The Cambridge AS & A Level Psychology (9990) May/June 2026 papers and mark schemes are out, and they’re free. All four papers, 9990/12 to 9990/42, can be downloaded and printed on the Tutopiya Learning Portal. Below is a breakdown of which studies and topics each paper named and how the mark scheme gave marks, taken from the papers themselves.

Key points from the 2026 9990 papers

• Ten core studies were named on Paper 1 alone, from Hassett et al. to Piliavin et al. Paper 2 drew on Pozzulo et al. again and on Bandura et al.
• Sleep and mindfulness linked the AS papers. Paper 1 compared Hölzel et al. with Dement and Kleitman, and Paper 2 set a study on mindfulness and sleep quality at home.
• Ethics ran through every paper: consent and harm in the button phobia case, confidentiality and privacy, animal guidelines for an observation, and unethical plans scoring zero on Paper 4.
• Longitudinal designs came up four times: a 10-mark plan on Paper 2, a named issue on Paper 3, a key study question on Paper 4 and the Clinical plan on Paper 4.
• The long answers are levelled. The 8- and 10-mark questions on Papers 1 and 2, the 6- and 10-mark questions on Paper 3 and the plans on Paper 4 all used level grids.

All May/June 2026 9990 papers

Paper	Code	Duration	Marks	What it tests
Paper 1 Approaches, Issues and Debates	9990/12	1 hour 30 minutes	60	The AS core studies (AS)
Paper 2 Research Methods	9990/22	1 hour 30 minutes	60	Methods, ethics, data and planning (AS)
Paper 3 Specialist Options: Approaches, Issues and Debates	9990/32	1 hour 30 minutes	60	Two of four options (A Level)
Paper 4 Specialist Options: Application and Research Methods	9990/42	1 hour 30 minutes	60	Two of four options, plus one plan (A Level)

Timings and marks are taken from the front cover of each 2026 paper. Papers 1 and 2 are answered on the question paper; Papers 3 and 4 use an answer booklet. For the full syllabus content, see the Cambridge International AS & A Level Psychology 9990 syllabus.

Which variant is this? Cambridge sets different versions of each paper (variants) for different time zones. The papers here are variant 2: 9990/12, /22, /32 and /42. All variants cover the same syllabus at the same difficulty, so variant 2 is just as good for practice as the one your school sat.

Download the 9990 May/June 2026 papers →

What came up in 9990 Paper 1 (Approaches, Issues and Debates), May/June 2026?

Paper 1 had ten questions worth 60 marks: eight short questions in Section A (38 marks) and two longer ones in Section B (22 marks).

Question	Study and topic	Marks
1	Hassett et al. (monkey toy preferences): the second toy category, what “play” means, one conclusion	5
2	Dement and Kleitman (sleep and dreams): three features of the sample, one weakness of it	5
3	Milgram (obedience): ethical ways a business could get staff to follow safety rules	4
4	Baron-Cohen et al. (eyes test): an assumption of the cognitive approach with an example, a methodological strength	5
5	Fagen et al. (elephant learning): two ethical everyday applications	4
6	Saavedra and Silverman (button phobia): whether consent and minimising harm were broken, how confidentiality was kept	6
7	Pozzulo et al. (line-ups): the individual and situational explanations debate, with an example of each	4
8	Andrade (doodling): the background to the study	5
9	Hölzel et al. (mindfulness and brain scans): how and how often participants were scanned (4), one similarity and one difference with Dement and Kleitman, not about the sample (8)	12
10	Piliavin et al. (subway Samaritans): evaluate with two strengths and two weaknesses, one about quantitative data	10

What made it hard: Question 8 asked only for background. The mark scheme ignores anything about what Andrade did or found, so procedure and results earned nothing.

What came up in 9990 Paper 2 (Research Methods)?

Paper 2 had nine questions worth 60 marks. Most were set in short invented scenarios.

Question	Topic	Marks
1	Two ways to measure attention, defining and naming sampling techniques (volunteer and opportunity)	5
2	Pozzulo et al. (line-ups): how one IV and one DV were operationalised	4
3	Naming a bar chart and a histogram, drawing a labelled table from the histogram	6
4	Subjectivity, and how it could have occurred in Bandura et al. (aggression)	2
5	Confidentiality and privacy for human participants, with examples	6
6	An animal observation checklist: operationalising behavioural categories, adding a category, two animal ethics guidelines	7
7	A case study of a very helpful man: triangulation and its strength, a strength and two weaknesses of case studies	10
8	Mindfulness and sleep quality at home: a measure, a practical advantage and disadvantage compared with a lab	6
9	A longitudinal study of children’s activity choices: describe how to run it (10), a strength and a weakness of your measure (4)	14

Watch for: Question 9(a) told you not to describe the sample or ethics, and gave no marks for the testing interval because the question already stated it.

What came up in 9990 Paper 3 (Specialist Options)?

You answer all four questions in two options, 30 marks each. Each option has two short application questions, a 6-mark describe question and a 10-mark evaluate question with a named issue.

Option	Questions and named content	Named issue in the 10-mark essay
Clinical (Q1 to 4)	Beck’s cognitive theory of depression applied to “Tara”, applied tension for blood-injection-injury phobia and reductionism, REBT for “Samuel”, ICD-11 criteria for kleptomania and pyromania and the Kleptomania Symptom Assessment Scale (K-SAS)	Questionnaires
Consumer (Q5 to 8)	Product placement of a phone, slogan guidelines, responses to queue intrusions (Milgram’s queue study), a study of point of purchase decisions and a study of heuristics in decision-making styles	Experiments
Health (Q9 to 12)	Delay in seeking treatment for headaches, Savage and Armstrong (1990) on practitioner style and determinism, biofeedback for stress, Yokley and Glenwick (1984) on community interventions for adherence	Use of children in research
Organisational (Q13 to 16)	Walton’s quality of working life questionnaire for night shift workers, Muczyk and Reimann’s four leader styles and nomothetic, Kelley’s followership for two bakery jobs, physical work conditions and the Hawthorne effect, a study of open plan offices	Longitudinal studies

What came up in 9990 Paper 4 (Specialist Options: Application and Research Methods)?

In Section A you answer both questions from two options (18 marks per option). In Section B you answer one planning question worth 24 marks.

Section A key studies and topics:

• Clinical: Lovell et al. (2006) on telephone-administered therapy for OCD; types of delusion and the weaknesses of open questions.
• Consumer: North et al. (2003) on musical style and restaurant spending, with weaknesses of field experiments; post-purchase cognitive dissonance and closed questions.
• Health: Shoshani and Steinmetz (2014) on positive psychology in schools, with repeated and independent measures and generalisation; acute pain and biochemical treatments.
• Organisational: Landry et al. (2019) on self-determination theory and rewards, with the sample’s features and weaknesses; types of workplace bullying and face-to-face interviews.

Section B plans (choose one):

Question	Option	Plan	Must include
9	Clinical	An experiment with a longitudinal design on exposure and response prevention (ERP) for OCD	Frequency/interval of testing, type of data
10	Consumer	A face-to-face interview on gender differences in reasons for store choice	Location, question format
11	Health	A telephone interview on how men and women describe pain	Question format, analysis of data
12	Organisational	An experiment on performance monitoring to reduce social loafing	Controls, dependent variable

Each plan is worth 10 marks, then 8 marks for describing and using the psychological knowledge behind it and 6 marks for justifying your choices.

How the 9990 May/June 2026 mark scheme gives marks

The schemes mix point marks for short answers with level grids for longer ones. Here’s what the 2026 schemes show.

1. The Paper 1 essay needs the named issue to reach the top. Question 10 on Piliavin et al. used a five-level grid. Level 5 (9 to 10) needed very good evaluation, including the named issue (quantitative data), with both strengths and both weaknesses in detail. Level 4 (7 to 8) needed the named issue and most points in depth. Level 3 (5 to 6) “may not include” the named issue.

2. Similarity and difference are marked separately. Paper 1 Question 9(b) gave up to 4 marks for the similarity and 4 for the difference. Level 4 needed an explanation using both studies. Description alone capped each half at Level 3, and anything about the sample scored nothing. The scheme also said “easy to analyse” doesn’t explain why quantitative data is useful.

3. Applications need a “what” and a “how”. Paper 1 Question 5 on Fagen et al. gave 1 mark for what the application is and 1 for how it would work. It needed a specific group or setting; “people can…” was not enough.

4. The Paper 2 longitudinal plan has four required features. Question 9(a) looked for tests or tasks, how they are scored, how participants are recontacted, and controls that keep each round of testing the same. Level 5 (9 to 10) had all four with detail; Level 4 (7 to 8) had all four with only some detail. A single test and retest did not count as a longitudinal study.

5. Paper 3 uses two grids. The 6-mark “describe” questions use Table A (AO1). Each of the two topics gets its own level, and the marks are added; two Level 3 answers make 6. Cover only one and you can’t score more than 3. The 10-mark “evaluate” questions use Table B (AO3), with five levels. Level 5 needs very detailed evaluation, two or more clear analysis points and good use of context. Without the named issue, the answer is capped at 4.

6. Best fit, not adding up. On Paper 3, each evaluation point is levelled and the overall mark is a best fit. One Level 4 point with two Level 3 points scored 7, not 8. Six points all at Level 2 still scored only 4.

7. Paper 4 plans: right method, ethical, replicable. The plans were marked for AO2 on a five-level grid. Level 5 needed the method the question asked for, a good range of method-specific and general features in accurate detail, enough detail to replicate, and a good grasp of ethics. A plan scored zero if it described the syllabus study or was unethical.

8. Short answers: stated and applied. On Paper 4 Section A, 2 marks went to a point stated and applied to the study; 1 mark if it wasn’t applied. Some single words scored nothing: “can lie” or “social desirability” alone in Question 2(c), and “field experiments have uncontrolled variables” in Question 3(c), because North et al. had many controls.

Which papers should you sit?

• AS Level: Paper 1 and Paper 2.
• Full A Level: Papers 1, 2, 3 and 4.

On Papers 3 and 4, answer the two options your school taught. On Paper 4 Section B, read all four planning questions before you choose. Only the ones from your options will draw on knowledge you have revised.

How to use the 2026 papers as a mock

1. Keep them for last. Use older 9990 papers for topic practice and save May/June 2026 for a timed mock close to your exam.
2. Build a core study sheet. For each study named on Paper 1, note its aim, sample, procedure, a key result, a conclusion, and one strength and weakness.
3. Name the issue early. On Paper 1 Question 10 and every Paper 3 essay, write about the named issue in your first paragraph so it can’t be missed.
4. Plan with a checklist. For the Paper 2 and Paper 4 plans, list the required features from the mark scheme and check each one is in your answer with detail.
5. Level your own answers. Read the grid, decide your level, then compare with the scheme’s examples.

More A Level Psychology resources

• A Level Psychology past papers (AQA and Cambridge 9990)
• A Level past papers 2026: all subjects

🔍 Looking for a specific past paper? Use our free Past Paper Finder to search by subject, year and exam board.

Need help with a 9990 topic? Book a free trial lesson with an A Level Psychology tutor →

Frequently asked questions

Are the 9990 May/June 2026 past papers free? +

Yes. All four question papers (9990/12, 9990/22, 9990/32 and 9990/42) and their official mark schemes are free to download and print on the Tutopiya Learning Portal.

Which core studies came up in 9990 Paper 1 May/June 2026? +

Paper 1 named Hassett et al. (monkey toy preferences), Dement and Kleitman (sleep and dreams), Milgram (obedience), Baron-Cohen et al. (eyes test), Fagen et al. (elephant learning), Saavedra and Silverman (button phobia), Pozzulo et al. (line-ups), Andrade (doodling), Hölzel et al. (mindfulness and brain scans) and Piliavin et al. (subway Samaritans).

How is the 10-mark essay on 9990 Paper 1 marked? +

It uses a five-level grid. To reach Level 5 (9 to 10 marks) you need two strengths and two weaknesses evaluated in detail, including the named issue, which in 2026 was quantitative data. Without the named issue, an answer cannot reach Level 4.

How are the 9990 Paper 3 essays marked? +

Each option ends with a 6-mark describe question marked for AO1 and a 10-mark evaluate question marked for AO3. In the 6-mark question each of the two topics is levelled and the marks are added. In the 10-mark question, an answer without the named issue is capped at 4 marks.

Why can't I find 9990/11 or 9990/13 for 2026? +

Only variant 2 of the May/June 2026 papers is on the portal at the moment. Cambridge sets different variants for different time zones; variants 1 and 3 test the same syllabus in the same format, so variant 2 prepares you just as well.

When will the October/November 2026 9990 papers be available? +

Cambridge usually releases the October/November papers in the new year. We add them to the Learning Portal once they are published.

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