The Cambridge IGCSE Spanish (0530) May/June 2026 papers and mark schemes are out, and they’re free. Listening, Reading and Writing (0530/12, /22 and /42), plus the Speaking role-play cards and teacher notes, can be downloaded and printed on the Tutopiya Learning Portal. Below is a breakdown of what each paper tested and how the mark scheme gave marks, taken from the papers themselves.

Key points from the 2026 0530 papers

• Jobs and careers came up in every component. A uniform designer and a school cook in Listening, a bike mechanic and five former pupils’ careers in Reading, your dream job in Writing, and a conversation topic on future plans in Speaking.
• Holidays and getting around were the other big theme. A countryside excursion and holiday accommodation in Listening, a camping trip in Reading, transport in Writing Question 2, and role plays at a ticket office, a travel agent and a police station.
• Speaking was set across the Spanish-speaking world, with role plays in Spain, Argentina, Costa Rica, Colombia and Mexico.
• Verb endings decided Reading marks. The 2026 scheme says that in Spanish, if you don’t name the person, your verb ending must be correct, because it is the only thing that shows who you mean.
• Several Reading answers had to switch person. “Nos comparan” became “las comparan” and “las repintamos” became “las repintan”. Copying the text’s “we” form was refused.

All May/June 2026 0530 papers

Paper	Code	Duration	Marks	What it tests
Paper 1 Listening	0530/12	About 50 minutes (including 6 minutes’ transfer time)	40	37 multiple-choice and matching questions on recordings heard twice
Paper 2 Reading	0530/22	1 hour	45	Six questions: matching, multiple choice and short answers in Spanish
Paper 3 Speaking	0530/03	About 10 minutes, plus 10 minutes’ preparation	40	A role play and two topic conversations
Paper 4 Writing	0530/42	1 hour	45	A form, an 80 to 90 word task and a 130 to 140 word task

Timings and marks are taken from the front cover of each 2026 paper and, for Speaking, from the candidate cards and teacher notes. Each written paper comes with its official Cambridge mark scheme. For the full list of syllabus content, see the Cambridge IGCSE Spanish – Foreign Language 0530 syllabus.

Which variant is this? Cambridge sets different versions of each written paper (variants) for different time zones. The papers here are variant 2: 0530/12, /22 and /42. The Speaking test is component 0530/03. 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 0530 May/June 2026 papers →

What came up in 0530 Paper 1 (Listening), May/June 2026?

Paper 1 had 37 questions worth 40 marks, with every recording played twice and six minutes at the end to transfer your answers. No listening transcript comes with the 2026 Spanish set, so this summary is based only on the questions and options printed in the question paper.

Questions	Format	What it was about	Marks
1–8	Short recordings, picture choices (A–D)	A dance class with a Mexican friend: which room, what your friend will wear, the first activity, when the break ends, an instrument, where you’ll dance next week, what hurts, a film at the cinema	8
9–14	Announcement, picture choices (A–D)	A countryside excursion: how long it lasts, transport for the first part, what you can do at midday, the night-time weather, where you’ll sleep, breakfast	6
15–19	Dialogue, matching (A–F)	Elena and Pablo discuss five places to stay (a hotel, a rural house, a hostel, tourist flats, a guesthouse), matched to statements about price, room size, location and availability	5
20–28	Two-part interview, A–C	Alberto, who designs work uniforms: who Fernando Soler is, the clothes Alberto wore in a shop, how his business started, what he must think about when designing, a restaurant contract, his premises, the company logo and the hardest part of his job	9
29–34	Interview, A–D	Felipe, a cook in a school canteen: how he started there, the headteacher, the advantages of the job, something he did recently, something that once happened in the canteen, the benefits of eating well at school	6
35–37	Conversation, choose two of A–E	Sara tells her friend Pedro about a ring she lost and what happened afterwards	6

Watch for: Questions 29 to 37 give you full-sentence options that all sound plausible. Use the reading time to underline the key word in each option (who, when, where), then listen for that detail.

What came up in 0530 Paper 2 (Reading)?

Paper 2 had six questions worth 45 marks.

Question	Topic	Marks
1	Around the house: match five sentences (tidying a bedroom, the garden, the living room, a bath at night, making toast) to pictures	5
2	Signs at a music festival (T-shirts, ice cream, press only, phone charging, rest area, Mexican food, first aid, face painting): match five comments	5
3	Juan from Barcelona plans a campsite holiday with friends just over the border in France: when, where they’ll stay, who can help, what they’ll eat and do (multiple choice)	7
4	Clara, 15, on her twin sister Andrea: personality, teachers mixing them up, being in separate classes, birthdays and Christmas, different hobbies (answers in Spanish)	12
5	Five adults describe their old school (sport, tradition and uniform, languages, science, acting); match each to one of eight school adverts	5
6	Manolo, who repairs abandoned bikes at the Madrid charity Biciverde: how he works, his difficult youth, the help he received, how the bikes are restored, the environmental benefits, his plans (answers in Spanish)	11

Watch for: Question 5 had two schools for creative pupils, one for art and design and one for performing. Read for the exact skill each person describes.

What came up in 0530 Paper 4 (Writing)?

You answer Questions 1 and 2, then either Question 3(a) or 3(b).

Question	Task	Marks
1	Complete a school-exchange form: another family member at home, another pet, two favourite hobbies and another place near your home	5
2	El transporte (80–90 words): how you get to school, your favourite transport and why, how you pass the time on a long journey, when your next trip is	12
3(a)	Email to a Spanish friend about your future job (130–140 words): your dream job, subjects you’ve studied for it, working alone or in a team, working abroad, what you’ll buy with your first wage	28
3(b)	Blog about a restaurant visit last weekend (130–140 words): the food, why you chose it, the decor, something surprising that happened, whether you’ll go back	28

What made it hard: Question 3(b) mixed a past narrative (why you went, what happened) with an opinion on the decor and a future decision. Question 3(a) needed the perfect tense for subjects you’ve studied and the future for your first wage.

What came up in 0530 Paper 3 (Speaking)?

You have 10 minutes to prepare and may not make notes. The test is a role play (about 2 minutes) followed by two topic conversations of 4 minutes each. Your card and topics are allocated in a fixed sequence.

The nine 2026 role-play situations were: speaking to someone in a shop in a Spanish shopping centre; going to a café with a friend in Argentina; planning a beach birthday on holiday; buying shorts in Costa Rica; buying a train ticket from Barcelona to Madrid; phoning a cousin in Colombia about the cinema; asking for help in a pharmacy when you’re ill; booking a mountain trip with a travel agent in Mexico; and reporting a lost passport to the police in Madrid. Each has five questions.

The seven conversation topics were free time, personal relationships, healthy living, technology in your life, nature and the environment, festivals, and your plans for the future. Conversation 1 comes from the first three and conversation 2 from the last four. Some questions are hypothetical (“if you were…” or “if you had to…”), so practise answering with the conditional.

How the 0530 May/June 2026 mark scheme gives marks

Spanish has its own rules in the 2026 mark schemes, mostly about verbs. These are the ones to know.

1. Listening is one mark per correct letter. Questions 1 to 34 each need one letter. Questions 35 to 37 each need two, and each correct letter is worth one mark.

2. Without a subject, the verb ending must be right. The Reading scheme says that because Spanish often drops pronouns, an answer with no name or pronoun must have the correct verb conjugation. Even with a name, a verb ending that looks or sounds like the right one isn’t accepted if it changes the person or the tense.

3. Don’t copy the text’s “I” or “we”. In Question 4(h), “los profesores nos comparan” was refused; “las/les comparan” scored. In Question 6(g), “las repintamos” was refused, but “las repintan” scored. In Question 4(d), “en mi club” was refused, while “en el club de atletismo” or “su club” scored.

4. “tc” means not enough on its own; agreement matters. Question 4(f) needed “a la edad de cinco años”; “cinco años” alone was marked tc. In Question 4(i), “una fiesta” and “cumpleaños” on their own were tc, and adding “era divertido” invalidated the answer. Question 4(a) gave 2 marks for Andrea’s personality, and “creativo” was refused: it had to agree with Andrea.

5. The answer must answer the question asked. Question 6(h) asked for environmental benefits, so “it’s good for health” was refused even though it is in the text. In Question 6(i), lifting a phrase ending in “lo practican” was refused; you had to say what people practise (“el ciclismo”) for the answer to make sense on its own.

6. Writing Question 1 refuses anything already on the form. Any family member, pet, hobby or place scored, except “madre”, “pez” and “restaurante”, which were already printed. The wider rule: countries should be spelt as in Spanish, but any spelling of a town is accepted.

7. Question 2 is one 12-mark grid; Question 3 uses three grids. For Question 2, the 10 to 12 band needs every task in the required detail, with opinions and simple connectors. The 7 to 9 band needs most tasks, and the guidance beside it mentions at least one fully completed task and two connectors. Question 3 is marked for Task completion (10), Range (10) and Accuracy (8). “Complex structures” have no fixed list, gender errors count under Accuracy, and a very short answer with no errors is capped at 4 for Accuracy.

8. Speaking: 10 marks for the role play, 30 for the conversations. Each of the five role-play answers earns up to 2 marks. A short answer scores 2 if it fully communicates and is accurate. Across both conversations, you get one mark out of 15 for Communication and one out of 15 for Quality of Language. To reach 13 to 15 for Communication you need to develop ideas frequently and justify some answers. Frequent use of the alternative questions points to the 7 to 9 band.

Which papers should you sit?

All 0530 candidates sit the four components: Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. There are no Core and Extended versions. In Writing you choose either Question 3(a) or 3(b). If you attempt both, only the better one counts, so pick one and spend the spare time checking verb endings.

How to use the 2026 papers as a mock

1. Take Listening with the audio and the full 50 minutes, including the six-minute transfer. Practise shading one letter for Questions 1 to 34 and two for 35 to 37.
2. Answer Reading Questions 4 and 6 in the third person. Before you write each answer, decide who it is about and conjugate the verb for that person.
3. Mark Paper 2 against the “REFUSE” column. The 2026 refusals include copied “nosotros” forms and answers that are too short.
4. Plan Writing Question 3 bullet by bullet. Note the tense each bullet needs (preterite, perfect, present, future) and give an opinion with a reason in at least three of them.
5. Rehearse the seven speaking topics aloud. Time each conversation at 4 minutes and include a past event, an opinion with “porque” and a future plan.

More IGCSE Spanish resources

• IGCSE Spanish past papers (Cambridge and Edexcel, all years)
• IGCSE 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 0530 topic? Book a free trial lesson with an IGCSE Spanish tutor →

Frequently asked questions

Are the 0530 May/June 2026 past papers free? +

Yes. The Listening (0530/12), Reading (0530/22) and Writing (0530/42) papers, their mark schemes and the Speaking (0530/03) role-play cards and teacher notes are free to download and print on the Tutopiya Learning Portal.

What topics came up in 0530 Paper 2 Reading May/June 2026? +

Paper 2 had six questions: rooms and routines at home, signs at a music festival, Juan's camping holiday near the French border, Clara and her twin sister Andrea, matching five former pupils to the schools they attended, and Manolo, who repairs abandoned bikes for a Madrid charity.

What were the 0530 Writing tasks in May/June 2026? +

Question 1 was a form for a school exchange, Question 2 was 80 to 90 words on transport, and Question 3 was a choice of an email about your future job or a blog about a restaurant visit, both 130 to 140 words.

How is 0530 Paper 2 marked when I don't write a subject pronoun? +

If your answer has no name or pronoun, the verb ending must be correct, because it is the only thing showing who you mean. The 2026 scheme also refused look-alike verb endings that would change the person or tense.

Why can't I find 0530/21 or 0530/23 for 2026? +

Only variant 2 of the May/June 2026 written 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 0530 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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