You have been solving IGCSE past papers for weeks and you want a straight answer: are my marks really going up, in which subject, and which mistake keeps costing me the most? The free IGCSE past papers log answers those questions from one thing you type: a row for every paper you solve.
The problem it solves
Solving past papers is excellent practice, but the results get scattered: a mark in a notebook, another in a phone photo, a third in your head. A month later it is hard to say whether Mathematics improved. It is harder still to know why marks are lost: arithmetic slips, missing knowledge, or running out of time?
How the sheet works, step by step
- In the Subjects sheet you write your subjects, and a target percentage for each if you want one. Foreign names stay as they are, with an Arabic gloss, such as Mathematics (رياضيات).
- In the Log sheet you add a row per paper: subject (from a list), paper number or component, session and year as free text, score and full mark, minutes, the main error type (from a list) and the date you solved it.
- The sheet calculates the percentage and the attempt number within the subject by date order, and marks each row "ok" or "check the data".
- In the Subjects sheet you read, per subject, the number of attempts and the average percentage, the average of the first 3 attempts against the last 3, and the trend: improving, declining or steady.
- In the Errors sheet you see how often each type occurs, its share and the most frequent one, and the Summary gives an overview of all subjects.
What each sheet does
- Settings: one cell: the smallest change (percentage points) that counts as improving or declining. It is 2% in the example.
- Subjects: per subject the average, the comparison, the trend, average minutes, last percentage, last attempt date and the gap to your target.
- Log: the table you type into, with the percentage, attempt number and a row check. A row whose score is above the full mark turns red and is left out of every average.
- Errors: your error types (editable), how often each occurs, its share and rank.
- Summary: your overall average, the highest and lowest subject, and the count of improving and declining subjects.
Benefits
- You see your direction in numbers instead of impressions, so one good mark does not reassure you and one bad mark does not crush you.
- You spot a slipping subject early.
- You turn errors into a plan: if "missing knowledge" is the most frequent, you need content review; if "running out of time", you need timed practice.
Why it matters
A mark alone does not tell you what to do next; a subject's trend and your most frequent error tell you where the next hour of study should go.
A quick walk-through with the sample
The numbers below come from the sample sheet, not from real statistics. It has 5 subjects and 25 rows: 24 papers are counted and one row has a score above the full mark, so it shows "check the data" and is left out. Mathematics has eight attempts averaging 68.5%, with the first 3 at about 62.3% and the last 3 at about 75.0%: a difference of about 12.7 points and the trend "improving". It is still 11.5 points under its written target of 80%.
English Language has six attempts averaging about 73.3%, but the first 3 are about 78.0% and the last 3 about 68.7%, so the trend is "declining" even though the overall average looks fine. Chemistry has four attempts and shows "needs 6 attempts"; Biology has none.
In the Errors sheet the sample records 22 errors, the most frequent being "missing knowledge" with six (about 27%), followed by "arithmetic slip" and "running out of time" with five each. So the sensible plan in the example is to review the missing content first.
The online version
The same sheet runs online: it opens on the worked example, you change any cell and see the result at once, add a paper from a form instead of typing in the table, and import or export an .xlsx file. Your data stays in your browser. Try it from the template page.
Who it suits
- An IGCSE student solving past papers who wants to track progress.
- A parent or tutor who wants clear numbers about a student's progress.
The sheet does not mark papers and holds no questions or official scales. To plan your school's internal exams see the exam schedule sheet, and for homework and behaviour the homework and behavior tracker.