NSAA Past Paper Collection (2016 - 2023)

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NSAA Section 1 Past Papers (2016 - 2023)

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NSAA Section 2 Past Papers (2016 - 2021)

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NSAA Specimen Papers

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NSAA Specifications

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Why use Past Papers?

Past papers are inherently the most realistic materials available for NSAA preparation, as they are real papers from the exam! Past papers are the best way of taking mock exams, as they will provide you with actual NSAA questions and a realistic format.

Once you’ve been preparing for a while, you’re more than likely going to want to give the exam a go, which is exactly why past papers are so helpful. Not only are you taking a perfectly accurate mock exam, but you’ll also have access to the answer to every question to make marking easy for you.

Plus, you can go a step further and view worked solutions for every paper to get a better understanding of how each question is solved. You can access these when you upgrade your NSAA.Ninja account!

History of the NSAA

The first NSAA was sat in 2016 for the admissions process of Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Since this date, several major changes have been made to the NSAA that affected its format and content specification. From 2016 – 2019, the NSAA had a very different format from the test you will sit this year:

NSAA Format 2016 - 2019

Section 1 of the NSAA was made up of 5 Parts listed Part A – Part E. These parts covered the following: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Advanced Mathematics and Advanced Physics.
Each of these parts contained 18 questions, which all needed to be answered. This means that Section 1 contained a total of 54 questions to answer.
The time limit for Section 1 was 80 minutes in total.
Section 2 was made up of just six questions, with two from each core science. These questions were not multiple-choice but were longer form written questions split up into multiple parts (usually around 6 parts per question).
Only two of them needed to be answered in the exam, although applicants could pick any two to answer.
The time limit for Section 2 was 40 minutes in total.

This format was changed in the 2020 exam into the format that applicants now sit today. In 2022, a major change was made to the NSAA specification:

NSAA Specification Changes 2022

Up until 2021, the specification for Section 2 featured content knowledge for advanced physics and advanced chemistry only. In 2022, content knowledge for advanced biology was added, meaning questions for Part Z Biology will now contain exclusive content knowledge requirements relating to Advanced Biology.

However, as of 2024, the NSAA has been discontinued and replaced with the Engineering & Science Admissions Test, which follows a very similar format and specification. The main difference is that the ESAT does not cover any of the Advanced topics covered in Section 2, so you will not need to use these parts of the papers during your ESAT prep.

NSAA Past Paper Tips

Here are a few tips and tricks to help you optimise your ESAT/NSAA Preparation with these past papers:

Ensure that you’ve used the NSAA Specification as much as possible when revising, as this document details literally everything you need to know. It’s important to know this by heart so you don’t miss any topics or revise something that won’t be covered in the exam. Also be sure that you're using the most recent specification, as this is the only one to cover Advanced Biology topics which will be required for the exam.
These past papers are a great way of understanding the NSAA format and question types, so you should look through one towards the start of your preparation. That way, you’ll have a better understanding of the actual assessment and will have more context to work with when revising.
Don’t rush through all the past papers at once! You’ve got a lot to go through, but you should save most of them for later on in your preparation schedule. Ideally, you should build up your content knowledge and try some practice questions before taking on full mock exams. Once you’re more confident in your abilities, you will have a good chance of doing well in the past papers.
The NSAA is typically taken on paper, so you may want to print off your past papers for a more authentic experience. Just be aware that you won’t have the automatic timer that is made available on the NSAA.Ninja platform.
You should hopefully have specialised during your NSAA revision, so be sure to focus your past paper practice on the parts that you will be attempting in the real thing.
Remember that you can’t use a calculator in the NSAA, so stick to these rules for the past papers. The less you use your calculator, the better you will be at solving these questions by hand.
Be as strict as possible with yourself in regard to exam conditions. There are no cheats in the real exam, so push through and do as well as you can when practising. Any mistakes made here can be worked on afterwards!
Marking is super easy for NSAA mock exams, all you need to do is check the answer key to see which questions you got right! Just make sure you’re marking from the right part of the mark scheme! Keeping track of your scores is a great way to monitor your progress.

Here on Exams.Ninja, you’ll find amazingly in-depth guides to show you through every section of the exam, along with guides to help you with your planning and revision. Check out one of our Definitive Guides below!

Get the most out of your NSAA Past Papers with NSAA.Ninja

Your NSAA.Ninja account gives you access to every NSAA past paper and tonnes of practice questions. You can even upgrade your account to access worked solutions and other amazing features. To access your past papers, just follow these simple steps:

STEP 1

STEP 2

Enter the Exam Arena on the home page.

STEP 3

Choose the past paper that you want to try.

STEP 4

Take the exam!