I know it’s late but I decided to make a post about results day because I’m happy with how it went! I’ve also got some advice so stick around for that.
I got all the grades I needed to get into the sixth form I wanted to go to so that’s good (+no fails!)
I’ll post the actual grades below the cut, as well as what I expected for each subject. This is not meant as a boast or anything but just to blog my experience. I’m curious to how everyone else found Thursday (but no pressure to share grades ofc).
Summary:
(“PPE”s were what my school called mocks. We had three sets of mocks, but apparently our school can’t count.)
(The “predicted” column is what my school predicted for me, the “target” column is what I was kind of hoping for before sitting the exams and the “guess” column was what I thought I might get based on sitting the papers.)
Explanation:
The grades I needed for my 1st choice sixth form were:
7s or above in the subjects I want to do for A-Level (Maths, Music, Psychology, Spanish/ Top four listed)
At least 6 grades at a 6 or above, including English language
So, yay!
The grades I’m most shocked at are english lang & lit because they’re lower than expected but I’m not disappointed because I’m not continuing them.
I’m not surprised about getting a 9 in music because I already knew a lot of the content before starting GCSE music, but I’m still happy I got it.
I can’t believe I got 8s in psychology and maths. I struggled so much to get my grades up in those. For maths, during and before exam season, I woke up early each morning and did at least 30 mins of practice questions. It paid off, I guess! Psychology was mostly difficult because there weren’t many revision resources because we were the first year group to sit the exams (GCSE Pearson Edexcel Psychology) and all we had was like 1 sample paper.
In Spanish I’m really happy with an 8. I didn’t think it was possible to get higher than a 7 because I struggle so much with speaking and confidence, especially in a foreign language. Also, the listening paper was extremely difficult (AND the audio quality was AWFUL: I heard more crackles than words). But apparently it is!
I’ve never cared for RE. Find it mostly boring. A 6 is cool though.
Triple Science is fucking hard. So much fucking content. In the end of year 10 mocks (PPE1) I had revised mostly just for the sciences because they were so difficult, even when we went away for a week I brought my science stuff with me. I got a U in all three. In fact, in the physics paper, I got a grand total of 2 marks. Fucking hell. But y’know, I kept doing quickfire questions all year round and kept up my flashcard game and I ended up with 6-5-6 so not fucking bad.
And, finally: additional maths. When they were selecting people to take the FSMQ additional maths course in year 10 I thought I’d never be able to do this shit. Everyone else picked was smarter than me and cockier than me and always got good grades. I am so shook with the B. I can’t believe I did that well (the top grade was an A, not A*)!
Life lesson: Don’t give up. You can always do this shit. Especially for GCSEs: just push through. It will be fine.
