The 2006 GCSE Thread

[Zakatu]

I'm doing my GCSEs next year, can someone tell me how hard you think these are from 1-10:

 

Maths (Higher Tier, Moduler, AQA)

English Language (OCR)

English Lit (OCR)

Spanish (OCR I think, Higher Tier)

French (OCR, I think, Higher Tier)

Geography (not sure what board)

History (not sure what board)

Biology (higher tier, AQA)

Chemistry (higher tier, AQA)

RS

 

Home come you don't do any sort of physics?

 

I would say maths, spanish, chemistry, biology will be hardest.

Then english, french, history, geography

RS should be the easiest.

 

Couldn't really be more precise than that. I'm just a little suprised your not doing any sort of I.C.T or any physics.

[Haver]

It really depends on where your skills are at. I attempted a Science, Maths and Technology paper yesterday and I went to a very black place. It might as well have been written in some fucked up alien dialect. I could not decypher it.

 

But ask the Science Kids to write a sentence that does not make me want strangle them with their coloured wires and crocodile clips, or who the fuck Tom Paine was, and they will not be able to satisfy you.

 

So if you're into breaking bonds and shit, the Maths and Science exams should be easier. If you have a taste for synonyms and things that make good sense, then you're more likely to succeed on the Humanities papers. If you're an all-rounder I guess you don't need to care.

 

(EDIT: Thinking about it a little more, I'm pretty sure anyone can stumble through the English papers even if you're linguistically retarded. It's at sixth form when the teachers make a big thing about knowing your own goddamn language.)

 

 

The crucible wasnt a great book. I didn't really enjoy it. But hey - i slaved on and got an A.

 

And this is bullshit. You should go see it at the theatre, James.

[Stocka]

Done English lit this morning, and ICT this afternoon

 

English lit went really well :awesome: I'm really pleased with how I done and feel the revision really paid off.

 

ICT was okay, although a lot harder than any past papers of it I've done, majority of my friends found it really difficult.

 

PEM exam tommorow and then 12 day break woo.

[|Laguna|]

Wow, got back from the ICT and found it easy enough, although I was lucky, the small revision I did for ICT was the stuff that came up, but on the whole most of it was natural knowledge from my prologned use of computers.

For my coursework, which is 60% of the course, I got few marks off an A* so I feel I should get an A*, as with English I feel I should get an A as I am capable of getting one.

Higher Tier is a bitch though, 2h 15m of continues writing causes massive hand cramping.

[Guest Stefkov]

The It exam was the funniest exam i have ever been in! it as so easy i nearly soiled myself.

i knew it would take me less than half an hour to do it so i took my time leaving some questions to come back and think about them. took me about 45 minutes. had so much time to spare i think i was going paranoid.

 

I'm doing my GCSEs next year, can someone tell me how hard you think these are from 1-10:

1 is easy and 10 is hard

Maths = i think it would be a 4-7 but ill update when ive done it(cant believe im actually doing higher though)

English Language = expect it to be as easy as Lit so id say 1-3

English Lit =OMG the easiest english paper i have had 1

Spanish = depends how god you are or how good your eyesight is ;P but for me 3-6 some quesiotns i found easy the rest were quite difficult

French = dont do

Geography = dont do

History = dont do

Biology = all my sciences are combined into one big one so i expect it to be 4-7

Chemistry

RS = im not arsed about this, but i think it wil be 4-6

 

woo no revision done for me and al the tests have been so far easy!

[Roostophe]

I have no exams until the 5th June. I won't be able to see any of my mates until then because I live 5 miles from the school and they don't know where I live!

[Goron_3]

Done English lit this morning, and ICT this afternoon

 

English lit went really well :awesome: I'm really pleased with how I done and feel the revision really paid off.

 

ICT was okay, although a lot harder than any past papers of it I've done, majority of my friends found it really difficult.

 

PEM exam tommorow and then 12 day break woo.

 

Yeah I did my English Lit aswell and it went really well too! Now i jsut gotta revise for RS and german reading and listening for Friday before i get a 12day break

[The fish]

I did eng lit yesterday, it went pretty shitly, and im meant to be doing it next year, so im fucked...

RE(yay...) and german reading+listening(piss)

[Stocka]

Done PE this afternoon, went really well, best so far(although I did revise well so that helps)

I'm really pleased with how smoothly the first 3 GCSEs have gone and now I've got my 12 day break I'm a bit worried about some I have up ahead though, I'm so bad at chemistry, and i'll probably fail Graphics

[Guest Stefkov]

did my RE exam today, it was as easy as the english lit imo. only got stuck on one question which im sure we hadnt been tought on, what does the church do to help families stay together? so i wrote loads of random stuff.

Spanish reading tomomrow. im not bothering revising, im crap at it, im doing higher, and i know i will do really badly.

its just iknow i wont do well so why revise?

[The fish]

I'm dreading my RE exam beacause it's:

A boring as hell

B im pretty crap at it, and all my revision time from now 'till friday (when it is) is going on German listening and reading, even though they are prett piss, the are more important to me, and I also have them on friday.

But after that it's 1/2 term, which is nice, giving me a long time to prepare for geography, the sciences, history, maths, german writing, and english language (i need this to go really, really well as I fucked up the eng lit, and I'm doing english next year :S)

[Guest Stefkov]

how did you fuck up english Lit i thought it was that easy to not fuck up.

and i found out that if you have a stomach ache in the RE exam then time will go a lot quicker. i normally finish exams ith ages to spare, but i had a stomach ahe, so quite a few times i rested and put my head in my hands, then i would put my head up and 10 minutes had gone by, i finished with 10 minutes to spare which is a record for me.

[Charlie]

It really depends on where your skills are at. I attempted a Science, Maths and Technology paper yesterday and I went to a very black place. It might as well have been written in some fucked up alien dialect. I could not decypher it.

 

But ask the Science Kids to write a sentence that does not make me want strangle them with their coloured wires and crocodile clips, or who the fuck Tom Paine was, and they will not be able to satisfy you.

 

So true, science 'kids' can't think for themselves. There's one guy who was in my English class this year who is amazing at the sciences, he'll get A's in all of them no problem, but when it comes to English he can't do it at all. He'll be lucky to scrape a C. Those science guys like facts, they adore facts, and can memorise them really easily, us English boys have trouble remembering all the formulas required for the sciences, but are immense at English and thinking for ourselves what that line in that Shakespeare play actually means and why Old Will put it in there. We can decide for ourselves whether Hamlet really was mad or not. We can make up stuff about poems on the spot that we never even thought of before.

[The fish]

how did you fuck up english Lit i thought it was that easy to not fuck up.

 

Did u do the 2 texts or 3 texts exam?

Everyone in my year said it was hard, and my schools is very, very good (teaching wise).

Basicly the lord of the flies question was piss but I ran out of time:S, and the an inspector calls question was...bad, but not too bad.

The poety question, however, was a right fucker.

 

Apart from this cocked-up exam, I'm good at english and sciences, especially physics.

I'm shite at stuff like art and music though...

[Guest Stefkov]

well i did no revision, im in my schools learning resource centre and i have done my english Lit this morning.

questions i answered were,

poems: Convey how 4 poems show strong feelings throught(something along those lines)

use Catrin and one from Heaney and 2 pre-1914 poems, so i did Sonnet and On my first sonne,

then for my novel, to kil la mockingbird which i hadnt read since i did it in class like 2 months ago. the question i answered was, Harper lee shows courage in her novel, how does she do this? (again not perfect but something like that)

so you just explain how she shows courage in the people in the novel.

 

thas what i did, what do you mean by 2 or 3 texs exams? Ijust did mockingbird and the poems, got 2 language exams after half term though.

[ZeldaFreak]

1. Universities do take GCSEs into consideration (or at least the half decent ones do)

- Untrue, yes the elitist ones do, Cambridge, Oxford, Nottingham etc.. but if you are in the group of people who 'can' go to these universities you don't need advice from a thread like this. There are Universities like the university of Essex which will take you on for a degree with a GCSE in English and Maths and a pass in 1 a-level.

Colchester Institute will take you on board for diplomas that lead to degrees with grades as low a E/D in your GCSEs

 

2. Employers don't care if you got an A* or C? Don't make me laugh. There is a huge difference between an A* and a C, and they know that. Imagine you're sitting there with 2 CVs. One is full of A*s and As, the other Cs. Which candidate one do you employ? I know which one I would.

- Employers don't value GCSEs as an indication of ability.. experience goes above even some degrees in certain industries, most employers will browse your GCSEs but other things are more important- communication skills, computer skills, experience, higher qualifications.

 

3. Everything you do after GCSEs are more important, you're right. But what if you don't get the opportunities to do what you want, like a good career or a degree, because you messed around at school?

- My point was, if you're getting stressed about GCSEs and ain't gonna do great, it's not the end of the world.. other institutions will consider you for vocational courses if you show some vague motivation for the course.

You're scaremongering, not everyone wants to go to university, not everyone can.. you have been brainwashed by the education system that wants 50% of young people to go to university.

 

I'm not advocating slacking at all- everyone with a brain should realise that the benefit from an education is limitless.

I'm merely highlighting the oppurtunities to those who do not do well in their GCSEs. Schools brainwash you into thinking if you don't get Cs you're going to be a fuck up and you won't get into a further education institution.

 

You speak the truth man, most modern universities like you study basic subjects for your A-levels with old RRR of GCSE's - english, english lit and Maths(+science especially if ya wanting to science at uni)

 

But apart from that Unis like you to be seen as helping the comunity - and as I am 'youth committee chair person' on the Foresters community part of a charity based. I got in - also in other unis my grade requirement was normally 60-100 points below there normal offers for other unis.

[The fish]

thas what i did, what do you mean by 2 or 3 texs exams?

 

Lucky, I had to do a question on pre-1914 war poetry, and question on An Inspector Calls, and a question on Lord of the Flies.

The poetry was a right fucker.

[Guest Stefkov]

poetry took me 4 pages to do which i thought went well

 

had my spanish reading and i dont expect to do good. im crap so theres no point revisin what i didnt know already. no more exams until the 5th! =maths

[reaper673]

So no-one had the three exam combo of ICT, eng lit and latin virgil?

 

I was the only one sitting there for 5 and a half hours?

[The fish]

I was the only one sitting there for 5 and a half hours?

 

Ouch

 

Long time...

[Zakatu]

I remember my last day of gcse's

 

I had an hour and a half i.c.t, follower by an 1hr 30 physics extension paper, follower by a 2hr 30 statistics gcse paper...

 

so yeh, 5hr 30!

 

I think the rule is if your exams add up to more than 6hrs in one day, you can take some a day later, but you have to go spend the night at a teachers house and they basically have to keep an eye on you so you don't ring anyone up/communicate with the outside world.

 

Wouldn't really want to do that, but have heard about it.

[The Bard]

Okay many people here are doing their GCSEs very soon (like me)

 

Eh? Stocka's A GCSE student? Here I thought you were much older than that. Anyway, you should consider yourselves lucky, GCSE's are a piece of piss, with minimal revision I managed to get A*, 7A's, B, C, and this was with about 2 or 3 days worth of revision. Believe me when I tell you that next year you are going to have to work yer ass off to just scrape a C, I've got my Eng Lit AS tomorrow and it doesn't look good... oh well, I suppose theres always, F-Zero,waiting when I get back...

 

Unfortunately they made me do Lord of the Flies last year, which I connected with on an intellectual level, but still didn't enjoy at all...the other option was Catcher in The Rye,

 

which is my favourite book, so imagine how cheated I felt...

 

Anyway, for AS this year I had to do

Hamlet, Wuthering Heights, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, and Selected poems by Keats.

 

As a heads up you GCSE students should definately read either "The Great Gatsby" or "Wuthering Heights" because those are the texts you're likely to be tested on for AS.

 

EDIT:

But please, for those of you doing SATs/A Levels/Uni exams please don't discuss them in here, but rather somewhere else (preferably a seperate thread)

 

Oh Whoops...my bad...

[Guest Stefkov]

dont matter about you mentioning. i cant believe ive got a week off before more exams, shame my live trial ends 1st june. Bard what college you go to in manchester?

[Fields]

Selected poems by Keats.

Evil. Pure evil. Although I somehow got full UMS marks on the exam

[The fish]

Just got back from my dreaded RE exam, and I think it went rather well.

I've got german listening and reading this afternoon, which should go pretty smoothly.