“It’s about the journey not the destination”
For me the IGCSE was a challenge. Coming from an Indian board I wasn’t really used to the way in which they ask questions, especially in the humanities subjects such as history and English lit. My IGCSE journey was like any other,with both ups and downs,but it all ended well and I’m pleased to say that I’m proud of my results! I wrote my history and business studies exams first in November of 2015. While the subjects did interest me with vibrant textbooks and Engaging case studies,the vast amount of subject matter did demand attention. On the contrary the Science,Math and language papers seemed to demand a more of a Direct approach and was less content-heavy. In my opinion the math and science syllabi were a lot more easy than the others but still took time to gut used to. I found my teachers of all subjects conditioning my answers to suit the question and hence fetch maximum marks. Whenever I lost marks {excluding errors caused by oversight} it was often due to the absence of key words and phrases in my response. “you know the content, but you need to use proper terminology” they told me.
The IGCSE curriculum seemed far more technical than I’d expected. But I got a hang of it.By studying marching schemes,examiners’ reports and comments and model answers along side as the syllabus content itself, I learnt to format my answers appropriately and gain the most marks I could. For example in biology, the mere mention of a key word/term could gain you marks and in math your working gets you partial credit if your final answer is incorrect. If there’s one thing I’d change about my IGCSE journey, it would be taking the syllabus and mark schemes of subjects more seriously. For most subjects I started by studying the textbook fully and then attempted loads of past paper questions which I corrected myself, towards the nearing of the exam. With hindsight the way I should’ve gone about it is first studying the syllabus. I realised a little too late how much the syllabus helps. It gives you a detailed account of what the examiner expects out of your response, how key words in questions {and marks carried by them} convey the degree of detail demanded by each question and tells you what top performers tend to do to achieve maximum marks. By outlining ‘assessment objectives’ it also helps the student tackle the content far more effectively than simply diving into the text book. Studying the syllabus first would’ve hence helped me far more and would’ve made my studies arguably easier. One more thing is that you can never have enough practice. Especially in the science and math subjects in which you CAN score perfectly. It is imperative that you correct your own papers and be as unbiased as possible, following the mark scheme like the law. Doing this will help you understand how the examiner corrects, build confidence and accuracy in your answers and will land you A-stars!
My IGCSE journey ended well, but looking back , I know now how I could’ve improved and will apply this to my As and A-levels. You know what they say, “it’s about the journey not the destination” and this holds true as ever. While long and exhausting it did teach me to self assess , argue and write effectively , apart from the vast academic wealth I received from the subjects. So I’d say it was quiet an experience overall, a memorable one.
Bharath Nagarajan
(Head Start Academy)
