Comparison
Quanta vs Save My Exams
Short answer: Save My Exams is a good revision-notes site with a large subject range. Quanta does something different — it is free, and instead of notes to read it gives you real Cambridge past papers to sit, marked against the official mark scheme criterion by criterion, tracking which skill lost you each mark.
If you want summarised notes across many subjects, Save My Exams is the better fit. If you are sitting IGCSE 0580 or A Level 9709 and your marks are stuck, the reason is usually method rather than knowledge — and that is what Quanta is built to find.
Updated 20 August 2026
At a glance
| Quanta | Save My Exams | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free for students. No paid tier, no locked content. | Free notes with an account; a paid subscription for the fuller question banks. |
| Core idea | Sit real past papers; get marked against the official scheme. | Read condensed revision notes, then practise topic questions. |
| Marking | Criterion by criterion, from the published mark scheme — including method marks. | Answers and worked solutions to check yourself against. |
| What it tracks | Per-skill mastery across the syllabus — which specific skill is costing marks. | Progress through the topics you have covered. |
| Subject range | Narrow and deep: Cambridge maths (42 IGCSE + 42 A Level papers mapped), plus Economics and Business. | Broad: most major subjects across several exam boards. |
| For teachers | Classes, assignments, a per-skill class heatmap and written-work marking. | Primarily a student revision resource. |
The real difference: knowing which mark you lost
Most revision sites tell you the answer. That resolves the question in front of you and not much else — you finish a paper knowing your score but not why it was that score.
Quanta maps each past paper to its published mark scheme, so a question is not one mark out of six but six separate criteria. When you miss one, it is named: the method mark you did not show, the unit you left off, the reason you did not give. Those attach to a skill, and the skill is tracked across every paper you sit.
This matters most at A Level. Cambridge’s own 9709 examiner reports return to the same sentence every session: no marks will be given for unsupported answers from a calculator. Most dropped marks are method marks — and a score alone will never show you that.
Where Save My Exams is the better choice
Being straight about this, because it will save you time:
- You need lots of subjects. Save My Exams covers most of them. Quanta covers Cambridge maths, Economics and Business and nothing else.
- You want to read rather than practise. Their notes are written to be skimmed the night before. Quanta’s topic guides are longer and assume you intend to sit questions.
- You are on a non-Cambridge board. Quanta is Cambridge-only; there is no Edexcel, AQA or OCR content.
Common questions
Is Quanta actually free?
Yes — free for individual students, with no paid tier and nothing held back behind one. There are no ads and no third-party analytics scripts either.
Is there a free alternative to Save My Exams for Cambridge?
For Cambridge maths, Quanta is one: IGCSE 0580 and A Level 9709 past papers mapped to their mark schemes, free. ZNotes and Physics & Maths Tutor are also free, and work differently again.
Can I use both?
Plenty do, and it is a sensible combination — read a topic wherever it is explained most clearly, then sit a real paper and get it marked properly. They solve different halves of the problem.
Practise Cambridge maths against real mark schemes
Quanta has real Cambridge IGCSE Maths 0580 past-paper questions, broken into skill checkpoints, marked criterion by criterion the way examiners mark — and it tracks which skills you’re missing. Free for individual students.
Start practising free