Tools designed specifically for the Edexcel IGCSE Biology syllabus, to help you ace your exams, including: past papers, revision notes, and exam-style questions, created by our expert team of teachers and examiners
The difference between the triple and the double award (sometimes called combined science) is that at the end of the GCSE course, the student ends up with 2 GCSEs instead of three (over the three sciences). It is designed for academically weaker students who benefit from learning less material overall. A third of the content of the triple course is removed. The way the grading system works for the double award is the student's exam marks are taken from across all three sciences, chem and physics as well, and their scores across all their papers are averaged and they get two grades. These two grades can either be two of the same or two numbers where one is higher than the other, for example, 5-5 or 5-6.
It's impossible to get an A* because it is graded on a 9-1 scale, with 1 being the lowest and 9 being the highest. In order to pass students need to get a 4. The grade boundaries vary from year to year depending on the difficulty of the exam. In the June 2022 exam series, students had to get 134 marks out of 180 to achieve a grade of 9. To achieve a grade of 9, we recommend to start revising early and practising past papers. To make your study time more effective use revision techniques such as flashcards or mind mapping.
All of the topics are covered in Paper 1 and Paper 2. Paper 2 is the paper sat by triple award (or separate science) candidates and covers slightly more content across all the topics compared to the double award people. It is clear to find which content is covered differently between the two courses because it is in bold in the specification.