Foundation or higher combined science

My daughter needs to decide higher or foundation combined science. She is getting solid 5’s in the higher except for chemistry paper 1 where she just gets a 4.

She is not going to do A level science and a 5 5 would be fine. Would it be easier to secure a 5 5 in foundation?

Reply 1

Harman Kaur

Original post by Pattisons03

My daughter needs to decide higher or foundation combined science. She is getting solid 5’s in the higher except for chemistry paper 1 where she just gets a 4.
She is not going to do A level science and a 5 5 would be fine. Would it be easier to secure a 5 5 in foundation?

Hi, I am currently doing combined science higher. I was use to do foundation, I just moved to higher I think a month ago. I got same result as your daughter in my mocks for foundation and chemistry was my weakest too, I got 4 for it. I did higher mock exam for paper 2 as I got moved to higher a month ago. Higher is always good to do: first of all you can achieve grade above 5. secondly you can get better grade with less marks compared to foundation, you have to get nearly full marks to achieve grade 5 which is a lot harder but in higher you only about need about 30 percent of marks in your paper to get grade 5 whereas in foundation paper you will need about 60 percent of marks to achieve grade 5.
I have seen both papers foundation and higher, there are a lot of similar questions in higher paper that also come in foundation paper so if you get those similar questions right in higher paper you are likely to achieve at least grade 5.
I got grade 5 in higher for chemistry and physics with less knowledge.

I recommend to do higher but it depends on you if you want to do it. It is not really difficult compared to triple science. It is little bit more harder than foundation but not much.
Thanks
I hope it helps.

Reply 2

Pattisons03

Thanks for the reply, she got 5’s in the higher except chemistry. We also did some practice papers in foundation and she also got 5’s, just worried if she had a bad day on a higher exam as she finds them a lot harder.

Reply 3

Harman Kaur

She will be fine, if she will revise best. It's good to do higher as you can achieve higher than grade 5 so if she is getting 5 in foundation then it is definitely worth to do higher.