So, having got excited because the exam boards have finally released their 2019 GCSE Science exam papers, I decided to take the AQA Foundation Biology Papers and break it down to see how to get the best marks and it proved to be very interesting.
I worked out that you can achieve a high Grade 3 GCSE by completing questions that:
- contain the answer in them
- contain number math
- are multiple choice
Below are examples of questions where the answer is contained within the question:
By that, I mean questions where you read the correct information from data, a graph, a piece of science apparatus or even by looking at an experiment and just comparing the different diagrams. This particular question was even a 6 mark one.
There are other questions that contain math. The math tends to focus on being able to read standard form, convert between different units, know how to calculate the mean and use given formula.
Being able to draw graphs and take information from a variety of different charts are other required skills.
Multiple choice questions are always interesting. They are not always easy but they do give you information that might help you by recognising the correct answer.
The trick to multiple choice is to eliminate the obvious wrong ones first and give time to those you think could be true.
In conclusion, by the continuous practise of; finding the answers in questions, your basic math skills and answering multiple choice questions you can achieve 96/200 marks on the above papers. The approximate grade boundary for a Grade 3 is 80/200 and for a Grade 4 is 109/200 marks.
These skills, along with your ability to recall and apply other GCSE science knowledge to answer the other questions will help you to be well on your way to achieve the top grades on these papers. These are skills you can start developing today.
If you're interested with this information and would like full booklets of the snips above to practise your skills, contact me on the website www.combiclassroom.co.uk and I will gladly sent them to you.