You open a JUPEB past question pack, flip through, and find question after question with nothing after them. No answers. No marking guide. Just the paper. It happens, especially with packs that were compiled informally and passed around without an answer section. Try free NMCN past/practice question.
This page is about what to do next. It covers how to check whether an answer section was left out, how to look for a separate marking scheme, and how to build and verify your own answers without guessing. It does not contain past questions, answers or a marking scheme of its own, and nothing here should be treated as an official JUPEB document.
Confirm Whether an Answer Section Is Missing
Before you start rebuilding anything, make sure the answers really are absent. Packs often have an answer key that is easy to miss.
- Scroll to the very end of the file. Answers are sometimes appended after the last year's questions, occasionally after a blank page or an advert page.
- Check the front matter. A contents page, a cover note or a short "how to use this booklet" section may state whether answers are included.
- Look for a second file. Sellers sometimes send the questions as one document and the answers as another, or promise to send the scheme later.
- Watch for missing pages. A scanned pack with a broken page range can lose a whole answer section without any obvious sign.
- Open it on a different device. Some readers cut off long documents or fail to load pages that are images rather than text.
If you paid for the pack, ask the seller directly: does this pack include answers, and if not, was an answer section ever produced? You are not being difficult by asking. A seller who cannot answer that question has told you something useful about the pack.
One more check before you move on. Confirm whether you are holding complete papers or a selection of questions. Compilations sometimes pull questions from many years into a topic list, and the answers get lost in the process.
Check for a Separate Marking Scheme
Questions and marking schemes are usually two separate documents. The questions are what students pass around; the scheme is what examiners mark against. The two do not always travel together, so ask before you conclude that nothing exists.
Start with the body that runs JUPEB. Whether an official scheme is released publicly, and for which years, is a policy question you should put to them or to your school's JUPEB coordinator rather than accept from rumour. Your coordinator or subject tutors may also hold scheme documents that never made it into student packs.
Ask in this order:
- Your school's JUPEB coordinator or programme office.
- The subject teacher or lecturer who prepares students for that paper.
- The seller or source of the pack you already have.
- Senior students who sat the exam recently, though treat what they pass on as unverified until you check it yourself.
If a scheme does turn up, use it to grade written answers rather than to peek at final figures. Our guide on how to grade your answers using JUPEB and IJMB marking schemes walks through that process. If nothing turns up, move on. Waiting for a scheme that does not exist costs you weeks you could spend working.
Use Textbooks to Build Your Own Answer Guide
For most JUPEB subjects, the material you need is already in your recommended textbooks, and building an answer from a textbook teaches you far more than copying one.
Work one question at a time, on paper. Write the answer as if you were sitting the exam, then check it line by line against a textbook. Do not read the question, read the textbook, and tell yourself you would have written that. The writing is the practice.
For calculation-based subjects
- Write the full working, not just the final figure.
- Check the answer a second way — substitute it back, or solve using a different method.
- Mark every step where you had to guess, even a small one. Those are the steps to confirm.
- If the textbook's worked example uses different values, repeat it with your own values rather than adapting the printed working in your head.
For essay and theory papers
- Build a list of points first, in the order you would argue them.
- Check each point against the textbook's own treatment of the topic.
- Write one or two full answers under timed conditions; outline the rest.
- Note the textbook and page beside each answer, so revision takes you straight back to the source.
Where two textbooks disagree, do not average them. Write both versions down, mark the question as unresolved, and carry it into the next step. Choosing between two plausible answers on instinct is how people end up memorising the wrong one.
Review With a Study Partner or Teacher
A second reader catches what you cannot see in your own work, but only if you use them properly.
In a study group, avoid the trap of agreeing on an answer and calling it confirmed. Three students who guessed the same way are still three guesses. One method that works: each person prepares a different question, then presents the working and the textbook page behind it. Anyone who cannot point to a source for their answer gets that question flagged, not accepted.
When you take questions to a teacher, arrive with work rather than a blank page. Ask "I solved this and got this answer, but I could not justify step three — where did I go wrong?" That earns a better response than "what is the answer to question twelve?" A teacher can correct your reasoning in a few minutes; they cannot teach a whole topic in a corridor.
Keep the group small enough that everyone has to contribute. In a group of eight, four people sit and watch. And write down what comes out of the review, because an answer you discussed but never recorded is one you will re-argue next month.
Mark Questions That Still Need Verification
Some questions will not be settled by any of this. That is normal, and it is better to track them honestly than to pretend you have covered everything.
Give each question a status in your notebook:
| Status | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Verified | Checked against a textbook or confirmed by a teacher | Revise it normally |
| Provisional | Your own answer, consistent with the textbook, not yet checked by anyone else | Revisit before the exam |
| Open | Two sources disagree, or no source covers the point | Do not memorise it; ask again |
Clear the open list in batches rather than one at a time. Take five or six unresolved questions to a teacher together, or search your textbooks for the specific point instead of re-reading the whole question. Anything still open in the final week should be left alone. Walking into the hall knowing you skipped three questions is safer than carrying a guess you cannot defend.
Two habits protect you here. Date your entries, so you can see whether a question has been open for a week or a term. And never mark your own answer as verified merely because you have read it several times. Familiarity feels like correctness. It is not the same thing.
If you are still gathering material in the first place, start with how to get IJMB and JUPEB past questions and answers, then come back to this page. And if a pack you already own looks doubtful — answers that seem too neat, or that contradict your textbook on basic points — read how to spot fake answers in JUPEB past questions before you build study notes on top of them.