Changes to GCSE Science exam papers for 2020

Published: Friday 31 Jan 2020

We’ve made some changes to the instructions on our summer 2020 GCSE Science exam papers, to help students understand what is required in the exam. The changes won’t affect the assessments or the way they are marked.

Front cover

We’ve added an instruction to make it clear that students can use pencil for graphs and drawings.

Symbols in equations

In questions that ask for recall of an equation, we’ve included the equation symbols in brackets, for example:

‘Write down the equation which links acceleration (a), resultant force (F) and mass (m)’

Standard form answer line prompt

In questions where we ask for an answer in standard form, we’re repeating the instruction in the answer line, for example:

Acceleration (in standard form) = ____________

Significant figures answer line prompt

In questions where we ask students to give their answer to a required number of significant figures, we’re repeating the instruction in the answer line, for example:

Mean reaction time (2 significant figures) =   ____________

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