Science GCSEs May/June 2018

[Walkingdeadfangirl]

Just a quick question, if anyone can enlighten pls.

Helping DD with revision schedule and am stumped about the 3 science exams. Previously DC did the 'old' science subjects so am aware there was single, double and triple science. Now there just seems to be a double and triple.

My DD is doing triple sciences (so all 3 individually). Now looking at the exam timetable I see there is AQA Physics/Chemistry/Biology 1 and 2 exams. Where is the paper 3? It just seems the double and triple science are doing the same 6 exams? What am I missing?

Hope that makes sense.

DS2 is doing triple science with AQA.
Biology 1: 15 May (pm)
Chemistry 1: 17 May (am)
Physics 1: 23 May (pm)
Biology 2: 11 June (am)
Chemistry 2: 13 June (am)
Physics 2: 15 June (am)

I think the double science candidates might have the same number of papers but fewer topics to learn.

Oh so your saying there isn't a paper 3! But I am still confused as I dont see any of the 'double' science papers listed in the timetable, are they doing the same papers but leaving a section out or something?

They may not be the same papers. Edexcel separate and combined are different.

Oh so that would mean they are doing the same number of papers on the same day but they are different papers. OK, thanks.

I just assumed that double science would do fewer exams with them having studied less topics.

Combined papers are 1h10 each, so 7 hours in total.

Separate papers are 1h45 each, so 10.5 hours in total. Exactly right.

That’s for Edexcel.

Thanks CraftyGin, just wanted to be sure we hadn't missed an exam on our calendar. That explains it.

With AQA, the single sciences have 2 papers each, as you are referring to.
The single gcse combined science (synergy) has 4 papers.

The double science gcse (trilogy) has 2 papers per subject so 6 papers in total but only gives the equivalent of 2 gcses. They are different papers to the 6 single science papers as its a different specification.

If you google aqa specifications and download the spec for the right subject it tells you how they are examined so how many papers, length of paper and what subjects are covered in each one.

There used to be three papers for each subject, so that there was flexibility between opting for separate sciences or core/additional/further. This made a lot of sense in the modular system.

Now that all courses are 2 years, the papers seem to mix up the Y10 and Y11 topics to an extent. It’s not all neatly packaged as it was before. The longer papers for separate science have some of the same questions as combined, but also unique questions to that spec.

Thanks xyzandabc
Didn't realise a single gcse combined science still existed. Was using the school exam timetable so should have looked at the AQA one.

School seems to be using several exam boards and wouldn't have been confident I hadn't misunderstood anyway lol.

Yes CraftyGin, thats what initially confused me as older DS had done 3 papers for each science.

There isn’t a single combined science.

The AQA synergy syllabus isn't the equivalent of a single combined Science - it's just a slightly different way of offering the "double award".
There is no single award for the new 9-1 GCSE Combined Science.