Where to Find IB Past Papers Legally, and How to Use Them Well
By Renzo Diaz·2 min read
Start with the IB's own public sample exam papers and the official Questionbank, and ask your school's DP coordinator which official papers and markschemes are available for your specific course. An unlicensed folder of downloaded PDFs is not a trustworthy syllabus map — a paper may be for an earlier course, a different level, or an assessment format that has since changed, and using it without checking that first produces the wrong exam plan.
A search for "IB past papers" mostly surfaces unofficial PDF collections of uncertain origin, syllabus version, and completeness — convenient, but not a reliable foundation for a revision plan. Knowing where the genuinely authorised material lives, and what it can and can't tell a student, matters more than simply accumulating as many papers as possible.
One correctly reviewed question can reveal more than ten quickly checked final answers.
1. Start with the official sources
The IB's own public sample exam papers are the right starting point, alongside the official Questionbank for building sets of practice questions. Access terms differ by product and by account, so it's worth asking a school directly what students are actually able to use rather than assuming.
Before solving anything from a paper — official or otherwise — it's worth recording subject, level, year, session, paper, and syllabus version. That last detail matters more than it sounds: it's especially important for Physics, first assessed under its current syllabus in 2025, and for the revised Mathematics courses, first assessed in 2029. A paper that predates the relevant syllabus change can look like useful practice while actually testing a structure that no longer applies.
2. Match the paper to the question you're actually trying to answer
Different revision goals call for different kinds of material, and treating every past paper as interchangeable wastes the specific value each type actually has.
| Goal | Appropriate material | What it actually tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Learn the current format | An IB sample or specimen paper for your exact syllabus | Paper structure, instructions, and calculator rules |
| Diagnose exam performance | An appropriate complete paper with its markscheme | Where time, method, and evidence were actually lost |
| Repair one specific skill | Authorised questions grouped by the underlying idea | Whether a specific method can actually be applied |
| Test transfer | An unfamiliar, mixed question | Whether the method can be selected without a hint One correctly reviewed question can reveal more than ten quickly checked final answers. After marking, the useful next step is locating the first decision that failed, closing the markscheme, and solving a related question without a hint — not moving straight on to the next paper in the pile. Spending every available paper before actually using the feedback from the first few defeats the purpose of having them. |
3. Older questions still have a limited, specific use
An older exercise can still be genuinely useful for practising a mathematical or physical idea — provided the student understands clearly that it isn't a simulation of the current paper. Labelling an adapted older question as skill practice, rather than as exam-format practice, keeps that distinction honest. Using pre-2025 Physics exam structures to predict today's Physics papers specifically should be avoided, since the current assessment model genuinely differs from what came before it — and the same caution applies to Mathematics material once the 2029 transition takes effect for a given cohort.
The safest revision workflow is also the most educational one: use authorised, correctly-dated papers to discover the kind of thinking a student actually needs to demonstrate, then practise that same thinking with fresh, independently written problems rather than simply working through every available past paper in sequence.
Sources
Sources below are the IB's own current pages, checked directly in a browser.