O and A Levels Exam Papers Downloader

This Python script allows users to download past papers for Cambridge (CAIE) and Edexcel examinations from multiple sources.

Features

• Download past papers from multiple sources:
  • Xtremepapers (CAIE and Edexcel)
  • Papacambridge (CAIE)
• Choose between different examination levels:
  • CAIE: IGCSE, O Level, and AS/A Level
  • Edexcel: International GCSE and Advanced Level
• View available subjects for the chosen examination level
• Select multiple subjects for download
• Automatically categorizes papers by type (question papers, mark schemes, etc.)
• Smart retry mechanism for failed downloads
• User-friendly interface with columnar display of subjects

Requirements

• Python 3.6 or higher
• Required libraries:

  requests
  beautifulsoup4
  

Installation

There are multiple ways to install and use this tool:

Method 1: Quick download and run

1. Ensure you have Python 3.6+ installed on your system.

2. Install the required libraries:

pip install requests beautifulsoup4

3. Download the script using curl:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fam007e/OandALvl-exam-paper-downloader/refs/heads/main/o_and_a_lv_qp_sdl.py -o o_and_a_lv_qp_sdl.py

Method 2: Clone repository and use requirements.txt

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/fam007e/OandALvl-exam-paper-downloader.git
cd OandALvl-exam-paper-downloader

2. Install dependencies from requirements.txt:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Method 3: Install as a Python package

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/fam007e/OandALvl-exam-paper-downloader.git
cd OandALvl-exam-paper-downloader

2. Install the package:

pip install .

This will make the tool available as a command-line utility called exam-downloader.

Usage

If you installed using Method 1 or 2:

python o_and_a_lv_qp_sdl.py

If you installed using Method 3:

exam-downloader

Then follow the on-screen prompts:

• Choose the examination board (CAIE from Xtremepapers, Edexcel from Xtremepapers, or CAIE from Papacambridge)
• Choose the examination level (varies by board)
• Select the subjects you want to download papers for
• Wait for the download to complete

The script will:

• Fetch available subjects from the selected source
• Display subjects in a user-friendly columnar format
• Download selected papers with appropriate timeouts
• Create organized folder structure for downloaded papers
• Show download progress and summary statistics

The downloaded papers will be organized in folders by:

• Examination board (CAIE/Edexcel)
• Examination level (O Level, AS/A Level, etc.)
• Subject
• Paper type (ms for mark schemes, qp for question papers, and misc for other types)

Technical Details

• Implements proper error handling and request timeouts
• Uses streaming downloads for better performance with large files
• Includes appropriate delays between requests to be respectful to the server
• Handles differences in website structures between Xtremepapers and Papacambridge
• Automatically categorizes papers based on filename patterns

Note

Please be respectful of the websites and avoid overloading their servers with too many requests in a short time. The script includes small delays between requests to minimize server impact.

Merging Papers

After downloading the papers, you can run the pdfmerger.sh script to merge the papers by type using poppler utility package pdfunite:

bash pdfmerger.sh

The script will:

• Find and merge the papers (question papers, mark schemes, etc.) for each paper type (e.g., qp_1, qp_2, etc.) into single PDFs.
• Save the merged PDFs in the merged directory.

License

This project is open source and available under the LICENSE.

Contributing

Contributions, issues, and feature requests are welcome. Feel free to check issues page if you want to contribute.