Frequently Asked Questions

An archive of 5 years of past exam papers is made available online. Exceptions are:

Three years available

• Computer Science
• English Language and Literature
• History
• Mechanical Engineering
• MAPS Faculty (all departments)

If you would like additional sample questions to help your study, please consult with the relevant department.

Not available

• Medical School. We do not receive any Medical School papers; their policy is to provide sample papers / questions only, and these can be found on the Medical School intranet.
• Intercollegiate papers. We only provide papers set by UCL departments. If you are looking for an intercollegiate paper try the University of London Library, or contact your department.
• University of London. Some exams are set by the University of London; these exam papers are kept at the University of London Library at Senate House, shelved in the Middlesex South reading room, and are for reference use only.

• There are no paper copies of exam papers on open shelves in UCL Libraries. Please ask in your department if you wish to have additional sample questions for revision.
• An incomplete paper archive is held in the library Store (with the College Collection) which academic departments are welcome to request for research or teaching.

• You can search for exam papers by module code or title. Please sign in to access an exam paper.
• You can also browse by department, and click through to level (undergraduate / postgraduate and year of exam). Please sign in to access an exam paper.
• Please note that all UCL module codes changed in 2018, so it may be more reliable to search by exam paper title.
• If your Moodle course contains the 'Library Resources' block, this will have a direct link to the exam papers for that module. N.B. this searches by module code so will return papers matching the new module codes in operation since 2018.

• The paper may not have been made available to the Exam Papers Service. We do not automatically receive copies of papers taken within departments as these are not administered by the Examinations Office.
• Multiple choice papers are often not made available because of the limited question pool for such exam papers.
• The paper may not have been set in that year, or the department may have chosen to withhold the paper for other reasons.
• The paper may contain copyright material, such as extracts from books or journal articles, photographs or other images, which we do not have permission to reproduce. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows fair dealing use of such extracts for the purpose of examination, but this is not valid beyond the duration of the examination itself. Where possible, permission will be sought, or a full reference to the extract made.
• If you are searching the list of departments, is it possible that the paper was set by another department? Try all possible departments, or try using the search box to find your paper by module code.
• For all of the above, if you think your paper should be available, please contact your departmental administrator or use the missing paper form. Departments are able to send us exam papers to add retrospectively.

UCL Library Services does not receive answer sheets or mark schemes: please contact the department which set the paper.

Navigate to the paper you wish to consult and click on the PDF icon. On the following 'Copyrights Information' screen, click on 'Continue' to open the file.

PDF format

The papers are provided as PDF (Portable Document Format) files. To view them, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer. This is installed on all UCL cluster PCs and those managed by Information Systems. If you are using another type of PC you can download the reader free of charge from the Adobe website. Users with visual difficulties may wish to visit the Adobe accessibility web page for information on improved accessibility with Adobe products.

Papers can be printed from within the exam paper viewer, using either the printer icon on the toolbar or 'File/Print' from the menus.

Please report any error messages to lib-exams@ucl.ac.uk. It is helpful if you can copy the error message into the email so that we can diagnose the problem swiftly.

Some of the exam papers, particularly those written in mathematical typesetting programs, may look illegible. Use Acrobat Reader's magnifying glass (zoom tool) to increase the magnification on screen, or print out the paper to reveal the text.

Occasionally whole lines of text seem to be missing. This seems to be a bug in Acrobat Reader. Try scrolling on past the problem area and back again - this may be enough to trigger the display of the 'missing' text.

Occasionally we are requested to redact part of the paper, for example Multiple Choice Questions. In this instance a section or a page may appear to be missing. Check with your department or get in touch with us.

It is possible that errors may have arisen when the paper was set, for example an inaccurate mathematical formula. If you think this is the case, please notify the department who set the paper.

An error could be introduced during digitisation of the exam paper - though effort has been made to ensure that papers have been digitised accurately. In this instance consult the printed version of the exam paper in the Library, or contact lib-exams@ucl.ac.uk.

• If you need further help, please contact us at lib-exams@ucl.ac.uk
• To report a missing paper use the missing paper form.