What Did You Get In Your GCSE's?

Good GCSE's and A-levels have a good correlation with smart people in my experience. Smart people also tend to have the foresight to work hard.
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I dont agree i did not take my GCSE,s and left school with nothing. I joined the RAF as i had always intended Passed an Advanced modern apprenticeship and Btec in Avioincs and Electrical Engineering. I have been qualified to repair and maintain helicopters, fast jets and transport Aircraft completing courses for each. I have fought in 3 wars and worked 12 hour shifts for most of my 16 year career. Not bad for someone who,s last school report stated they had great concerns for my future....

To do my job in the Raf now you need GCSE,s i believe the minimum is 3 with 5 being prefered and tbh the people we get joining now i would not trust to fix my car let alone a multi-million pound aircraft.
 
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With next to no revision I got:

A A B B B C C C C E

The E was in French. The A's were in Maths and Physics, yet after the Physics exam I was convinced I had totally flopped it, so that one was a relief.
 
[FnG]magnolia;17712522 said:
Geez, that's far longer than most adults commute to work! What do you do for 25 hours a week on a bus? Study? Sleep?
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Not really, I had to get the bus to the underground station in tooting, then the underground to kings cross, then the inter city to Hitchin, then 20 min walk to school.
 
I got 6A*s in sciences, geography, DT, IT, 3As in Maths, English lit+lang, and a B in German.

To be honest, I didn't revise as much as I should have done, but the main method of learning is to concentrate during the previous 2 years of lessons... Really if you get to revision time and you don't know stuff then you're in trouble (as happened to me with German). The best way is to listen during lessons, do your homeworks, and if you don't understand something, then ask the teacher or read your textbook at the time, don't leave it until two weeks before the exam. This is especially true (for me at least) with 'memory heavy' subjects like languages.

Just remember though, all the GCSEs are really there for is to get you into sixth form/college/whatever, where you will have the chance to do better (or worse) depending on your level of diligence. Sure, some Universities might look unfavourably on poor GCSES (especially for medicine and the top unis) so it's best to aim high, but it's not the end of the world if you don't get good ones - unless you get less than 5C's then it shouldn't be too hard to find a college/whatever to take you on. As long as you then get good AS's, your GCSE's won't stop you getting places at uni altogether, but they probably will disadvantage your application even if only slightly.
 
PardonTheWait said:
Idiots can get great GCSE grades.
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In your opinion they are idiots.

I have yet to see a case where a significantly smarter person does worse than someone else (without extenuating circumstances) given the smart person doesn't have a rubbish attitude towards school.

Being smart isn't really an inherent quality either. Hard work matters immensely.

A person can always overtake another, but GCSEs are a snapshot in time, and they do a good job at ranking people.
 
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ghost101 said:
In your opinion they are idiots.

I have yet to see a case where a significantly smarter person does worse than someone else (without extenuating circumstances) given the smart person doesn't have a rubbish attitude towards school.

Being smart isn't really an inherent quality either. Hard work matters immensely.
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I didn't mention any 'they' or pick anyone out.

The fact remains, a person that is naive, stupid and ignorant can get excellent GCSE grades.

That person will continue to be naive, stupid and ignorant.

A rubbish attitude towards school, however, does not mean a person is stupid. It can make it appear so though.

What I am driving at is that you take your GCSEs when you are sixteen years of age and they become entirely irrelevant very shortly afterwards. They affect your life for a very short time indeed and in many people's lives have little to no bearing on their future prospects.

They do obviously affect your college/uni prospects, so if you're going that way of course they're important. But bad GCSE results are not the end of the world. Nor do good GCSE results mean anything long term. All GCSEs do is get you through to the next bit.
 
vonhelmet said:
They can but - shocker! - they usually don't.
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Of course. I'm not talking about tracksuited layabouts, I'm talking about people of good stock who are fine academics but basically useless in real life.

What I mean is there are people who are suited to school, and learning, and passing exams and 'doing well' but who you wouldn't really want by your side at work. These people excel at gaining bits of paper, and little else.

I'm not a good person to talk to about exams, really, because I have one NVQ to my name and hated education from start to finish, aside from my college course, but I am a reasonably intelligent and bright person who after a rocky start is doing OK. I went to a very authoritative grammar school because I got great 11+ results, but really I should have gone to a regular comprehensive and been the swot, not been the oik at the posh school. Very bad decision, but I was eleven years old.

In an ideal world of course you want good results and bits of paper, but in my eyes, even if you manage to **** it all up, if you're a smart enough person and you get the work done, you can get over it.

Part of me does wish I'd done OK and not cocked up school so badly, and maybe gone to uni, but you are who you are and it's not necessarily the end of the world. S'all I'm sayin'.
 
Some crap like, D D D E E F G. I didnt even get entered for RE as i never turned up to any lessons!
Hasn't effected me in the slightest.
 
1 B (Maths), i hated school and never went.

Been back to college since and GCSE results have only ever come up on one interview
 
I was a "gifted student" and as a result was allowed to take more than most people do
But I got so caught up in being good that I thought I wouldn't have to revise or do **** all.

Grades were predicted A-A* across all subjects ended up something like this
Eng lit/lang: CC
Science: BB
Maths: C (Later retook and got an A)
Psychology: C
History: D
Sociology: E
Geography: C
Drama: B
IT: A*
Business Studies: C

Doesn't bother me now though I've learned my lesson, now I'm in college doing a software development BTEC and I'm loving it predicted DDD(triple distinction, not 3 D's ;) which is equivalent to AAA :).
Only bummer is I can't even bother applying to universities like Oxbridge or the top 5 because I need A level maths in most.
 
Maths = A*
English lang/lit = BB
Science Double Award = BB
ICT = B
Spanish = B
Resistant Material = C
R.E = C
History = C

could have done better if I went to a better school, had to put extra effort cause school was ****.
 
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