How Can You Sit a GCSE Early?

How is it possible?? How can you sit a History exam in one year when the course sooooooo needs 2 years? Or how can you sit a Maths exam in a year when you need to learn all the formulas and rules etc..?? I don't get how people can sit them early when they are doing about 10 or 11 subjects already :confused:

Fair enough that some kids are a smart cookie...but how can they sit and exam a year early?? do they revise ALL through the summer before or all over Easter or what?? :confused:

Reply 1

abc101

17

Sorta easy really - for one, you can start the course in Year 9 thus sit the exam in Year 10, which is what we did for one. Or divide the course carefully - something like English is fairly easy to do - you get a set number of lessons per week over Year 10 and 11 to study English Language and English Literature. Just spend all Year 10 on English Language and take it at the end of that year, then spend Year 11 on English Lit - we did that and it worked! If you can do it, it's such a weight off your shoulders! You'll do better in the ones you take early as you have nothing else to worry about at the time, plus it lessens the Y11 workload and means less subjects to revise.

I totally get what you mean about History though! Unless your school gives you twice the amount of lessons it'd be hard for something like that! The coursework takes ages on its own! Some people do languages early which I think is a bit weird, 'coz if you have an extra year you learn more vocabulary and more intriguing grammar and syntax, so you can say more impressive things!

Reply 2

Excalibur

15

I think with some subjects it's just impossible - for History, for example, we literally finished the course on the last day of term. But for things like Maths it's quite possible to do in a year; the pace will be faster but if Maths is your thing, then it's not too hard.

Reply 3

Balky_Bear

2

When people in my (old) school take subjects early they normally take them in yrs 8 and 9. I took art and design in yr 9 so obviously i didnt have to worry about my other subjects too much. When i did AS art and design i had extra lessons of art, 4 lessons instead of 2.

Reply 4

tiger_vio

11

Year 8's are doing their Music gcse next year- can you believe it!? I think that's a mistake as their teacher is often off ill from school, etc. Preparing for perorming took us a good 3 months, composing took up the most of year 10, and listenning the most of year 10 :/ Not only that, but seems he 'dumps' his top set music class and teaches the GCSE kids, which makes the gap between the 'prodigies' and the just 'clever' kids even bigger. I think year 7,8 and 9 for music is so important in building up confidence and listenning skills.. even if they do pass GCSE, there will be a lot of basic knowledge missing which will mean struggling at AS/A level.

Reply 5

tiger_vio

11

Balky_Bear

When people in my (old) school take subjects early they normally take them in yrs 8 and 9. I took art and design in yr 9 so obviously i didnt have to worry about my other subjects too much. When i did AS art and design i had extra lessons of art, 4 lessons instead of 2.

Wow, I wish we'd started in year 9. Ours was a right struggle to fit in before the deadline :/

Reply 6

Balky_Bear

2

tiger_vio

Wow, I wish we'd started in year 9. Ours was a right struggle to fit in before the deadline :/

I did the GCSE in one year but the class only did the absolute minimum and to be honest didn't enjoy very much because we were rushed so much.

Reply 7

tiger_vio

11

Balky_Bear

I did the GCSE in one year but the class only did the absolute minimum and to be honest didn't enjoy very much because we were rushed so much.

Ah I see. But I think it would be a good idea for those who do double art and design (in our school, we did it as a double but you can do it as a single too) to start in year 9. It would be much less of a rush then.

Oh and exalibur, a bit random- but your signature makes me giggle :P I HATE apostrophe abusers.. or as they'd say, "abuser's." Gah. And I love les mis :wink:

Reply 8

Cataclysm

2

Well there is a ritual you have to go through; only the few know it. Everyone else can't, it's too dangerous!

Melodrama aside, it depends on your school, I just asked my teacher (maths) if she could help me out with extra stuff and I came along every Thursday for 45 minutes and every Friday for 30 minutes to learn material relevant to the Add. Maths exam. I did a lot of self study though and then when she though I was ready enough she entered me for the exam

---> did it ---> got an A* ---> back of the net ---> score!

Reply 9

Excalibur

15

tiger_vio

Ah I see. But I think it would be a good idea for those who do double art and design (in our school, we did it as a double but you can do it as a single too) to start in year 9. It would be much less of a rush then.

Oh and exalibur, a bit random- but your signature makes me giggle :P I HATE apostrophe abusers.. or as they'd say, "abuser's." Gah. And I love les mis :wink:

Hehe thanks :p:

And I absolutely adore the Les Mis musical!!

Reply 10

calcium878

18

I think it's pretty much been covered - langauges should be OK if you're fluent, and maths/music/art if you're just naturally good at it. I don't know of many people taking several "facty" subjects early e.g Science and Geography and History etc..., though I appreciate people may just take one or two of those early if they can.

Reply 11

kellywood_5

17

As far as I know, nobody took any GCSEs early in my school. I'd imagine it's mainly a grammar/private school thing where they have enough bright students to form 'accelerated' classes.

Reply 12

Excalibur

15

kellywood_5

As far as I know, nobody took any GCSEs early in my school. I'd imagine it's mainly a grammar/private school thing where they have enough bright students to form 'accelerated' classes.

... or possibly for 'specialist' comprehensives. Our school is (supposedly) a Maths & Computing specialist college, so a lot of Year 10s take Maths GCSEs early.

Reply 13

harr

15

calcium878

I don't know of many people taking several "facty" subjects early e.g Science and Geography and History etc..., though I appreciate people may just take one or two of those early if they can.

The sciences are pretty easy to take early because you just have to remember key words in exams. Your skills don't develop much in GCSE sciences once you've learnt everything (while in essay subjects such as english you can just keep on getting better), you have to go on to harder material if you want to improve, so you can take them a year or two early and you'll do basically the same as long as you learn the facts and then you can study more advanced material for the next year or two so you will be better prepared for A levels.

Reply 14

calcium878

18

harr

The sciences are pretty easy to take early because you just have to remember key words in exams. Your skills don't develop much in GCSE sciences once you've learnt everything (while in essay subjects such as english you can just keep on getting better), you have to go on to harder material if you want to improve, so you can take them a year or two early and you'll do basically the same as long as you learn the facts and then you can study more advanced material for the next year or two so you will be better prepared for A levels.

Oh yes I know people take Science early, but I said it was probably unusual to take multiple fact-learning subjects early, such as Science and History and Geography etc...

Reply 15

harr

15

Sorry. I thought you were talking about more than one fact learning subject (i.e. more than one science) instead of a variety of fact learning subjects.

Reply 16

Happy1

14

My school forced us to take Maths early because we were the top sets, but only 5 out of the 60 who took it in November got A*s, whilst more people who were supposed to be in lwer sets, that took it in summer, got A*s.

So, i wouldnt recommend taking them early - didnt help me in teh slightest. No point realy - might as well give yourself ore time to revise and understand.

Oh - and my school isnt a grammar school or a maths specialist (its a technology specialist, so they forced all top set graphics to take AS graphics in year 11 - they all failed and also got worse results in their GCSE than us set 2-ers lol) - they just wanted prestige.

Reply 17

mikeski

OP

3

Suzi_law

My school forced us to take Maths early because we were the top sets, but only 5 out of the 60 who took it in November got A*s, whilst more people who were supposed to be in lwer sets, that took it in summer, got A*s.

So, i wouldnt recommend taking them early - didnt help me in teh slightest. No point realy - might as well give yourself ore time to revise and understand.

Oh - and my school isnt a grammar school or a maths specialist (its a technology specialist, so they forced all top set graphics to take AS graphics in year 11 - they all failed and also got worse results in their GCSE than us set 2-ers lol) - they just wanted prestige.

Just looking at your academic stuff in ur sig. Ur a smart cookie! :party:

Reply 18

Balky_Bear

2

My school is a specialist arts college so they make everyone take an arts subject as a GCSE and if they can they make everyone do art at least a yr early. Its funny as some people come out with GCSE's in art and design, sculpture and graphics when as an option they only chose art and design!

Reply 19

lovers in japan

2

We just did the course really quickly in 8 months for German, and the same for Italian: I started Italian in Sep 2005 and took the GCSE in June 2006, and did German in June 2005.

How Can You Sit a GCSE Early?

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