The Student Room Group

Calling all fellow Astronomy GCSE Students

Hi people
I am Gemma and was lucky to be offered the rare option to take astronomy as a GCSE.I am currently in Y11 taking the astronomy GCSE exams this year.There isn’t lot of people that take this so there isn’t a lot of support and tips.This is a group to share experiences and revision tips/help on astronomy GCSE .This is also a group for anyone who is thinking of taking astronomy GCSE and would like some advice
Here are a few icebreakers
1)Why did you choose to take GCSE astronomy?
2)what do you like most about astronomy
3)what is your dream career?
4)how are you find GCSE astronomy?
5)what are your hobbies
6)how are you currently revision for GCSE astronomy?
7)fun fact about yourself
.Everyone is welcome to share options and ideas but please no cyber bullying or nasty comments.
Hope this helps
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by harrypotterfan44
Hi people
I am Gemma and was lucky to be offered the rare option to take astronomy as a GCSE.I am currently in Y11 taking the astronomy GCSE exams this year.There isn’t lot of people that take this so there isn’t a lot of support and tips.This is a group to share experiences and revision tips/help on astronomy GCSE .This is also a group for anyone who is thinking of taking astronomy GCSE and would like some advice
Here are a few icebreakers
1)Why did you choose to take GCSE astronomy?
2)what do you like most about astronomy
3)what is your dream career?
4)how are you find GCSE astronomy?
5)what are your hobbies
6)how are you currently revision for GCSE astronomy?
7)fun fact about yourself
.Everyone is welcome to share options and ideas but please no cyber bullying or nasty comments.
Hope this helps

This is a great idea :smile:

Good luck with Year 11!!
Original post by Evil Homer
This is a great idea :smile:

Good luck with Year 11!!

Hi
Thanks
are you taking gcse astronomy?
Reply 3
Hi,I’m in year 11 now and I did GCSE Astronomy last year and I got an 8. I was a few marks off a 9! I did GCSE Astronomy at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and was taught by a lecturer who also did planetarium shows. It took us about 60-70 hours to learn the course (not in extreme detail, to be honest) - in total it was about 32 weeks, with 2 hours lessons every Saturday. A lot of the work was done at home. I used space.fm and videos like Crash Course for my revision. I did loads of past papers too! Hope it helps.
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by lddo2
Hi,I’m in year 11 now and I did GCSE Astronomy last year and I got an 8. I was a few marks off a 9! I did GCSE Astronomy at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and was taught by a lecturer who also did planetarium shows. It took us about 60-70 hours to learn the course (not in extreme detail, to be honest) - in total it was about 32 weeks, with 2 hours lessons every Saturday. A lot of the work was done at home. I used space.fm and videos like Crash Course for my revision. I did loads of past papers too! Hope it helps.

Hi
That’s very helpful thanks!Well done on the Grade 8 I wish I get that !.Did you find the exam hard? Also how did you manage your coursework?
Reply 5
Original post by lddo2
The exams where’s particularly difficult for me - but I’ve loved Astronomy since I was a child. Applying your knowledge is quite difficult - that’s why you have to do past papers. Similar questions will come up and it’ll really help.The coursework wasn’t too bad. Since it isn’t marked our teacher/lecturer wasn’t too bothered about it so it didn’t have to be done up to a high standard.


Original post by harrypotterfan44
Hi
That’s very helpful thanks!Well done on the Grade 8 I wish I get that !.Did you find the exam hard? Also how did you manage your coursework?

The exams where’s particularly difficult for me - but I’ve loved Astronomy since I was a child. Applying your knowledge is quite difficult - that’s why you have to do past papers. Similar questions will come up and it’ll really help.


The coursework wasn’t too bad. Since it isn’t marked our teacher/lecturer wasn’t too bothered about it so it didn’t have to be done up to a high standard.
Reply 6
i’m just starting gcse astronomy this year (i’m in year 10) - honestly i’m super excited! i’m taking it as an extracurricular for 1-2 hours after school per week, as only 3 of us were interested. do you guys think the course is fairly easy or is it difficult? i’m predicted 8/9s in my other subjects (9s in chem, bio and physics), would you say that i’ll be able to get an 8/9 in astronomy? i want to go into academic medicine to be perfectly honest, but i just find astronomy super interesting and fun! i took btec business, and as that doesn’t have a very big exam at the end of year 11 (it’s mainly coursework) i think i’ll probably be able to handle the two astronomy exams! [i take: chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, maths (higher), english literature, english language, german, geography, religious studies (A) and btec business]
(edited 4 years ago)
Reply 7
I have similar grades to you and I didn’t find Astronomy particularly difficult. Two of my friends who also did Astronomy with similar grades got 7s. As long as you keep up with the work and revise for the exams with exam practice etc. it should be fine.Don’t spend too much time on your coursework either, just make sure it’s passable since it isn’t marked and doesn’t count towards anything. It may help you learn some things, though.
Reply 8
Original post by lddo2
I have similar grades to you and I didn’t find Astronomy particularly difficult. Two of my friends who also did Astronomy with similar grades got 7s. As long as you keep up with the work and revise for the exams with exam practice etc. it should be fine.Don’t spend too much time on your coursework either, just make sure it’s passable since it isn’t marked and doesn’t count towards anything. It may help you learn some things, though.

thank you! that’s super helpful - i appreciate the advice : )
Hi, I'm currently Year 10, going into Year 11 after this summer, doing the Astronomy GCSE, teaching myself as my school does not offer it.
It's come to that time where I have to do my coursework and I am finding it quite daunting, any advise or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. I haven't come across anyone who has done the 2017 exam yet!
I'm thinking about determining longitude using a shadow stick for my unaided task, but am struggling to settle on an aided task.
What did you do and how much did you write?
Again, any advise or support at all, I would be very thankful as this is starting to become stressful!
Thank you :smile:
Original post by Alfie Hargreaves
Hi, I'm currently Year 10, going into Year 11 after this summer, doing the Astronomy GCSE, teaching myself as my school does not offer it.
It's come to that time where I have to do my coursework and I am finding it quite daunting, any advise or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. I haven't come across anyone who has done the 2017 exam yet!
I'm thinking about determining longitude using a shadow stick for my unaided task, but am struggling to settle on an aided task.
What did you do and how much did you write?
Again, any advise or support at all, I would be very thankful as this is starting to become stressful!
Thank you :smile:

Hi,
It’s soo impressive that you are teaching yourself GCSEs astronomy- you thinking of doing astronomy at uni?
For the coursework, if I remember correctly our aided observation were startrails using fancy cameras(school loaned them). We did the stick shadow and drawing constellation. It depends what coursework it is but I think I did like 2 pages or 3 per experiment. I think also wrote an evaluation.
I hope this was helpful, it was a while back and I didn’t do the exam cause of Covid so it’s sort of hard to remember.
Feel free to ask more questions if needed
Good luck 😉
Yeah, I want to do some sort of physics or astronomy at uni, but not too sure what I actually want to do after. I'm assuming you'll want to do astronomy too at uni?
Since I'm the only one at my school doing the course and considering that it's also a mainstream school, I don't think they are going to loan some fancy cameras lol. I have asked about any equipment they may have and they do have 2 telescopes, although I haven't actually seen them yet!
I did buy a cheap telescope for myself too a while back, but like I said, it is cheap and although it does the job, it's quite poor quality.
Thanks for the advice, I think most people have done/will do the shadow stick experiment. As for the aided task, with the limited equipment I have at hand, I think I'll do the changing appearance of lunar features.
Have you got your results day quite soon, or have you got your result already?
Thanks again for the advice! :smile:
Original post by Alfie Hargreaves
Yeah, I want to do some sort of physics or astronomy at uni, but not too sure what I actually want to do after. I'm assuming you'll want to do astronomy too at uni?
Since I'm the only one at my school doing the course and considering that it's also a mainstream school, I don't think they are going to loan some fancy cameras lol. I have asked about any equipment they may have and they do have 2 telescopes, although I haven't actually seen them yet!
I did buy a cheap telescope for myself too a while back, but like I said, it is cheap and although it does the job, it's quite poor quality.
Thanks for the advice, I think most people have done/will do the shadow stick experiment. As for the aided task, with the limited equipment I have at hand, I think I'll do the changing appearance of lunar features.
Have you got your results day quite soon, or have you got your result already?
Thanks again for the advice! :smile:

Hi Alfie,
That sounds very cool, if you can’t access a camera then it’s smart to find alternatives. I got to do astronomy cause of a partnership between all of the state and private schools in my city(I am originally from a state school). So I got to go to a private school twice a week after school to learn astronomy, so I was very lucky.

I am going into y13, just finished y12, so I got my results last year. I was about frustrated with my results cause due to predicted grades my grade was brought down by 1. But it’s ok because it didn’t stop me from going to sixth form and it won’t impact my uni applications.

To be completely honest, I have changed my mind a bit and I wanna apply for midwifery, LOL. But I still loved doing astronomy any would deffo do it again
Good luck with you GCSEs and Astronomy at uni, you’ll smash it.
Any other questions, feel free to ask
Original post by harrypotterfan44
Hi Alfie,
That sounds very cool, if you can’t access a camera then it’s smart to find alternatives. I got to do astronomy cause of a partnership between all of the state and private schools in my city(I am originally from a state school). So I got to go to a private school twice a week after school to learn astronomy, so I was very lucky.

I am going into y13, just finished y12, so I got my results last year. I was about frustrated with my results cause due to predicted grades my grade was brought down by 1. But it’s ok because it didn’t stop me from going to sixth form and it won’t impact my uni applications.

To be completely honest, I have changed my mind a bit and I wanna apply for midwifery, LOL. But I still loved doing astronomy any would deffo do it again
Good luck with you GCSEs and Astronomy at uni, you’ll smash it.
Any other questions, feel free to ask


Hi again, I've now done the shadow stick observation for the unaided task as part of my coursework. I'm currently writing the evaluation as the final part.

However, I just looked in the specification to double check I have done everything I needed to. I have only done 1 experiment, while the wording in the spec says 'students will need to undertake a series of observations in order to generate sufficient data to support valid conclusions'.

Does this mean I should repeat the experiment?

Since you done this task as well, can you remember whether you repeated it multiple times?

Thanks :smile:

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