Lies they tell you at GCSE

I'd be interested to hear examples of lies (or specious half-truths) that they tell us at GCSE.
It doesn't matter what subject, although I'm expecting a lot of science ones...

I'm just intrigued :smile:

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Reply 1

Spudder

Our head of year told us GCSEs weren't important. I beg to differ, especially for universitity applications, decent jobs etc etc.

They also told us Pluto was a planet... damn those misinformed teachers!!!!

Reply 2

cpj1987

This isn't so much a lie that I was told; but our teacher used to rattle on about the 'real-life value' of the things we were learning in GCSE Maths.
I used to sit there in lessons, answering questions about the angles of ladders against the wall, and 'if X jumps into a river at point Y, and the river is moving at Z speed, where will X get out of the river if they're travelling for 25 minutes', and wonder why I bothered. Needless to say, I've never used such information since. :rolleyes:

Reply 3

crosscurrents

The only real one I've come across is probably chemistry: electron shell diagrams and the like.

Sulphur's Electron Configuration
GCSE: 2)8)1 is how it works!
AS: Well, actually... 1s2 2s2 2p6 3s1

:wink:

Reply 4

=nuke=

Spudder

Our head of year told us GCSEs weren't important. I beg to differ, especially for universitity applications, decent jobs etc etc.

I got told the opposite and I considered that a lie. :p:

I suppose they're important for people who leave school afterwards but you can get into a lot of universities with just 5 A* to C grades and you can do that without a second of revision if you're academically-minded.

Reply 5

Alamothih

my friend at uni was telling me, (and i remember learning this at GCSE), that the body cannot exercise without oxygen (or some such) and i was led to believe this was because of anaerobic respiration. Therefore anaerobic respiration is bad for the muscles etc.

Well turns out according too his uni course, its not. And the lecturer stated "it goes against all you were taught at a-level and gcse, but its true, they teach u a dumbed down easy to understand science at that level"

Reply 6

HawkAhriman

the electron thing isn't really a lie...I mean, it is, like...

2, 6 + 2, 1

which is 2,8,1

they did sort of lie to us when they went on about how important GCSE's are in the grand scheme of things, when they're really not. so long as you do well enough to take the A-Levels you want, they're no longer relevant (I hope, otherwise I'm sodded for my ucas application)

EDIT: oh yeah, they lied about respiration

Glucose + Oxygen = Water + Carbon Dioxide + Water

you lying bastards, lulling us into a false sense of security D: D: D:

Reply 7

Rosie18

Everything! in my first AS biology lesson i was told to "forget everything learned at GCSE" :rolleyes:

Reply 8

Laevis

Rosie18

Everything! in my first AS biology lesson i was told to "forget everything learned at GCSE" :rolleyes:

Heh

My teacher wouldn't have bothered telling me that. Anything Science related that i learnt was stored in my memory for such a short period of time i.e. from 12 hours before the exam > 25 seconds after the exam. :biggrin:

Reply 9

Melancholy

Turns out that Zack in the GCSE Maths paper wasn't a real person and didn't have 4 apples. :frown:

Reply 10

Arteta

Lord Azrael

Turns out that Zack in the GCSE Maths paper wasn't a real person and didn't have 4 apples. :frown:

Does that mean that dipesh wasn't really catching the 4pm train to Leeds? :frown:

Reply 11

Gilliwoo

That if a source was 'biased' it was useless.
That any argument had to be "balanced" and conclude by saying nobody really knew the answer.

Reply 12

Tagit

GCSE's are hard and take months of revision to do well.

Reply 13

HawkAhriman

vastly oversimplified is the hugest understatement ever. what we're learning is like 4 parts out of 40 or something I think our teacher told us, and it's still insanely complex.

don't take that the wrong way, it's still important to know, it's an incremental thing. even though it's completely wrong and oversimplified, it's still something you can build upon.

Reply 14

liss31d

Worse than lies at GCSE, this is a lie we were told in Key Stage 3 - That SATs were extremely important :rolleyes:

Reply 15

Ashes_to_Ashes

They told us GCSEs were extremely important, and SATs were too! All to cover their backs in the eyes of league tables...

Reply 16

RosiePosiePuddingAndPie

Before GCSE we were told that electricity flows from positive to negative. At GCSE we were told that actually electrons flow from negative to positive. So that was a lie from before GCSE really!!

(I expect it changes again at A level physics, but I wasn't crazy enough to do that :p:

)

Reply 17

cloop

Every french noun with an E at the end is feminine...
NOT TRUE.
owww :frown:

Reply 18

Naranoc

Well, I wouldn't say extremely, but GCSEs do still remain a relatively important factor for some unis, with a number rejecting applicants on their basis.

I agree Gilliwoo about the balanced argument thing :laugh:

. It could be argued that...however, it could also be argued that...in conclusion, opinions will differ on this complex issue. It's still sort of done at A Level too, where we almost hide behind historians' arguments in History. I was doing the whole "in this way but not in that" in one of my interviews, when the interviewer just cut across me sharply and said "But what do you think?" :redface:

Reply 19

HawkAhriman

they told us EVERY year was important.

in year 7 there was a long speech about adjusting to secondary school and how it would be the most important year of our lives and how we needed to stay focused and all that crap.

in year 8 there was a long speech about how we'd made it through our first year and that now we had to look after the new year 7's and that next year was our SAT's so we had to knuckle down so we would be prepared.

in year 9 they told us all about how incredibly important the SATs are and how we'd be screwed for the rest of our lives if we didn't focus.

in year 10 and 11 they obviously went on about how the rest of our lives were hinging on our GCSE grades and how we'd end up as hobo's if we didn't get all A-C's.

even at A/S, I think they overstated the difficulty of the year a little bit, compared to A2 anyways.

EDIT: oh, and I think everyone exaggerated the difficulty of A2. It's hard, I won't lie, but all my friends doing A2's (I'm behind a year) and the teachers painted A2's as nearly impossible. All the stuff we're doing on photosynthesis and respiration, this is how I expected the ENTIRE year to be, from beginning to end. In reality, they've been few and far between so far.