Are CIE's IGCSE's the hardest GCSE???

Are CIE's IGCSE's the hardest GCSE?

Ive finished doing my igcse's in June- Portuguese, English First lang, Maths, chemistry, Physics, Geography, English Lit and Art, And all my teachers told me not to even consider doing more, yet ive seen several people who have done up to 10 or 12 and they all say theve done GCSE's and Edexcel and several other kinds of IGCSE's and theyve all got Straight As and A*s, yet in my school your considered smart and/or lucky if you get 1 A*.

Is this because the other exam boards are easier than CIE?

Reply 1

Gren1TI

I personally did both Edexcel and CIE IGCSEs and found them both equally ‘hard’ – though that’s a subjective term.

Edexcel lays out the specifications more clearly and in greater detail, but I found CIE asks you to learn less subject matter. Grade boundaries are about the same so I didn’t notice much of a difference.

Just to add, you’ve done eight IGCSEs which are definitely enough. You won’t find many people who have more than 9 or 10 IGCSEs though you certainly do see many people with 12-15 or even more GCSEs. So really I find IGCSE standard to be constant across both boards but they are still much more demanding than normal GCSEs!

Reply 2

DaveJ

I have no knowledge of this, but it'd be a bit unfair to make one board ridiculously difficult, as it would make the people who had sat exams on it look stupid.

Reply 3

pqzmak

Well, there are a lot of other factors to consider too ...

Especially for Chinese, definitely CIE IGCSE is way harder, as it offers "First Language Chinese" (amongst other qualifications), whereas Edexcel does not exactly cater for native Chinese students

I personally DO find CIE IGCSE harder (i take three subs for CIE and six for Edexcel) - for one, a LOT of the past papers are not open to students.

yet in my school your considered smart and/or lucky if you get 1 A*

Pires06, I agree, in my school to achieve A* in the CIE IGCSE subjects (in the ones I'm taking at least) would be considered pretty smart - not totally impossible, but I would have to agree it is considered better than achieving an A* in an Edexcel GCSE qualification.

Reply 4

Lionheartat20

I took Chemistry CIE and had a variety of different examination board for different subjects -- The hardest papers of them all was the CIE ones; at least in my opinion.

Reply 5

pqzmak

Results for CIE IGCSE are out today ... but I'm a bit scared to check ...

some of my friends have scored Cs for First Language Chinese,
and the smartest guy in my First Language Chinese class wants a remark ...
(I'm expecting an A but I don't want to face the disappointment if I go and check now and it turns out to be a B or even a C)

I'm kind of silly right? :s-smilie:

oh and btw I took Coordinated Sciences (double award) so I wouldn't know for your Chemistry ... personally I found this year's double award science long question paper easier than from previous years.

Did you do Cambridge International Maths? (0607)

Reply 6

RoyTheToy

I do 0607 Maths and got an A, quite unbelievable...

Reply 7

pqzmak

I did 0607 maths this year too!
But I still haven't checked my results ...

Personally, I think this year's Paper 6 was a bit too easy ... the paper 6 I did for my mocks was way extreme, ended up getting 17/40 LOL :P (but in the mocks I got a B overall for maths :s-smilie:

)

Reply 8

lightningfist

HELL NO.

The hardest GCSE is Edexcel GCE O levels.
Just compare the subjects, for example Edexcel's GCE O level Pure Maths is more difficult than AS level Pure Maths and definitely heaps harder than CIE IGCSE Additional Maths.
The others available (not sure about difficulty) are CIE O levels, CIE IGCSE, Edexcel IGCSE, Edexcel GCSE.
Of course there are the other boards AQA and OCR.

What you should know is CIE A levels are the hardest A level, a lot harder than Edexcel, AQA, etc. However, all of them, even OCR, have similar content. It's just that some CIE A level subjects go a lot further (in syllabi), and the exam structure isn't modular.

Sad that the universities may not recognise this.

People who do Edexcel obviously will disagree with my comments, but anyone who has tried both, or switched over to Edexcel A level from CIE A level, or done CIE A level (non-soft subjects) can verify this. Even educational counselors and teachers should know.

Reply 9

Kya

CIE are definately the hardest board for GCSEs/IGCSEs.
All my teachers confirmed it.
And from experience, I always do better when I do edexcel past papers.