AQA GCSE Computer Science Paper 1 - Monday, May 12, 2025 [Exam Chat]

heyy gl gl!! make sure ur not time pressured when i had my november mocks i lowk flopped bc i wasted too much time on the easy marks, bc trust me the coding is acc rlly simple, its js under exam pressure i tripped up!
for theory id say cgp is VERY good- all my friends use it and have consistent 9s in theory
also for november mocks i had the 2024 paper, so in case u get the paper make sure to revise coding - i do aqa comp sci and i couldnt find many past papers, and the ones i did contained more trace tables..
id recommend doing the last few questions of the paper which has the hard coding questions to help u prepare
also if there are any coding fundamentals u struggle on w3schools is so so good

heyy gl gl!! make sure ur not time pressured when i had my november mocks i lowk flopped bc i wasted too much time on the easy marks, bc trust me the coding is acc rlly simple, its js under exam pressure i tripped up!
for theory id say cgp is VERY good- all my friends use it and have consistent 9s in theory
also for november mocks i had the 2024 paper, so in case u get the paper make sure to revise coding - i do aqa comp sci and i couldnt find many past papers, and the ones i did contained more trace tables..
id recommend doing the last few questions of the paper which has the hard coding questions to help u prepare
also if there are any coding fundamentals u struggle on w3schools is so so good

omg thankyouu so much!! i did my mock and it was just a mix of past paper qs so it was a breeze! when are you gonna start like proper hard revision or have u already?

also what was the 2024 paper like would u say it was harder than the 2021-2023 papers and how were the coding qs??

hellooo~ I’ve always been looking for somewhere to ask abt computer science and here I found so basically my computer science teacher has left the school due to serious illness like a year and half ago…and my school jst kinda not rlly care abt it so we’ve got a sub like teacher up till now (basically learned nthg in lesson).
So since I’ve only got only half a year worth of knowledge, I rlly don’t know where to start revising since there r sm to study in a go and kinda impossible to do so without a proper teacher…and so in the exams I literally just try my best to waffle and the coding paper I just sit there and buffer mostly (as the last thing I got taught abt coding is while and for loop) which is a disaster ik but I still manage to get away w a 6 which I’m trying to push it to an 8.
Now in the last 2 months, is there any efficient way I can try to study as much for both theories and coding, and is there any topics I should prioritise studying first since they always come up?

hello! so im still in yr 11 haha but what i will say is that there is still enough time
if coding is something you struggle with i reccommend w3schools for wtvr coding language u do as it starts from the basics! it'll help coding flow easier for you
as well as this i'd recommend doing past paper questions - look at how trace tables work, and espesically when ur writing code make sure to write it on paper, as this will be best practice for u in the exams!
always refer to the markscheme if you don't understand soemthing - most of the time the harder coding questions are actually written ina few lines on code

from what i've seen when we're taught in our comp sci lessons the first few chapters in theory are relatively straigt forward.. so i would prioritise the topics which u find harder- for example for me that is the CPU, so i will be prioritising that!
again past paper questions are a must- one thing i've noticed is that theory is normally the paper that brings people's grades up and dw u still have enough time! gl w ur revision <3

aw tysmm! Ive acc tried to use w3schools to study b4 but then after I seen that big fat list of content and the words they used to explain is some words that Ive never heard of b4, like functions procedures arrays..(well ik now) but also, the things they ask for in the exam r so specific like in the mocks I just encountered “add an item into the array” (i was like what on earth is that in the exam) plus there r just so much more impotant subjects that needs prioritising so yh..but ill still do past papers and cram text books as much as I can. And yh the CPU, main memory stuff BIOS FDE is honestly putting me off..so lets wish us both gl on 12/5 )

hello! so im still in yr 11 haha but what i will say is that there is still enough time
if coding is something you struggle with i reccommend w3schools for wtvr coding language u do as it starts from the basics! it'll help coding flow easier for you
as well as this i'd recommend doing past paper questions - look at how trace tables work, and espesically when ur writing code make sure to write it on paper, as this will be best practice for u in the exams!
always refer to the markscheme if you don't understand soemthing - most of the time the harder coding questions are actually written ina few lines on code

from what i've seen when we're taught in our comp sci lessons the first few chapters in theory are relatively straigt forward.. so i would prioritise the topics which u find harder- for example for me that is the CPU, so i will be prioritising that!
again past paper questions are a must- one thing i've noticed is that theory is normally the paper that brings people's grades up and dw u still have enough time! gl w ur revision <3

heyy! so i'm lowkey late to this convo but me personally i'd say the cgp books like nadinii_ said before are VERY helpful, they kinda just really help you to understand and before my mock i read the whole textbook and it only took me about a week to read + fully digest content + practice. if you can manage reading about 15-20 pages a day (ik it sounds like a lot but you can more or less skim read it) then you can definitely upgrade your understanding! also, aside from craigndave i find mr brown cs on youtube quite good and his voice is very clear so he's definitely really helpful especially in terms of going through pastpapers but ofc craigndave is the most specification faithful channel.
also, for theory after u complete reading/taking notes on a topic, you can do topic specific exam qs with this website - GCSE Resources - but honestly i think you can rlly pull this together especially with ur situation with the teacher issue but good luck!!!

Target Clear 2025 AQA A-Level Computer Science Exam Chat
Here you can discuss techniques and throw predictions for Section C and D as well as the other two sections for Paper 1
* Share resources
* Ask questions
* Analyse previous exams
* Pop off in your exams

Ill for sure spare a week out to study the book properly and see how itll go since ive never knew before that the book is acc helpful so Ive never study it properly despite having it..But what I feel like is that there r sm content like speciific contents in the book but the amount of content u get asked in the exam is like a tiny fraction of it, so wont it be waste of time to properly study every single topic in depth?
And also regarding to the craigndave’s video, ive seen a few of his vids b4 and theyre quite helpful, but the thing is do they cover all the contents u need to know in a topic so that I can jst watch the vid instead of reading through a book.
Last question: Is it worth it if I spend all my time to study for the theory paper and like just try my best on the programming paper since its honestly a huge gap I missed in the programming part (i dont even know how to open and edit a text file so..) but still pull a good grade? (lets say i get full marks on theory)
thanks for all ur advices and ill defo try them all out! gl to u on getting a 9 on the real thing also!

Oh do you mean def in the code? That's how you create a function in Python.
Here: https://www.w3schools.com/python/python_functions.asp

ur kidding right tim?