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

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Reply 20
English Literature- Quite hard , make sure you know the books off by heart , live by websites like shmoop and spark notes , and also look at exampler essays and I'm sure you'll di fine
English Language- Theres not many things you can do wrong in English language , the more abstract your work the better , and dont be cliche in your exam , use as many literacy devices as possible, make your work very witty and to get an a A* even , use alot of satire and sacarsm , examiners literally froth at the mouth at that
Maths- quite easy , just make sure , you do alot of working out and leave 10 minutes at the end to check over answers , learn the sin ,cos and tan rule off by heart , thats where some people lose the marks especially
Chemistry- Moderately hard , read notes from getrevising and make sure you revise stuff like mols really early , make sure you know the basics like balancing equations and formulas and you'll be fine
Biology same as Chemistry , Revise really early and honestly its the easiest science to pass
Physics learn how to rearrange eqauations off by heart and start early and you'll do fine
Geography So easy to get an A* even, do not screw up your coursework though! it will screw you over , ( I got an e in mine , but got a b overall)
Business Studies - The work you put in , is what you get out
History?
Latin- Personally It was quite hard for me ,
Citizenship (half GCSE)- Easy!

I already know that Citizenship is easy, although I don't see the point in why my school makes us do it.
I would say you will probably get As if you put a good amount of effort in, although some subjects will require more effort depending on your personal strengths and weaknesses.
For example, I had to revise really hard to get an A in maths, whereas in French I did literally no extra revision for the listening exam outside of class and got full UMS. I guess I'm just not naturally very good at maths in comparison to some other subjects haha :smile:
I'm sure if you're an ambitious and hard working person then you will get the As that you want, though. It's also important to find a revision technique that works for you; for my first biology exam I got a B because my notes were really boring and I just didn't go to great lengths to make sure I could remember them. Then I decided I should work on my technique for my next biology exams because I really wanted an A*, and I got it in the end (without having to resit unit 1) :smile:


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I did Latin too. Not sure if it's changed since then but we had to memorise a passage and its English translation. I found that bit the hardest because there's no trick. You just have to learn it off by heart. It was 5 years ago though so they might have changed the syllabus.


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It really varies from person to person, but I'm in Year 11 and have been studying some of these subjects at GCSE for just over a year now, so I'll give you my personal opinions. :smile: I'm more of a Maths/Science person than a creative/English kind of person.

Feel free to just read the text in bold as it tells you my overall opinion without all the waffle it's embedded in. :wink:


English Literature - I haven't taken any exams in this as of yet but if you can write an essay well then this should be straightforward.

English Language - My school followed the "iGCSE" route for this (20% speaking and listening, 40% coursework, 40% exam). The coursework has a lot of loopholes which ensures that your teacher can help you to get the best grades possible before it's moderated. The speaking and listening is in front of one teacher and is a breeze if you're well prepared. The exam consists of 3 questions and is easy! Most people got As in the exam and also As overall because the course is really simple.

Maths - My year were the last year group at my school to do the modular course for this, so I have no idea what linear is like. The modular course was really useful as you can kinda see where you're at and calculate how many marks/UMS you'll need in the remaining units to get a certain grade. There were 3 units and I'm due to sit one in November. This was easy to obtain an A/A* grade in.

Chemistry - For me personally, this is the hardest of the 3 sciences. Although I still believe an A is relatively easy to obtain.

Biology - It's all about learning the facts. If you can put the time and effort into it then an A is easy.

Physics - Once again, this is just my opinion, but I definitely think it's the easiest of the sciences. All you need to do is apply numbers to a formula that's already given and remember some basic facts (e.g. the electromagnetic spectrum, renewable energy). A very easy A.

Geography - I personally find geography more difficult than other subjects when it comes to the exams, but we're currently doing our coursework. The coursework is so easy and accounts for 25%. So all I can tell you so far for geography is that the coursework is simple. :smile:

Business Studies - I don't study this but from what I've heard it's relatively simple if you know what you're talking about.

History - I also don't study this but my friends have said it's all about learning the facts/dates and getting it down in a well structured essay. I believe it's one of the harder options but an A is still obtainable.

Latin - I've never studied Latin and I can imagine it's much harder than other languages, but as I study German at GCSE I can tell you that it's really easy to get good grades in a language. You just need to put the time and effort in to learn the stuff for controlled assessments and then do relatively well in the exam.

Citizenship (half GCSE) - Definitely the easiest GCSE course. People of all abilities can easily obtain an A/A* with the right guidance.
:tongue:

So overall I'd say that the easiest are: Citizenship, English Language & Physics and the harder options are: Latin, History & perhaps Chemistry.

Good luck!
:smile:
Reply 24
English Literature: Very hard for me, I suck at understanding poetry, and being "perceptive", but this is for me and you may be good at this (I'm a math/science person :L)
English Language: The exam is straight forward, but a lot of work needed. Prepare 2 months in advance. The coursework and speaking and listening is pretty cool though.
Maths: Dead easy.
Chemistry: Easy
Biology: Easy
Physics: Easy
Geography: Didn't do well in this, but stay on top of your work and it is pretty easy (I didn't)
Business Studies: Dead easy
History: Pretty easy if you memorize everything
Latin: Don't know
Citizenship: Dead dead easy
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by paradoxicalme
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:

Couldnt have put it better myself :smile:
Business studies is the worst! Tbh I myself regret choosing it
did anyone sit the international gcse edexcel exam in june 2013 ? if so do you remember the question that came under, of mice and men and inspector calls ?
Reply 28
I do pretty much those GCSE's at the moment, with the exception of Geography, Business and Citizenship. The hardest are English Lit. and Latin. As long as you learn the content for history and have a basic essay structure, you'll ace it. All the sciences are content based and interpreting the questions.

Latin I find is the one I struggle with. I've been doing since Year 7 and am now in 11. There is a lot of vocab and the literature is difficult. Sources are easy because its like history and your own opinion. There is a lot of grammar to learn too. When you have vocab and grammar tests, do actually learn it! If you work really hard and revise hard, you'll be fine.

At the moment, after my mock grades, I'm predicted all A*'s and A's with the exception of Latin, which is a C
I find languages the hardest and sciences the easiest :smile:
Original post by whoviansftw
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.


It really depends on how well the subjects are taught, how much you enjoy them and how much effort you put in. GCSEs tend not to be that bad, providing you work hard - revising for mini-tests and end-of-unit tests, even when other people don't because they don't actually count towards your final grades, is really good because it usually means you have a better understanding of the topic - which leads to better grades in the end.

In my opinion:
English Language - basically analysing word choice etc. in texts and some creative writing - if you can write reasonable essays, it's pretty easy

English Literature - analysing texts - once again, if your essay-writing skills are fairly decent, it's not too hard

Maths - I find it pretty easy, I think providing you understand everything - ask your teacher if you don't - Maths is not too bad. It's nice that there's no coursework or essays!!!

Biology - agh, I find Biology pretty difficult - lots of learning of body parts and processes, but if you're good at learning lots of information, should be fine

Chemistry - once again, lots of learning - this time of reactions...

Physics - same as for Biology and Chemistry, but the grade boundaries tend to be pretty low in Physics so you don't have to get an amazing percentage in your exams to get a good grade :smile:

Geography - easy - learn the facts, but providing what you write is fairly accurate, no-one checks if your statistics are actually correct

Business Studies - I don't know

History - love it, but I think writing enough in the exams is pretty tricky, think it comes with practise

Latin - I think it's partly History and partly translation, which, providing you know the History and language elements well enough, should be fine

Citizenship - I don't know but I'm guessing is really easy. We have to do RS, which is pretty similar and I find very easy

Hope this helps :wink:
Reply 31
hi..does anyone know where I can find the citizenship today soft copy textbook( update for both the full and short course edexcel GCSE)
Reply 32
I'm in my first year of GCSE's and most my targets are A's and B's so I should be aiming for A's and A*'s.

The subjects I do are:
Chemistry
Biology
Physics
English Literature
English Language
Maths
Spanish
R.E(half GCSE)
Geography
Engineering
Product Design

Most subjects should be fairly easy if you enjoy them. If you don't, then REVISE!!! Find your weaknesses and find the subjects you need to work on and work on them more. I advise spending alot of time on Science, Maths and English. But don't completely forget about the others! As long as you listen, revise, do homework etc.. You'll be fine!
GCSEs are ez I got a legit inglish grade. Seriously, if you don't try you can still pass most.
GCSEs are ez I got a legit inglish grade. Seriously, if you don't try you can still pass most.
Original post by whoviansftw
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.
]

Really, what you'll have to do to obtain an A grade in each of these subjects is dependant on the exam board. For English Literature in most exam boards about 15-20 percent of the marks in the exam are allocated to the knowledge of context. For example if your studying the novella "Of Mice and Men" you will have to know about the great depression.

For mathematics you will need a good knowledge of topics and apply logic to every answer. Past papers will help develop your skills to the A, A* standard
Original post by whoviansftw
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.


All of them are moderate (not too hard not too easy), but if you really want to get A's in all of them you need to glance over the exam boards specification for each subject and use logical, coherent responsive answers in structured questions. In maths and aspects of science (especially physics and chemistry) you will need to apply logic.
**** this **** i got a a*!!!!!!!
Reply 38
Ok- I just want to say that no-one who has sat GCSEs this year or before can comment. It's all changed, the grading system is now scored from 1-9 and they are meant to be significantly harder. I sat my GCSE's this year and got A/A* grades in most academic subjects (for example I didn't in PE), my sister started her GCSEs this year and they are totally different.

Just thought I would throw this in. As with everything, it would be pointless if they were easy!
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by saraw26
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:


HOW?? do you do so well in physics!!
i find physics pretty hard to beat?!
is physics really that easy ?

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