Teacher reveals what to expect from this summer’s final exam papers 

This teacher looks at the patterns from GCSE / A Level papers so far 

Exams this year have made headlines for being easy - such as GCSE French and PE. In order to help parents prepare their children for their final exams for what to expect, Francesca Eardley, Head of Science and Revision Expert at Save My Exams outlines some of the trends she’s seen so far, potentially indicating what’s to come. 

1. The link to current culture

You heard it! This year we saw English Language papers asking students to write about their favourite song and what it means to them. With many putting pen to paper jotting down their favourite Harry Styles songs, we teachers were bewildered! While we haven’t seen this particular question come up in an English Language exam before, the reasoning behind it is logical. Many of the skills used to write about more traditional syllabus topics can be applied in the exact same way. It’s about students becoming clear on why they believe something and what language they use to communicate it.

Our content creator at Save My Exams Nick Redgrove, sums it up perfectly “Exams don’t always recognise a student's own cultural heritage, or their own - sometimes profound - relationship and understanding of the culture which is meaningful to them. Therefore, I would absolutely welcome exams which allow students the opportunity to explore their own favourite songs creatively.”

2. The intersection across subjects 

This year, we’ve seen even more growth in synoptic questions - ones that incorporate requirements from other subject knowledge in order to answer them. This year’s AQA GCSE Chemistry exam heavily relied on Maths to answer many of the questions, with students recalling it relied on mathematical skill over chemical compounds.

As with any subject, it’s always best to not only revise subject specification-specific content, but to read around the subject to widen awareness and understanding. However, now it’s more important than ever to go that step further and to factor in additional key transferable skills that may be needed. Often, subjects can be intersectional and require a range of knowledge from different areas to answer them - take history and English for example, so knowing which subject areas are closely related is key to prepare. 

3. The open book policy

The phenomenon of the open book policy has seemingly made its way into 2023’s exam papers. We’re seeing more and more papers offering students resources in exams to help them answer questions, arguably testing how well they can source relevant information. 

This year’s Physics GCSE exam offered an equation table to students and asked questions which involved using this resource. In previous years, students would have been required to remember these equations from memory. 

Students have taken to social media to comment on the relief they felt opening a paper which basically had the answers there in front of them, and news even reported how students were laughing at the ease of this exam. Arguably, the skill here is selective relevancy - knowing what to pick out of the resources provided, and knowing how to apply it to different scenarios and questions. 
 

4. The preference for long answers over short 

‘Read every word of the question’ is often the advice teachers give to students to avoid any misunderstandings or confusion. And it’s sound advice as this year we’ve seen a rise in longer form questions which has been particularly distracting to students working under time constraints in an already high pressure environment. 

The AQA A-level physics exam had a question about a surgeon doing an emergency surgery on a boat and students had to determine whether the boat should keep travelling or remain stationary so they could do the operation (to do with frequency of the waves in the sea and the natural frequency of the boat). While it’s a real life scenario, and really challenges students to think, we can see how this may throw some off the scent. 

Exams styles are constantly changing, putting pressure on students to be that extra bit prepared. Learning all the content itself is one skill and hurdle to master, but then learning how to apply that knowledge to answer exam questions successfully is another skill altogether. It’s important that we encourage our children to continue to include past paper practice as part of their revision. Practising exam questions focused on one specific topic first is a great revision technique. Then, when students are more confident, they can complete full papers in timed conditions to become familiar with the format as if this year has taught us anything, we can’t predict what’ll be next. 
 

With exam questions particularly hard, click here to see our teachers reveal some of the historical trickiest exam questions and how to answer them!