paper. It lists the answers that can earn credit, the alternatives that are also acceptable, and the points that should be ignored or rejected. It is written for trained examiners, so it is short, uses abbreviations and assumes some background knowledge.
It is not a model answer. A mark scheme often lists more creditworthy points than there are marks, and you only need enough of them to reach the total. Copying the whole mark scheme into your notes will not teach you how to write a good answer; learning how it rewards answers will.
Each correct, relevant point earns a mark, up to the maximum for the question. This is common for short answer questions: definitions, calculations, labelling, and most questions worth one to four marks. Here precision matters. Using the exact scientific term, giving a unit or completing the final step of a calculation can be the difference between getting the mark and not.
Longer answers, such as six mark science questions, history essays, geography evaluations and English responses, are usually marked in levels. The examiner reads the whole answer, decides which level description it fits best, then chooses a mark within that level. The level descriptions focus on qualities such as:
Alongside the levels, the mark scheme usually lists "indicative content": examples of points a good answer might include. You do not need all of them. A well developed answer covering fewer points can score higher than a list of many points with no explanation.
Each board and subject uses its own set of conventions, and most mark schemes explain them in the first few pages. Always read that section. These are some of the abbreviations you will see most often:
| Abbreviation | Meaning | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| allow / accept | An alternative answer that also earns the mark | There is often more than one acceptable way to say it. |
| ignore | Extra words that neither gain nor lose the mark | Padding does not help you. |
| do not accept / reject | An answer that does not earn the mark | Often lists common near misses. Learn these. |
| owtte | Or words to that effect | The idea matters, not the exact wording. |
| oe | Or equivalent | An equivalent answer, such as a different but correct form of a number, is fine. |
| ecf / ft | Error carried forward / follow through | If you make a mistake early, you can still earn later marks for correct working using your wrong value. |
| cao | Correct answer only | No credit for an answer that is nearly right. |
| M1, A1, B1 | Method mark, accuracy mark, independent mark (common in maths) | Showing your method earns marks even if the final answer is wrong. |
| underlined word | A word that must appear for the mark | Precise vocabulary is required here. |
The lesson from ecf and method marks is simple: always show your working. A correct method with a slip in the arithmetic can still earn most of the marks. A bare wrong answer earns none.
Levels based marking is harder to do on your own, but it is where many students lose the most marks. Try this approach:
After each exam series, the boards publish reports written by their senior examiners. Depending on the board they are called examiner reports, examiners' reports or principal or chief examiner reports. They go through the paper question by question and describe how students answered: what the best answers did, what weaker answers missed, and which mistakes were most common.
They are written mainly for teachers, but they are free to download and easy to read. For a student, they are like hearing directly from the people who marked the exam.
Exam boards publish mark schemes and examiner reports on the same pages as their past papers. Some of the most recent materials may be restricted to teachers for a period after the exam, so if you cannot find them, ask your teacher. You can reach each board's official pages from our subject pages for biology, chemistry, physics, maths, English, history and geography.
Not on its own. Mark schemes list creditworthy points but are not written as complete answers. Use them to check what earns credit, then write your own full answer in proper sentences.
It stands for error carried forward. If you make a mistake early in a calculation, you can still earn the later marks for using your wrong value correctly.
It is used for longer answers. The examiner reads the whole response, decides which level description it best fits, and then awards a mark within that level, rather than giving one mark per point.
Yes. They describe what strong answers did and which mistakes were most common, question by question. Reading them after you have sat a paper shows exactly why answers lost marks.
Some boards restrict their most recent papers, mark schemes and reports to teachers for a while after the exam. Ask your teacher, or use the most recent publicly available series.
Updated October 2026