Adults sitting Maths GCSE

Please tell me I’m not the only adult here who took the GCSE Maths paper today, and please tell me I am not the only person who found parts so hard

Reply 1

thegeek888

Original post by Helen40something

Please tell me I’m not the only adult here who took the GCSE Maths paper today, and please tell me I am not the only person who found parts so hard

I gave my brother all the past papers from 1998 to 2018 and he passed with a C, but he struggled before that.

Reply 2

Muttley79

Original post by thegeek888

I gave my brother all the past papers from 1998 to 2018 and he passed with a C, but he struggled before that.

Why would you do papers that old that were set under a different specification and a different focus?

Reply 3

thegeek888

Original post by Muttley79

Why would you do papers that old that were set under a different specification and a different focus?

Because practice makes perfect.

Reply 4

Muttley79

Original post by thegeek888

Because practice makes perfect.

They aren't relevant unless you select the questions that are. I teach Maths and use the 'variants' of the older papers that the exam boards produce - the papers unedited are not good practice.

Reply 5

mich05

Original post by Helen40something

Please tell me I’m not the only adult here who took the GCSE Maths paper today, and please tell me I am not the only person who found parts so hard

Adult GCSE sitter over here 👋🏼
What paper did you do?
I did AQA foundation.

Reply 6

CDIAS

I took the Edexcel GCSE Higher tier today, I'm 50 and I was not the oldest sitting there. I think it was not as difficult as some past papers I have been doing (I do agree that practice makes perfection, it makes you sharper as well). I've been away from the education system for 30 years so I'm a bit slower; usually, I never have time to finish all the questions. In this case, I skipped 4 of them. I don't remember all the results, but so far I've got one wrong for certain, by pure lack of attention and most probably will have some error here and there, but I won't my sleep over it. I reckon it was not a terrible exam to do, but some questions, despite being easy, were tricky and/or required harder work and extra focus.
I will continue to do past papers as revision and that's it, as an adult I have a lot more to do than study maths, and now I have to focus on English (it's not my first language). I don't think we should worry too much, as long as we are doing our best it's fine. Best luck with papers 2 and 3. :smile: