Any chemistry teachers around?

[pearleyes]

What is the jump in difficulty between IGCSE chemistry (EDEXCEL) and AS chemistry (EDEXCEL)?

I've looked through past papers for both and don't see that much in it...

I'm not a science teacher but my sons school does IGCSEs in sciences, his was the first year last year. He is now doing Biology AS.

He manages fine, but does find it alot harder than the IGCSE. Friends of his doing chemistry AS are also finding it quite complicated compared to IGCSE.

I know this is not a very detailed or definitive answer, but hopefully reasonably helpful. By the way it is a highly academic school and most of these boys got A/A* in the IGCSE.

There are no past papers for AS Chemistry - it is a new course this year.

I don't think IGCSE has practical work, but AS does, so that will be a jump.

Overall, there is a big step between GCSE Chemistry and AS level, but once they acclimatise to the new level, it gets easier.

Thanks for the posts

I was looking at the old spec EDEXCEL AS levels that finish in June.

I've heard rumours that some boards are easier than others at A level - is this nonsense?

The individual boards should all have the same level of difficulty - it is set by the QCA (government).

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Tell us more, Bloss

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Sounds like there is a lot of nudge-nudge wink-wink going on.

While it is likely that some drift in standards can happen from year to year, the QCA keeps a really short lead on the various boards. Everytime there is a major revision of the specifications (as in this year for A-levels), everything snaps back into line.

The board I work mostly with, Edexcel, is pretty adament that over 80% of the assessment objectives come directly from the QCA and applies to all boards. With this revision, they have to examine the whole specification, as well as getting deeper with specific topics.