How hard is it to get A's in these GCSE's?

Hi, so basically I'm starting my GCSE's and I was just wondering how hard each of these are. Of course I'm not expecting one person to know the difficulty for all of them, but if people could tell me what they know that would be great. :smile:

The GCSE's I'm doing are;

English Literature
English Language
Maths
Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Geography
Business Studies
History
Latin
Citizenship (half GCSE)

I already know that Citizenship is easy, although I don't see the point in why my school makes us do it.

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Reply 1

Okkefac

Hi! Well it really depends on person to person, but as long as you revise you should be able to do well in any subjects.
Personally I found maths a very easy subject, and was able to get an A* with minimal revision, yet I didn't find the English subjects as easy, and ended up with a B in English (and I'm very happy I even did that well!).
From experience I'd say languages are very hard, so you may have to revise quite a lot for Latin, unless you are really good at languages.
Just find out your weaknesses and strengths and focus on what you're weak at, you don't need to worry too much this year though, just make sure you revise for your exams and do all the work and the As shouldn't be too difficult to obtain :smile:

But it doesn't matter too much if you don't get all As though, so don't stress about too much with them!

Reply 2

username1042689

English Literature - hard work and good exam technique needed.
English Language - see Lit, but the Lang exam is hell. You'll need a fair bit of practice.
Maths - quite easy to get a high grade in, if you just learn the techniques.
Chemistry - swallow the facts and do a lot of past papers and you'll be fine.
Biology - see Chem.
Physics - see Chem.
Geography - just have to learn the facts. Not that hard a GCSE.
Business Studies - from what I've heard, this really isn't very hard.
History - You have to work really hard to learn everything for this subject.
Latin - See History.
Citizenship (half GCSE) - piece of piss

You'll be fine :smile:

Reply 3

chickenman

Everyone is different so here's my ratings. (0 being very easy to 10 being hard)

English Literature (6/10)
English Language (4/10)
Maths (1/10)
Chemistry (2/10)
Biology (2/10)
Physics (2/10)
Geography (2/10)
Business Studies (depends on the board, I did IGCSE and found it hsrd so 4/10)
History (3/10)
Latin (7/10)
Citizenship (half GCSE) (1/10)

Doubt this will help you. But yeah.

Reply 4

ToLiveInADream

English Literature
English Language
Maths
Chemistry
Biology
Physics
Geography
Business Studies

(Those are the ones I'm doing^)

I'm in my second year of GCSE right now and I think I'm on track to get A*s in all but maybe geography [an A! :smile:

]. I'm doing the coursework for all three of the sciences at the moment and they're going really well! Maths is just knowing the material and practicing it. Business is very easy to at least get an A, I think. I'm also doing Business coursework right now and it is really straightforward. Eng lang and lit is amazing! (I may be bias). English has always appealed to me, but if you're not especially good at it naturally just practice simple PEE for lit and language (I'm doing the exam in a few weeks) is really just PRACTICE. Geography...I may not be the right person to go for advice :tongue:

I find the subject exceptionally boring but some topics do actually interest me, and again it's just revision and applying it in the exam.

Reply 5

chickenman

But in general it is not hard to get A's. They are quite simple tbh.

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Reply 6

Aardvark1998

Original post by whoviansftw

Provided nothing much has changed since I sat mine...

English Lit - Not too bad, read the mark schemes and understand what's being asked of you and it's okay. I got an A*.

English Lang - Pretty easy for anybody who's a good writer, it's not about showing off, it's just about showing that you've got a firm grasp of how to manipulate and understand language. Lots of extra reading from a critical view point helps.

Maths - Easy for most intelligent people, the same questions come up year in year out. Do all the past papers and you'll probably have done half the exam paper before you've even sat down.

Chemistry & Physics - I got a B and found them fairly difficult. They're obviously quite precise subjects so you need to know your stuff. I don't think I did enough revision for either which let me down and stopped me from getting an A, so don't make that mistake.

Biology - Reasonably easy, it's quite vague at this level so you can get away with a little bit of waffle. Some of it is quite 'common sensey' as well. I got an A without too much work, you do need to know the stuff pretty well though.

Geography - Stupidly easy, you can make up all of the case studies during the exam and it's basically 50% for an A (it was for my exam board anyway). Very general knowledgish, just learn the technical side and you should be able to walk it.

Business Studies - Not heard a lot about the GCSE. Many people consider the A level to be a bit of a joke because it's very easy to get high grades though.

History - Pretty hard! Lots of essay writing, it's a lot more 'A level style' than most GCSEs. You really need to know your stuff otherwise you're not going to manage it. There are no elements of the syllabus that you can just ignore either, they'll set entire papers based on the most minute, seemingly irrelevant detail of your textbook. :L

Latin - Not too sure, probably pretty hard. The only people I know who've done it are grammar school students, which probably says a lot.

Citizenship - Half a burnt roast potato would probably not struggle too much in getting a half decent grade.

Reply 7

blue_box

I have just came out of high school and from what i know Eng lit is hard. As for your other subjects they are okay but you need alot of practise.

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Reply 8

TherHig

Original post by whoviansftw

depends on the exam boards. English lit and lang im doing aqa and theres a lot of coursework which I like (especially cos my teacher lets us redo them if we did bad and helps us a lot). Maths ive always been good at you just learn the methods and practice some questions. Sciences im on aqa and you honestly just need to learn what it says in the cgp revision books and youll get an A*. Geography is actually quite hard (im on edexcel). the coursework we have just finished took forever and you need to analyse the information we collected on a fieldtrip to the beach! there are a lot of case studies to learn. im on edexcel for business and I found the coursework hard but that's just cos my teachers rubbish, its very much a vocational course really as its really easy ( I mean 25% of your grade is a multiple choice test). edexcel for history and its really hard like geography. so many essays but its worse than English because you have to memorise lots of facts! Im doing german and theres a lot of grammar involved in it - similar to latin I believe - im more worried about getting the adjective endings right than actually learning the vocab! Im also doing RE which is really easy so im guessing citizenship is similar. :biggrin:

Reply 9

whoviansftw

Original post by TherHig

depends on the exam boards.

I know that Geography, Business and all the Sciences are following the
Edexcel course and I think English is AQA. I know we use the Cambridge Latin Course textbooks for Latin and I'm not certain on all the others.

Reply 10

whoviansftw

And I appreciate all these answers.
I'm in Year 9 so I obviously won't have all my predicted grades yet. I'm doing History GCSE from Years 10-11 as a late GCSE and I start the Latin GCSE course in Year 10 and finish in Year 11 (even though I've been learning it since Year 7.)
I've got my English Lit and Lang targets for the end of Year 11 and they are both A* :smile:

I think I might be getting my target for Maths soon though...

Reply 11

AparnaX

Depends on what kind of a person you are. If you are mathsy or sciency then you'll find maths and sciences to be easy as ****. Do a lot of exam practise though as exam technique is as important as knowing your stuff. Don't under or ovestimate the difficulty of the exams; do lots of past papers. If not mathematically or scientifically inclined, I'd recommend watching videos, practising and really trying to understand the concepts in the books from day 1. Ask questions, if you're embarrassed, talk to your teachers on an individual basis. Don't feel like you're wasting their time though, it's their job.

Regardless of whether you are good at humanities, they'll still be the hardest exams I think. Especially stuff like English literature, language, history. So LOTS of exam practise in writing essays and articulating your points etc. needed for these. Definitely try your best in the coursework. In history, try and remember lots of dates and facts to relate to what you want to say. You get marks for contextual knowledge, and the marks are only awarded if you give sufficient detail.

But i did different exam boards to you so I'm not 100% sure if all this is relevant.
Geography is kind of in the middle, it's not like really easy, but its not really hard. Again, just focus on exam technique for the case study questions and if not confident with map work, definitely work on that as they're easy marks.

Latin I didn't do but apparently if you work well throughout the year and put enough effort in, the exams are piss easy because you know a lot about them before going into the exam. It's all about actually using this to your advantage and doing the work required. But the grammar is apparently quite confusing and some passages seem almost incomprehensible because of their ****ed up word order. But I think you get the passages and are able to translate them before the exam so you just need to memorise a lot of stuff.

Reply 12

TherHig

Original post by whoviansftw

I think I might be getting my target for Maths soon though...

Doing GCSEs in yrs 10-11 is normal, so I would have guessed you were in year 10. It just shows how able you are so forget the As; go for the A*s!

Reply 13

c_k62

IMO, history is the 'hardest', but it's still not hard

Reply 14

whoviansftw

By late, I meant to distinguish it from Geography and Business which is what I do from Year 9-10 as 'Early Entries' as my school refers to it. Sorry about that :P

Reply 15

JPL9457

interestingly, everyone keeps saying maths is easy, and i agree. but nationally, less than 5% of people got A*s in maths, compared to about 14% for Biology

Reply 16

Zango11

To be honest it depends on the person and if they're good at the subject or not as well. For example I found chemistry and maths the hardest and actually revised for them the most but still only managed to get a C in both (which I was actually amazed at as I had gotten U's and D's in them for two years :biggrin:

)

I can give you advice on the subjects I did well in that you're doing (A's and high B's) however my examination board was CCEA so some of this may not apply or could be slightly different but generally it's the same.

History- You need to learn the dates and events well and if you have good technique with source questions you can easily get full marks in them, just takes practice!

English Literature: Know the play well and if it's a closed book exam then learn about 5-7 really good quotes that can be applied to most topics of the play. As for poems learn the different techniques eg sibilance, alliteration etc well so you can find them easily for the unseen poem and for the two poems you have to compare and contrast in case you can't remember what there methods are. For GCSE it's fine if you just mention the techniques and explain what they do to the poem and why the poet has included them. However as I'm beginning to learn for AS and A-level you can need to mention techniques that only apply to the question or compares directly with the other poem! Something to keep in mind if you want to do A-level :biggrin:

English Language: Try and use a wide range of vocabulary in the creative writing but don't use long, fancy words if your task is to write something for primary school children! Be careful of that as some people fell into this trap last year.

Try your best and you'll be grand! Best of luck :biggrin:

GCSEs are easy

Of what I took, I got:

English Literature - A*
English Language - A
Maths - A
Chemistry - A
Biology - A
Physics - B
Geography - A
Business Studies - Didn't take
History - B (coursewok got marked down :frown:

should have got an A
Latin - Didn't take
Citizenship (half GCSE) - Didn't take.

I am probably about average and worked moderately for them. Like other posters said, GCSEs are easy, but put in the work anyway, then you can't do anymore and can't be annoyed at yourself as you've done your best.

Good luck :smile:

Reply 19

Glitch96

Original post by whoviansftw

English Literature -
medium, if you can put yourself in the characters shoes and analyze extracts well, picking out grammar and what not, I know someone who got a B and didn't even read one of the books! (not advisable :tongue:

)

English Language -
Medium, just practice writing your own stories really, memorize grammar techniques for taking apart extracts as in literature. It's strange as you will get marks for using things like repetition and what not, it may be an awful story but still get an A :/

Maths -
IMO easy/medium, if you put in the effort to revise, once the topics click you're good to go, be sure to do many, and I mean many past papers, its common for similar questions to come up, oh and your teacher may or may not teach the A* topics so take things into your own hands with a revision guide (i had edexcel)

Chemistry -
Not too sure what to put here, I found it medium/hard but I got B and an A in my double science exams, the weight of compounds and atom structure pulled me up I think

Biology - Easy/medium, just a memory game, learn the different.... 'mechanisms' of the body and what they do, a flowchart of the cloning process ect...

Physics -
Easy, just stick numbers into the formulas and learn about renewable energy, some speed graphs i think... that's about it.

Geography -
Didn't do geography but apparently its somewhat easy, especially the coursework task, you get something like 16 hours to do it in.

Business Studies -
Easy, the examiners are picky and you get given a business scenario, there are strategies that in real life would work but isn't what the exam board wants, so read up the mark schemes, again the same with coursework, very easy on personal experience, they even mark it, give it back, and you have an hour to correct one of the papers! O.O overall it's mainly common knowledge with a business hat on.

History -
Medium, for some reason I got a C in this despite A-A*'s in past papers... guess I couldn't work under the pressure. You just need to analyze sources (extracts, photos...) and explain how they relate to say racism, again just quote a bunch of details from class notes.

Latin - Sounds tough to me :colondollar:

I did Spanish and it was, you guessed it, a game of how much you can memorise, just mess around with a dictionary and half the battle is over... if it's like
Spanish.

Citizenship (half GCSE) -
Not sure if this is like RE in a way, with you questioning ethics and morals, if it is, then it is very easy, just voice your own opinion.

Overall just pay attention in class, make notes from the get go summarizing all the topics you go though with examples, make sure you get everything and if you don't, make sure you get it inside out straight away and you'll be fine! :biggrin:

(edited 10 years ago)