So for those of you who do not follow the British curriculum at school, or who do but have no clue what the IGCSEs are, they are exams which stand for: International General Certificate of Secondary Education. They are equivalent - but supposedly harder than - the GCSEs taken only in England but are taken all over the world. The IGCSEs are a two year course which you take between the ages of 14 and 16 in years 10 and 11 of school, and at the end of year 11 you take exams in all of the subjects you have been studying.
I did 10 subjects in total: English literature, English language, German, Biology, Chemistry, Maths, Physics, Geography, History, and I did French a year early. The final results are given by letters, with A* being the highest grade possible, then A, B etc. until E which is the final 'pass' grade (although is not considerd a good grade at all) and F being a fail.
I completed the IGCSE qualification in June this year, and got the results back last week. I got excellent grades (9A*s including French and 1A) so was extremely happy with my results. All of the hard work really paid off, because the past two years were seriously hard! There isn't an easy moment when you do the IGCSEs I can tell you! It's a rigorous qualification but I can honestly say it was worth it, because I learnt so much, not only in terms of knowledge, but also acquiring skills.
I have always been a scientific person, so my favourite subjects are biology, chemistry and maths. The subjects I struggle the most with are English (both lit and lang) and the humanities. Out of all of the teachers I had in the past two years, two really stood. out. I had an absolutely amazing chemistry teacher who was from India. At the beginning she was really strict so we were all scared s***less of her but gradually she softened up a bit and I became really close with her. At the end of year 11 she would bring home-made Indian food for us in class which was delicious! She was really the reason I fell in love with chemistry, she made everything clear and understandable, and really drilled everything into your head!
The second teacher was my history teacher who was fantastic. I have never particularly liked history (actually, I hated it- I never saw the point in learning about dead people!) but he really made it fascinating for me, despite it not being a subject I usually enjoyed. He was enthusiastic about what he was teaching which was what really made a difference, and went above and beyond constantly enforcing how important exam technique was, and teaching us how to answer the different types of questions. I'm sure it's thanks to him that I got such a good grade in that subject, as I think any other teacher would have failed.
I thought I would give a brief overview of each subject I took and my experience and impressions of it at IGCSE level:
French - I took this a year early and it was kind of a walk in the park for me, so there's not much to say about it except that I think it's a well structured exam which covers all the basics of the language
German - ditto, the four exams (reading, writing, listening and oral) really test the main aspects of a foreign language, and although the level was quite basic I feel that if I was stranded in Germany on my own I would be able to survive at least long enough to eat, sleep and get a train or plane out of there!
English Literature - this was probably my least favourite subject of all, I really struggle with interpretation of texts, and writing essays etc. analyzing poetry and whatnot. The books we read were really quite rubbish, but I think the worst part was that we had no concrete guidance as to how to answer questions - instructions were very vague and as a result I didn't really know what to write. This is the subject that I got an A in, and although this is of course a very good grade, I was predicted an A* which goes to show that what the examiner really wanted to see was unclear
English Language - this was generally quite a boring subject for me, it was more based on knowing what the examiner wanted from you than anything else. I don't particularly like writing essays and such so it wasn't very enjoyable for me. The teachers I had were OK but nothing special and I'm glad to be rid of the subject!
History - as I mentioned above, I had a fantastic teacher which really turned things around for me. I thought the content of the subject was actually really interesting and I enjoyed learning about it, and I liked the fact that although there was A LOT of things that you had to learn by heart, there was a big focus on skills and exam technique as well. It was a difficult subject, but definitely worthwhile, and although I'm happy to not have to take it next year I'm definitely glad I did last year.
Geography - this was a pretty pointless subject, it was based largely on common sense and learning "case studies" which could basically be made up. Our teacher was lazy and useless; we basically taught ourselves everything we needed to know. Some of the content was applicable to current society but it was largely dull and boring.
Biology - this is one of my favourite subjects. Although I find the whole plant side of it quite boring, I'm fascinated by the whole aspect of human biology. I had quite a good teacher who was reasonably good at explaining things, although it was a lot of copying notes and self-learning with her. We did quite a few experiments which were fun to do but often quite chaotic and I don't really feel like I learnt a whole lot from them, but that's probably just me. The content is vast and very interesting overall so I was happy with that.
Chemistry - this is another of my favourite subjects, which I mentioned earlier in the context of my amazing teacher. I think she was my favourite teacher of alltime, and I really hope I have an equally good one at my boarding school in England, but she'll be hard to top! I love chemistry, how logical it is and how everything just fits into place. It makes sense to me, and is a subject that I just get.
Physics - this is my least favourite science, for some reason it just doesn't seem to make sense to me. Not helped by the fact that the two teachers I had were not the based, but that aside it just didn't seem to click for me. Nevertheless, I was able to learn the formulas and basically used that to get me through, along with trying in vain to understand basic concepts and did well in the end.
Maths - this has always been my strong point, I've always been very good at maths, and the lessons are usually a doddle. I had rubbish teachers in year 10 but a good one in year 11 which was nice for a change. Surprisingly one of the final maths exams was extremely difficult, which really shocked me as I was used to finishing in half the given time. People came out of it crying because it was such a difficult paper and such a shock after what we'd been used to. Either ways I still enjoyed the course overall although it could have been a little more challenging.
So that's my take on the IGCSEs. Overall, I think it's an excellent qualification to have, especially if you are on the CIE board which I was. It's challenging but worthwile, and not only about knowledge but also about skills. I definitely recomment it to anybody who has the choice to do them, if you're willing to put in the work.
I'm sorry for how long this post turned out to be, if you managed to get till the end - congratulations!
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