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Which Exam Boards are best for GCSEs?

Hey everyone! I was wondering what exam boards are better for what subjects, as I hear some exam boards and better than others. I'm a little confused on which board to take as I will be homeschooled by the time I do my GCSEs so any help would be greatly appeciated!

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 1

HarryTHP

Original post by 1zumii

AQA and OCR tend to be the most popular with Edexcel / Pearson, WJEC / Eduqas following behind.

It really depends for each subject. A board could be easier for one subject and harder for another. I like to think that OCR are a bit more prestigious, but honestly it doesn't really matter. In the future after you've got A Levels, a degree or whatever you want to do, nobody is going to care what board you went with and a lot of the time don't even ask the grades.

The only thing specificially choosing boards would be useful for is if you're going on to do A Levels and you know what subjects you want to do. If you do a GCSE with the same board that a VI Form uses for the A Level in that subject, your progression of learning between the two will be a bit smoother. For example, I did AQA Computer Science, but my A Level for Computer Science is under OCR, so I found that I didn't have some of the knowledge that people doing the OCR GCSE had and also knew a bunch of stuff that wasn't needed. However, even this doesn't really matter as it's very minor and the content for a subject with each board is ever so similar.

Ultimately, I'd go with AQA or OCR...

Reply 2

Compost

I'm assuming you're in England. If you're not then say so.

All exam boards are of similar difficulty and equally valued and, if you stick to GCSEs, there aren't major differences between them as they all have to comply with Ofqual's requirements. Subjects with coursework (called 'non-examination assessment '(NEA)) cause issues for private candidates and the solution can be to take IGCSEs (International GCSEs) instead as these always have a non-coursework option. AQA does not allow private candidates to enter for some subjects with significant NEA - e.g. Art, DT - but they're just open about it, it's just about as hard with the other boards. For a similar reason for Sciences it's generally best to take Pearson Edexcel IGCSE Sciences rather than GCSE with any of the GCSE boards.

The popular subjects are offered by all 4 exam boards for England - AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel and Eduqas but less popular subjects will be offered by fewer of them (e.g. only 2 offer Chinese and only one does Astronomy). Most people take GCSEs with a mix of boards and there's no need to stick with the same board between GCSE and A level for a subject. Which exam board is more popular depends on the subject - Pearson Edexcel is the most popular board for GCSE Maths but AQA is more popular for English and modern languages.

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Don't think it really matters, most GCSE students have little choice with exam boards and they will just be chosen by the teacher/school, and most will end up with a mix of exam boards across their various subjects. Overall the content will be broadly similar or the same, there may just be slight differences in how they assess different parts of the syllabus and in the style of exam questions; such things aren't necessarily going to affect everyone in the same way, and some people may do better or worse with one style than another, so I don't think there is any general answer as to which is "best" because I don't think there is an overall "best", it just depends on the individual.

If you wish to you could look through the specifications for the subject(s) under consideration for the different exam boards and compare them, and also compare the format of past papers. Do note as well what, if any, coursework is required for each exam board, as it may vary. I don't think overall it will enormously influence your results though so if in doubt just pick one arbitrarily!

Reply 4

pewdiepie01

Edexcel is personally the hardest especially for subjects like maths whereas for maths AQA would seem easier. OCR and AQA seem easier for all the subjects when you look at their gcse papers.

Reply 5

HarryTHP

People say Edexcel is harder for Maths but for everything else I've always heard it's the easiest

Reply 6

pewdiepie01

Original post by HarryTHP

People say Edexcel is harder for Maths but for everything else I've always heard it's the easiest

I'm doing Edexcel for higher maths and I'm suffering I feel ever more sorry for ppl stuck in foundation even worse for them (despite me being in higher the foundation paper looks hard lmao)

Reply 7

HarryTHP

Original post by Rohan15

I'm doing Edexcel for higher maths and I'm suffering I feel ever more sorry for ppl stuck in foundation even worse for them (despite me being in higher the foundation paper looks hard lmao)