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hardest exam boards?

Hi,

I was just wondering, which exam boards are the hardest (or are seen to be the hardest) for GCSE?
Mine:
OCR for Classical Greek and Latin, short ICT
Edexcel for Maths, French, Music
AQA for Eng lang + lit, Double Science, Statistics, History

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Reply 1

dinkimoo

Sorry, I clicked the little exclamation mark by accident..

Reply 2

K_G_UK_1

dinkimoo

Sorry, I clicked the little exclamation mark by accident..

History- WJEC.

Reply 3

saiyamanadingdongbanana

Last year i definately found this one hard;

AQA for Eng lang + lit

Reply 4

Lottie

K_G_UK_1

History- WJEC.

I'm in year 11 doing history with WJEC & have found it thoroughly reasonable so far. However, there is a lot to learn but I imagine that is the same for all exam boards. I've enjoyed learning about Germany (Weimar Republic & Nazi Germany) as well as the USA. In a few weeks we'll be starting on China, which I hope will be good. Maybe I just lucked out with the topics my school chose.

Reply 5

saiyamanadingdongbanana

Another hard one (any exam board) is maths, especially the non calc paper. Last year i only just got borderline A and i was good at maths!! And its definately possible to revise for maths, many people say it isnt, but try some past papers (the 2004 ones were a very hard, try them out) and attempt loads of questions.

Reply 6

Gauss

I'd say in general OCR appears to be the hardest umongst the others.

Galois.

Reply 7

Chris87

Not sure about the hardest exam boards (maybe OCR?) but I'm fairly sure Edexcel are the easiest (or its because I'm used to the style of questions).

Reply 8

smallthoms

I haven't actually seen papers for other boards so I'm not really well informed on this, but I think WJEC is fairly easy for languages. The marks were really high last year.

Reply 9

fi x

AQA is a brilliant exam board for double science; get the revision guides and they ahve everything you need to know!! xx

Reply 10

smallthoms

fi x

AQA is a brilliant exam board for double science; get the revision guides and they ahve everything you need to know!! xx

I think the WJEC are also good for Science. Compared to other papers I've seen, there's less applied stuff and you more marks for just churning out facts.
The only real downside for WJEC is that there tends to be less revision material about because it's a smaller board.

Reply 11

JMP

According to two seperate teachers at different schools who I've spoken with about this, both concur that as a general rule of thumb, OCR is regarded as the hardest board, with whom you are generally competing with 'well educated private schoolers' for a small number of A's.

Reply 12

username5154

I don't think there are any hard exam boards. The level of difficulty is the same.

Reply 13

Rock n Roll Eyes

aqa is very easy for science; edexcel harder for maths. ocr tends to mark quite harshly in english i think.

Reply 14

username5154

The marking of the exam boards might be different obviously.

Reply 15

JMP

I don't think any board is 'easy' however.

Reply 16

No Future

AQA: separate science
Edexcel: History
OCR: English, RS

Erm, I can't remember all the others. Supposedly my school uses the hardest boards...

Reply 17

username5154

JasonPaver

I don't think any board is 'easy' however.

I agree. I think all exam boards have the same level of difficulty.

Reply 18

Rock n Roll Eyes

while all boards are the same in terms of the same amount of ability and effort will give the same grade, some (like maths edexcel from what i've heard) have harder questions and lower grade boundaries. sorry if it sounds obvious lol.

Reply 19

Satine

I think that for Music OCR is the easiest - it's the most logical and isn't determined partly by luck (things come up on the Edexcel papers which are not in the syllabus at all). They also give you more freedom in composition than either of the other boards, which, let's face it, has got to be easier than trying to follow a strict set of rules.

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