[joekang]

I used to totally obsess over end of term grades and exams, and now I've realised how completely unimportant everything I've done up until this May has actually been.

I'm not saying that me being a reasonably good student up until now hasn't helped, it's just that if I had realised this before I started secondary school then I would have avoided a lot of unnecessary stress and worry.

It's rather ironic - You only realise how unimportant certain things were when you're faced with the 2 of the most important years of your life.

I'm still a little hung over from celebrating last night, and I've found that I like to start deep philosophical discussions when I'm drunk or near drunk.

[Melting Sugar.]

I reckon the stress and worry helped things

[Tallon]

i'm happy with mine and got way, way better than I expected in my most optimistic scenario. I'm so greedy though because I wish i got A in chem and bio now because I didn't really care in year 10 and never redid modules. I now want to do actuarial science at lse but I might be pushing it. so thrilled though, especially with both English gcses.

[GavinMcG91]

And in another 2 years time after doing your A-levels you'll realise that you shouldn't have worried too much about these GCSEs!

[j_chiye]

I should have taken coursework a bit more seriously.
I had to drop out of Art because i never did any coursework (stupid, i kno).
And i got a B in english lit (because of crappy coursework) and an A in IT when i should hav gotten an A*(i was the best in class and averaged 95 % in EVERY testwe did, including the mock where i got 98%).

My advice - do you coursework IMMEDIATELY. You'll have plenty of time to perfect it (and you wont have to drink coffee and red bull non stop the week before its due in order to finish it all. lol).

As for the other subjects - ***** them only do start revising before the mocks and you'll be fine

[insparato]

To be fair, Once you get past GCSE and A levels, nobody gives a hoot at Uni. Its only ever important at the time, just got to think of it as a stepping stone to bigger and better things in subjects you want to do. You need certain grades to do certain things, if you get them super duper if not have to choose something else. I wouldn't say what you've done has been a waste because it hasnt, it just allows you to approach A levels.

[Kameo]

You actually only need to pass GCSE's and depending on what you take in A levels need to get at least a certain grade, though it's still good to try to do well and get A's and A*'s as a self achievement. Unis don't really care about GCSE except that you passed in English and Maths and look towards more your A Levels which you need to do well in.

[rurounikenji]

hey if you passed all of your GCSE's apart from one, is it possible to do alevels and retake one GCSE subject e.g. maths or somethin

[becky.fm]

Originally Posted by rurounikenji

hey if you passed all of your GCSE's apart from one, is it possible to do alevels and retake one GCSE subject e.g. maths or somethin

Yeah, loads of people do that. When you start your A Levels, ask your sixth form/college to enter you for Maths GCSE or whatever.. some might give you lessons even!

[rurounikenji]

But is the maths GCSE really a whole full year or is there some sort exam in december or something? And guessing since i got a D in maths i cant do business a levels while retaking maths or can i ?

[Sk1lLz]

Originally Posted by Kameo

You actually only need to pass GCSE's and depending on what you take in A levels need to get at least a certain grade, though it's still good to try to do well and get A's and A*'s as a self achievement. Unis don't really care about GCSE except that you passed in English and Maths and look towards more your A Levels which you need to do well in.

This is far from what I've heard from other TSRers concerning Oxbridge; and I'm not talking about Medicine either.

[Melting Sugar.]

oh if you do applied ICT edexcel double award then coursework counts A CRAZY AMOUNT

so do it well and make sure you have a good teacher marking it (this is provided yours isn't going in to the exam board)

Even though mine wasn't sent away my teacher still gave me a crappy mark, but TBH I spent my lessons having fun with my friends and not actually working hard on the coursework (if you do the course you'll know how long and boring the coursework is because it basically IS the course).

[squid]

I've realised that doing the work is in fact, necessary.

[Melting Sugar.]

but to be fair a lot of people like to stir things up on here and also dont forget they take into consideration what school you went to etc.. so if you went to the top school and failed all your GCSEs because you 'CBA' and got Ds in your mocks then yes maybehmm

[jelly1000]

Geography is an utter waste of time. I had to put in more effort than it was worth to even get a B. And what people tell you about how you go up 2 grades between mocks & the real thing isn't really true for most subjects. I went down in English Lit [from an A* to an A =(], stayed the same in Classics, German, Maths & English, went up by one in History and Geography and only really made a significant improvement in Drama, going up 3 grades. And this was with lots of revision. I didn't do mocks in Core/Additonal Science, so I can't comment on that.