ICAN past questions

What the published solutions actually tell you

The value is not the answer. It is the mark allocation — how the examiner splits the marks between identifying the right treatment, applying it to the scenario, and concluding. That split is where most lost marks live: a correct final figure with no workings scores a fraction of what it looks like it should.

Read the allocation before the model answer. It tells you what shape your answer needed to be, which is more transferable than the content of any one question.

Attempt first, compare second

Reading a question and its solution together feels productive and teaches you almost nothing. You finish able to recognise a correct answer; the exam asks you to produce one from a blank page.

Write a full attempt, by hand, timed to the marks — roughly 1.8 minutes per mark in a three-hour paper. Then compare, and mark yourself against the allocation rather than against your impression of how it went.

Where past questions stop being enough

They only cover what has already been asked. A syllabus area that has not come up recently is not less examinable — often the reverse. Use the weightings to find what the paper is worth marks on, and past questions to learn how it gets asked. The weightings for every paper are here.

How many exist, by paper

2,911 past questions across 27 papers, each with the Institute’s own published solution.