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Is grade 7 in gcse a good grade and how hard is it to get it?

Maxi2009

I am a year 8 student going into year 9, and I will be starting my gcse courses at St Olave's Grammar School, and I really wanted to know that what grade is considered a good grade? People say that a grade 7 will be considered a good grade, but how hard is it to get a grade 7? Roughtly what percentage do you need to get in order to get a grade 7 in gcse? And I'm aiming to get grade 8 or above in every subject I'm studying, any advice on how to get a good start since I'm only in year 8?

Reply 1

IshDragon

Around 26% got a 7 and above in 2022 based on an online article I found. For maths in particular the 2022 grade boundaries give a 7 if you get 57%. It varies from subject to subject but a Grade 7 will be around 60%. You are in just going into Year 9 and I'm sure you are capable of getting 9s too. You have a long while to revise. I only really started revising at the start of Y11 and managed to get pretty good grades.
My advice: Listen in lesson, do homework, enjoy yourself and don't mess around in lessons too much!! :smile:

Reply 2

idkwat

Original post by Maxi2009

Hi im a yr 12 student at Judd (joined this year) and got an 8.6 average in gcses. Honestly there is very little you can do in year 8 that will have an effect on gcses. If you are able to get top grades in yr 8 without much effort then you will probably be fine with gcses. I personally am terrible at staying concentrated on revision so i didn't start revising for gcses until yr 11 and even then i wasn't doing much compared to a lot of my classmates. On the other hand, a friend of mine ( currently at olaves) had to do insane amounts of revision to get all 9s in gcses. Every person you ask will give you a different answer for how hard gcses are but the content is basic enough that anyone can achieve top grades regardless of natural intelligence with enough work ( A levels are a different story). As for grade boundaries, they differ hugely between subjects but in general they will probably look shockingly low for you as a yr 8. You can always check the grade boundaries for previous years on the exam board websites.
For gcses at olaves, you can expect most people to get minimums of 7s and externals getting accepted for the sixth form will all have averages over 8.
My best advice for preparation is quality over quantity. You can spend hours and hours doing past papers for practice but this won't help much if you haven't revised all the content in the first place. Also if you already know what subjects you want to do for gcses, focus on those as the others really won't matter at all.