The Student Room Group

June exams same as January?

Hiyya, i'm confused about the setup of the Biology GCSE's because some people have had theirs already (January) and i was wondering whether they are different or harder than the ones in June?
Reply 1
They MUST be equal in terms of difficulty. Btw have you finished the whole of B2? In class, we have not even started a bit of it which is frightening.
Reply 2
They will be different than the June's one. This is so that people don't cheat of course and get hold of the Jan paper and get the answers. The same is for any other paper for other exam board/subject/level.

As for difficulty - this is normally how you would feel. If you can answer the questions and think you are right, then you could have found the paper easy, whilst the opposite is hard. Of course people have different opinions on the difficulty of the paper. But that shouldn't matter in terms of the grades - its how people do in the paper.
Reply 3
My teacher said that January exams are always harder than June - not sure why though.
Original post by Firuza1029
Hiyya, i'm confused about the setup of the Biology GCSE's because some people have had theirs already (January) and i was wondering whether they are different or harder than the ones in June?


They have to be the same difficulty level, however if people find the paper easier/harder the grade boundaries will be adjusted accordingly.

For example if everyone finds the June paper hard, then grade boundaries will be low, and if people find it easy then grade boundaries will be high. This helps to solve the problem of 'harder' exams from one exam session to the next.
Reply 5
thankyou for replying!

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