The Student Room Group

Dropping tripple science?

Hi! I'm a year 11 who's currently taking triple/separate sciences and I'm not sure if I should drop it and move down to combined or not.
Context:
- I would like to attend a russel group uni and would love to study law at cambridge so top GCSE grades are sort of a must
- For A levels I'm taking history, politics, english lit and maybe economics/german depending on my sixth form
- Predicted all 8/9's based off December mocks apart from science where I'm predicted all 7's
- Got all 8's and 9's in Decemeber mocks apart from Spanish where I got high 7 and sciences and maths where I got 6's
- I REALLY want all 8's and 9's in my final GCSE's
- I've spoken to one of my science teachers and she said she doesn't think I need to move down and that the class works at a good pace at me. Also, the combined class below me is full and the one below that works at a lower level than what I would need (she did say after march mocks I could revise in the current class I am in whilst they are covering triple content)
- I would have 10 GCSE if I dropped triple as I took German a year early
- I love my science class and the teachers are amazing so it's not necessarily the environment but just the exams themselves

Advice would be appreciated!!
P.S sorry if this is really badly written I'm sick rn :frown:
Original post by rebeccawootliff
Hi! I'm a year 11 who's currently taking triple/separate sciences and I'm not sure if I should drop it and move down to combined or not.
Context:
- I would like to attend a russel group uni and would love to study law at cambridge so top GCSE grades are sort of a must
- For A levels I'm taking history, politics, english lit and maybe economics/german depending on my sixth form
- Predicted all 8/9's based off December mocks apart from science where I'm predicted all 7's
- Got all 8's and 9's in Decemeber mocks apart from Spanish where I got high 7 and sciences and maths where I got 6's
- I REALLY want all 8's and 9's in my final GCSE's
- I've spoken to one of my science teachers and she said she doesn't think I need to move down and that the class works at a good pace at me. Also, the combined class below me is full and the one below that works at a lower level than what I would need (she did say after march mocks I could revise in the current class I am in whilst they are covering triple content)
- I would have 10 GCSE if I dropped triple as I took German a year early
- I love my science class and the teachers are amazing so it's not necessarily the environment but just the exams themselves

Advice would be appreciated!!
P.S sorry if this is really badly written I'm sick rn :frown:


Hello!
Get well soon!

Are you struggling with triple science? If not, then I would keep it.

(ps. it's Russell and not russel)

Reply 2

Original post by mesub
Hello!
Get well soon!
Are you struggling with triple science? If not, then I would keep it.
(ps. it's Russell and not russel)

My grades are okay but not as good as I would want them to be for triple (currently on all 6's but want all 8's/9's)
Original post by rebeccawootliff
My grades are okay but not as good as I would want them to be for triple (currently on all 6's but want all 8's/9's)


Have you covered the majority of the content yet? Where are you dropping marks?

Reply 4

Original post by mesub
Have you covered the majority of the content yet? Where are you dropping marks?

We've got 1.5 topics left for physics and I think 1/2 for both biology and chemistry.
My main issue is finding a balance between revising content and also knowing how the mark scheme want's me to answer. So, I've started making mind maps for all CGP guides and am almost done with all paper 2 content we've covered. I want to be done will all paper 1 + paper 2 mind maps (for content we have covered) by end of march and then using past paper questions april onwards.
I also have a science tutor outside of school where we do exam questions for topics I've recently made mind maps for/ am struggling on and also get lots of exam question homework from my teachers. I plan on continuing on with this even if I drop triple but I'm scared I won't be able to finish all the content in time.
Original post by rebeccawootliff
We've got 1.5 topics left for physics and I think 1/2 for both biology and chemistry.
My main issue is finding a balance between revising content and also knowing how the mark scheme want's me to answer. So, I've started making mind maps for all CGP guides and am almost done with all paper 2 content we've covered. I want to be done will all paper 1 + paper 2 mind maps (for content we have covered) by end of march and then using past paper questions april onwards.
I also have a science tutor outside of school where we do exam questions for topics I've recently made mind maps for/ am struggling on and also get lots of exam question homework from my teachers. I plan on continuing on with this even if I drop triple but I'm scared I won't be able to finish all the content in time.


Should be doable with some hard work. :smile:

Reply 6

Original post by mesub
Should be doable with some hard work. :smile:

Thank you!!
Original post by rebeccawootliff
Hi! I'm a year 11 who's currently taking triple/separate sciences and I'm not sure if I should drop it and move down to combined or not.
Context:
- I would like to attend a russel group uni and would love to study law at cambridge so top GCSE grades are sort of a must
- For A levels I'm taking history, politics, english lit and maybe economics/german depending on my sixth form
- Predicted all 8/9's based off December mocks apart from science where I'm predicted all 7's
- Got all 8's and 9's in Decemeber mocks apart from Spanish where I got high 7 and sciences and maths where I got 6's
- I REALLY want all 8's and 9's in my final GCSE's
- I've spoken to one of my science teachers and she said she doesn't think I need to move down and that the class works at a good pace at me. Also, the combined class below me is full and the one below that works at a lower level than what I would need (she did say after march mocks I could revise in the current class I am in whilst they are covering triple content)
- I would have 10 GCSE if I dropped triple as I took German a year early
- I love my science class and the teachers are amazing so it's not necessarily the environment but just the exams themselves
Advice would be appreciated!!
P.S sorry if this is really badly written I'm sick rn :frown:

Dropping triple sciences because you really want 8s and 9s for all your GCSEs is the wrong focus. Cambridge won't care about a 6 or 7 in sciences for a law degree. Better to have a fully rounded set of GCSEs, which includes sciences, for wherever life takes you in the future.

Reply 8

Original post by threeportdrift
Dropping triple sciences because you really want 8s and 9s for all your GCSEs is the wrong focus. Cambridge won't care about a 6 or 7 in sciences for a law degree. Better to have a fully rounded set of GCSEs, which includes sciences, for wherever life takes you in the future.

I know but I can still have my science GCSE if I move down to combined, I would just have two GCSE's from it instead of 1. Also feel like 8-9 or 9-9 would look better than 7,7,7 (what I'm predicted now)

Reply 9

ok no way in the whole world would a 8-9 or a 9-9 in combined science ever compete with a 7,7,7 in triple science it is SO MUCH better! if you get 7,7,7 that's like 3 A's compared to combined science which doesn't look good if you apply to a top uni, it shows you have the ability to do well across all three sciences separately .It is so much better so i would recommend keeping it. (for reference i got 9's in all three off them )

Reply 10

i had 10 GCSE's when i did my GCSE last year, and i still manged to come out with 3 9's in my sciences ,
The subjects i took:
english lan
english lit
maths
biology
chemistry
physics
design and tech
computer science
further maths
statistics
business
if you would like tips on how to do well in science feel free to ask!:smartass:
(edited 2 months ago)
A lot of the advice so far assumes that Cambridge cares a lot more about GCSEs than they really do. They're looked at within the context of your school and for a less relevant subject like GCSE Sciences to Law, whether or not you do triple won't make a huge difference.

As for the rest of your life, I haven't even left education and I just write '10 GCSEs including Maths and English' on my CV even though I did well on them. I have A-Levels and I'm doing my degree, GCSEs aren't really that big of a deal anymore.

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