Math is a subject that develops many of the key skills and abilities that are highly desired by employers while also surfacing some priceless learnings along its course. Students will acquire critical thinking and problem-solving abilities that are important in a wide range of professions and areas of life.

Whether you need higher-level math as a minimum entry requirement for your undergraduate course or could just use the extra points, I will walk you through everything you need to know about past papers and exam boards offering GCSE maths.

Exams boards are organizations that conduct the GCSE maths Exams and offer the GCSE Qualification in several subjects. They are responsible for producing exam papers, marking and grading your exam work and giving you the GCSE Qualification.

Most of the exam boards offer qualifications which are accepted by several colleges not just in the UK but all around the globe. These GCSE Qualifications are hence, internationally recognized.

At the present, the state schools benefit from seven exam boards. These are as follows:

  • Assessment and Qualification Alliance (AQA)
  • University of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE)
  • Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA)
  • Edexcel
  • International Curriculum and Assessment Agency Examinations (ICAAE)
  • Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR)
  • Welsh Joint Education Committee (WJEC)

Out of all these boards, CCEA is the one that is most active inside native Northern Ireland. The level of qualifications offered by these boards varies.

Once you are all set it would be a shame for you to lose any marks to an avoidable error such as running out of time in the exam after spending the better part of two years studying for it. Time management is the most efficient technique to make sure this doesn't happen.

In order to use your time in the exam room as effectively as possible, leave yourself time to go over the paper before handing it in, and ultimately maximize your grade in the subject, you must understand exactly how many minutes you have to complete each section and practice completing exam style questions from your GCSE exam papers.

Boards ICAAE and CIE offer very specialized and limited qualifications so if you are thinking of taking GCSE Maths, it is better if you opt for boards other than ICAAE, as these boards are most common among students taking GCSE Maths .

Whatever board you choose, the material you study is usually the same. ( Image Source: Unsplash)
The best Maths tutors available
Paolo
5
5 (63 reviews)
Paolo
£30
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Hiren
5
5 (23 reviews)
Hiren
£150
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Akash
5
5 (58 reviews)
Akash
£45
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Intasar
5
5 (48 reviews)
Intasar
£79
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Johann
5
5 (35 reviews)
Johann
£35
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Sehaj
4.9
4.9 (48 reviews)
Sehaj
£40
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Luke
5
5 (76 reviews)
Luke
£125
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Harjinder
4.9
4.9 (156 reviews)
Harjinder
£25
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Paolo
5
5 (63 reviews)
Paolo
£30
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Hiren
5
5 (23 reviews)
Hiren
£150
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Akash
5
5 (58 reviews)
Akash
£45
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Intasar
5
5 (48 reviews)
Intasar
£79
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Johann
5
5 (35 reviews)
Johann
£35
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Sehaj
4.9
4.9 (48 reviews)
Sehaj
£40
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Luke
5
5 (76 reviews)
Luke
£125
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Harjinder
4.9
4.9 (156 reviews)
Harjinder
£25
/h
Gift icon
1st lesson free!
Let's go

Difference Between Exam Boards

A survey by the BBC in 2015 revealed that three out of the four main exam boards in UK had made their GCSE Maths exams too hard for the large number of candidates.

The only remaining board i.e AQA was also instructed to produce more challenging GCSE Maths exams to keep up with the standards of the rest of the three boards.

The government demanded the boards to make the GCSE Maths as well as GCSE English exams more rigorous and challenging for students.

Due to their greater complexity, the GCSE Maths exams and coursework offered by OCR, WJEC, and Pearson fail to test the pupils to the full extent of their abilities, according to a detailed review of many boards.

According to research, even the brightest kids from the best schools would struggle to perform well on these examinations due to their level of difficulty.

As a result, these boards' curriculum was loosened to better fit students' skill levels, and changes were made to the GCSE Maths content and syllabus. As a result, all the boards now have roughly the same level of difficulty, allowing students to earn the grade they deserve.

How to Choose the Right Exam board

Every student wants to have the best possible chance of passing their GCSE maths course, and one way to increase that probability is by selecting the test board they feel most at ease with.

From one exam board to another, there are differences in the requirements, paper format, and marking standards. Another factor that you might need to think about is the expense of the exams.

Try getting your hands on sample papers from each exam board you are considering before deciding which one to use. Analyze those example papers for a while, and if necessary,

By solving the sample papers of different boards like OCR, and Edexcel, you will get an idea of the question patterns, difficulty level, marking criteria and time duration of each exam. Find out which exam pattern suits you the most and go for that particular exam board.

The course content of GCSE Maths of all the Exam boards usually revolves around the basic concepts of Algebra, tricky yet simple questions related to integers, decimal numbers, and rational numbers along with some advanced topics like long division, linear equations, probability, quadratic equations, surface area, differential equations, quotient equations, and word problems to test your problem-solving skills.

Equip yourself with all these concepts and maximize your practice because at the end, it will be your preparation that will determine your fate in GCSE Maths and not the choice of board. You can choose the easiest board out there but if your preparation is bad or incomplete, chances of you getting a good grade is very low.

GCSE Maths Resources

With study resources it is essential to start small and work your way up, honing your skills by tackling arithmetic problems and figuring out solutions. It's crucial to have faith in the process because this is a lengthy course and it's simple to become overwhelmed by the abundance of information related to higher-level arithmetic.

This is why I advise students to wait to enrol in additional courses and resources until they are comfortable with the fundamental GCSE material. It's crucial for students to understand that, despite frequently being viewed as an alluring shortcut to learning, they are really supplemental tools.

The internet is full of resources to help you with GCSE Math preparation. Here are some sources compiled for you to benefit from!

GCSE Maths Worksheets:

Enrol yourself in a GCSE Maths program and take math classes designed around the GCSE Maths coursework. Ask your maths tutor to give you maths homework and complete these maths home assignments to test your mathematical concepts.

You can get home tutoring too. GCSE Math education is not hard to get in this age of the internet. Opt for online GCSE Maths courses. Find interactive math on the internet such as multiplication games, addition games and other similar online math games.

It's possible that you won't see many of these questions on your GCSE maths paper, despite the fact that you will have grown accustomed to them as you progressed through the chapters. Students will discover that each topic's exam questions often follow a specific format, therefore it's crucial to start getting practice answering exam-style questions.

This will guarantee that you won't be seeing the question for the first time in the exam room in June. Learning the layout of both papers, the topics that will be covered, and how much time to allot for each question is all part of the preparation for the GCSE maths exam.

Practising online with the help of mathematical courses, free math worksheets and online maths tutor and games will train you for the test, but prioritise studying from your GCSE Maths textbook and find past maths GCSE exams of your board. There is also a wealth of maths tutors available online or face-to-face for that extra bit of help.

Work hard, practice harder. ( Image Source: Unsplash)

GCSE Maths Past Papers

Solving GCSE Maths past papers is a genius way to undertake maths revision and train yourself for the exam. This will help you get familiar with the paper pattern and marking criteria and will save you time during the actual exam. You can find past papers of your particular board on their website or you can buy a book containing past papers of all the previous years.

There are a lot of digital media such as CDs, and DVDs that come loaded with past papers for GCSE maths revision along with the mark schemes. You might need to invest some money in these or you can simply find them online for free.

Once you get your study material ready, start your maths revision and once you are done with a particular topic, try finding its related questions in past papers. Try solving them and if you fail to get their correct answer, go through that topic again and repeat this until you are correctly able to solve all the related questions in the past papers.

Solving past papers in this way, will help you not only save time but also to catch your weakness in time.

Once you are done with all your preparation, you can conduct your own mock GCSE Maths test session with the help of these past papers and see where you are lacking. Do not assume that the questions in the past exams will repeat. This does not happen. If you prepare only according to the content in the past exams, you are setting yourself up for a really bad grade.

Maths teachers who design GCSE Maths exam base the math curriculum of GCSE around the basic topics amalgamated with the more advanced maths topics of college level. These tests are structured to test your logical and analytical reasoning skills, your fluency in common math practices as well as your problem-solving skills.

All the GCSE Maths boards focus on your maths skills and how you utilize your math lessons and apply your math learning to solve the tricky mathematics questions in the exams. These tests follow state standards and are carefully evaluated for the students to ensure they get the grades according to their preparation.

So, work hard, stay confident and make the best out of the great maths resources you have, and no one can take away the success that you deserve!

Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!

5.00 (1 rating(s))
Loading...

Joseph

Joseph is a French and Spanish to English translator, language enthusiast, and blogger.