Unlocking Past Papers & Subscriptions
How to unlock individual papers or questions, and how subscription plans fit in.
Two Ways to Unlock Papers
The Marketplace has two unlock types, switchable with a toggle at the top of the page:
Unlock a complete past paper — the whole exam, exactly as it was sat, for a given subject and year. This is what you'd use with Exam Center.
Unlock questions from a specific topic or unit, pulled across papers — useful for targeted practice via Modules.
What's Free vs. What Needs Unlocking
PastpaperLM uses a rolling free-year window: papers from roughly the last 5 years, excluding the most recent 2 years, are free for every student — no unlocking, no credits, no account tier required. Papers newer than that (still recent) or older than that window need unlocking.
This window shifts forward every year and can be adjusted by PastpaperLM — always check the "Free" badge on a paper in the Marketplace itself rather than assuming a fixed year range.
No hidden costs, ever. Whether a paper is free or unlocked, the question, the correct answer, and the full explanation are always included — nothing extra to unlock later.
Unlocking Isn't "Buying a Question"
You never buy a question as a product. What you're actually paying for is credits — unlocking the papers or questions in your cart is a perk that comes with that payment, not a separate purchase.
- Pay by card or by bank slip for the questions in your cart.
- You get exact, real credits in return — a precise, transparent amount for what you paid, no more and no less.
- Those credits aren't locked to marketplace use — spend them on anything: chatting with Epis, or unlocking more content next time.
Unlocking only happens at the moment of a new payment — a fresh credit top-up, or activating/renewing a subscription. Credits already sitting in your wallet from before can't be spent to unlock papers or questions on their own.
See Unlocking Credits & Content for the full breakdown.
Subscriptions
Your subscription plan (Free through Ultimate) is what determines your daily credit allowance for using Epis — see Plans & Pricing for the full comparison. Unlocking papers and questions is handled separately, through the Marketplace, each time you need access to something outside the free window.