Comparison
Quanta vs ZNotes
Short answer: ZNotes is a free library of student-written summary notes covering a wide range of Cambridge subjects. Quanta is not a notes site — it gives you real past papers to sit, marked against the official scheme, with per-skill tracking.
They sit at opposite ends of the same evening: ZNotes for learning or re-learning the content, Quanta for finding out whether you can actually get the marks.
Updated 20 August 2026
At a glance
| Quanta | ZNotes | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free for students. | Free notes; an account for quizzes and PDFs, paid tier for AI features. |
| Core idea | Sit past papers and get them marked. | Read condensed notes written by other students. |
| Granularity | A page per topic — circle theorems, histograms, vectors, bearings. | Coarser: a whole syllabus strand can sit on one page. |
| Marking | Criterion by criterion from the published mark scheme. | Not a marking tool. |
| Subject range | Cambridge maths, Economics and Business. | Very broad, across several boards. |
Notes tell you the content; papers tell you the marks
Reading a good summary makes a topic feel understood, which is a real and useful feeling — and a misleading one. Cambridge does not award marks for understanding a topic; it awards them for producing a specific thing on the page, in a specific form.
That gap is where most lost marks live. You can know exactly why the angle at the centre is twice the angle at the circumference and still drop the mark for not writing the reason down. Sitting a mapped paper is what makes that visible.
Where ZNotes is the better choice
- You need to learn or re-learn content. That is what summary notes are for, and Quanta assumes you have met the topic.
- You need subjects Quanta does not have. ZNotes spans far more of the Cambridge catalogue.
Common questions
What is the best free site for IGCSE 0580?
It depends what you need. For reading a topic, ZNotes and Save My Exams are both free and useful. For sitting real papers and finding out which skill is costing you marks, Quanta’s IGCSE 0580 guide is free too, with every paper mapped to its mark scheme.
Can I use ZNotes and Quanta together?
That is probably the best use of both — read the topic wherever it is clearest, then sit a past paper here and see whether the marks actually follow.
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