AQA iGCSE Sciences

[TP123]

I hope someone can help. My DS will be doing the AQA board iGCSE biology, physics, chemistry exams in June 2015 (in yr 11 now!).

On the AQA site there is only 1 years past papers and mark scheme.

Should we AQA GCSE past papers so that we have sufficient practice papers? OR are they so different that it would be a waste?

Where can I buy past papers from? And if we need more practice - should I purchase Letts/CGP workbooks with test papers?

Thanks!!

[KB]

My immediate reaction was - ask the school- but are you home schooling?

Which text book are you using? Most have exam style questions at the end of each section?

[marigold]

Hi TP 123,

My son is also doing AQA science IGSEs in the summer. His school have asked some boys to get the CGP chemistry exam practice work book to use in extra lessons so I jumped on the band wagon and bought all three, Amazon do a special deal. He has used them already for some tests and finds them very good.

They have the answers at the back and give access to online stuff too.

[Tolstoy]

Have a look at the course content. From my DSs experience this summer you may well find they are very similar. He practiced some GCSE sciences papers having been studying Cambridge IGCSE and found very little difference but he had only done a year.

[moved]

DD did chemistry AQA iGCSE last year and normal GCSE for the other sciences. She got the same mark in chemistry as physics despite coming top in the year in physics and getting a C in chemistry in her mocks.

In her opinion after both of those exams, she had done well, but not as well as she should, in physics and chemistry was dire.

Both exams scored an A with very similar percentages of UMS.

[KB]

Only have experience of Cambridge board but in that case iGCSE has more content.

[sherry_d]

If the exam spec was first tested from June 2013, you should have at least 3 AQA past papers as they had a January sitting which AQA are withdrawing from January 2015.

I am not sure if AQA have regional paper versions too. Exdecel has R papers which are for students in different time zones to avoid cheating. That would give you 6 past papers. I am sure you can use papers for old spec, science is still the same just format of papers and a little tweak here and there that change topped with a couple of key words.

The CGP are good revision books, just make sure you get the one for his spec - AQA IGCSE.

[Guest55]

Exam boards don't put papers on the website immediately because they know teachers will want to use them as mocks.

For example, there is an additional Edexcel website which only maths teachers have access too.

[sherry_d]

You are right, perhaps for AQA they will be hard to find but for Edexcel they are easily available on the "other" websites. I suspect AQA IGCSEs aren't very common so the new ones will be hard to find.

Your son could check with his teacher if he can use old legacy past papers. In IGCSE science the older spec tend to be much more straightforward and calculation based, new spec tends to have evaluation/written answers than calculations with greater emphasis on practicals.

[TP123]

Dear Forum Friends, Thank you so much for all your responses and I am so sorry for coming to these late. I am taking peaks and troughs on stress levels between my DS GCSEs and DD 11+ - so though I have been on the forum every day I have been glued to the 11+ section and now am back obsessing and worrying about GCSEs again.

The feedback on iGCSE sciences are invaluable. Thank you all for your help!