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Is computer science gcse hard?

Hi
I'm in year 9 picking my options and was wondering what computer science was like.

How fluent in code do you need to be?

Reply 1

Jay Caz

It's GCSE I would find it hard to believe that they would teach you anything more than the basics of a language, and you won't need prior knowledge when in year 9.

Reply 2

aergaergaergaerg

Original post by progamer35

Hi
I'm in year 9 picking my options and was wondering what computer science was like.

How fluent in code do you need to be?

You don't need to be fluent in any programming language. I'd say basic prior knowledge to the language you will be using (just ask a teacher and they will tell you) will be very beneficial. I would say it is a hard GCSE, but if you are not interested in computers then you will definitely find it very hard to motivate yourself to revise for it.

Original post by Jay Caz

It's GCSE I would find it hard to believe that they would teach you anything more than the basics of a language, and you won't need prior knowledge when in year 9.

It is more theory based than programming.

Reply 3

BTAnonymous

Hey!

I had a 'computer science' teacher who was an electronics teacher and ICT teacher. He had no clue about what he was talking about and we spent basically half an academic year doing binary and hexadecimal... I also had no prior coding background.

I got an A on the 25th of August.

How? Excellent coursework, A*A, got a B in the exam with minimal revision.

I guess I was kind of lucky though because I did ICT which tied in nicely with networks and stuff, I use computers a lot and the specification was odly short (OCR).

I think 50% of our class (about 25 of us) got A*-A which was just hilarious! Looks great on my teacher! lmfao!

Anyway, I think the curriculmn has reduced proportion of which coursework contributes to your final grade? Regardless, if you want a high grade, get an A*/high A in your coursework, it helps.

In terms of coding, I guess it'll help if you know any but it really is not necessary. I mean if you have an extreme interest in coding then go ahead and learn all the code you want but in terms of the GCSE qualification, no coding background is required, only common sense and half a brain.

The content in the course as well wasn't overly difficult actually. It was all very VERY basic coming from my peers who do A-level Computing.

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 4

Becca2000

Original post by progamer35

Hi
I'm in year 9 picking my options and was wondering what computer science was like.

How fluent in code do you need to be?

I currently do OCR computer science, the theory is fairly straightforward, though the coursework as my school did it wasn't too bad though very time consuming. This is of course old GCSE though. In my exams I don't need fluency in any language, only pseudo code

Reply 5

3121

The coursework is hard! I might purchased my code but anyway, the main part of the coursework is explaining your code and how you did things/why you did things/how you fixed stuff. The exam was soooo easy.

Reply 6

arjanvirdi

Since you're year 9, I don't think you have the coursework. You can spend lots of time learning, and getting it correct in school. It should be good, as long as the teacher can teach. In my school, the whole year 11 got kicked off because they didn't have enough time for the coursework and theory. O_o

Reply 7

Tran27

any help for aqa computer science?

Reply 8

R1_K

Original post by progamer35

Hi
I'm in year 9 picking my options and was wondering what computer science was like.

How fluent in code do you need to be?

Only pick computing if you are willing to do lots of coursework, and as for knowledge on coding, you don't even need to be fluent as you will learn it along the way.

Reply 9

LukeA123

Done computer science for GCSE, wasn't really hard just lots of programming coursework. I didn't know how to program at all and coursework was all good. While some of the units were okay, others were really boring. I can't speak for the new gcse, but for the old gcse it was not that hard to get an A* at all (in my opinion), especially if your interest is with computing.

Reply 10

Balkaran

Original post by progamer35

Hi
I'm in year 9 picking my options and was wondering what computer science was like.

How fluent in code do you need to be?

I'm doing computer science this year and it is easy but don't listen to me or anyone as you will be doing the new spec. Which is only 20% course and 80% theory. My brother is doing it and he is 2 years younger (he started in year 9 this year). He has to learn much more stuff then I did.
Some of the stuff that he knows I don't even know and i'm doing my GCSE this year and I am predicted an A.

Only pick it if you have a like for the subject and are willing to revise and remember multiple different concepts.

You don't need to be fluent in code at all.

The new spec is so much more difficult.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 11

alotofonetoknow

imo it's one of the easiest subjects but apparently the coursework is hard (im on aqa), it's a nice break from stuff like history and geography. the coding you do is quite basic and some bits you don't even need to code, they let you draw a flow chart. i guess it could be hard if you're not a logical thinker but you can pick up the skill quickly.

Reply 12

Blenkk

Quite enjoyable as long as you listen and learn the essentials for the language you're learning, you'll learn the rest as you go along. Coursework is really time consuming as it consists of explaining and testing your code

Reply 13

physconomics

i'm doing my computer science gcse next week, for the old spec, and the content we do is incredibly easy. once you have the grasp of the basic concepts any question is pretty much straightforward. the only thing i would say is there's quite a bit of content so if you don't have a good memory then it might be a bit difficult