In recent times since the COVID outbreak, it has become increasingly popular throughout the population who have left higher education to want a career change. Due to potentially being outside of education for a while, it is likely that you may not have the required grades in order to pursue your desired training course. GCSE Maths Equivalency Exams could be what you need.
GCSE Maths equivalency exams have been designed for those who fit this criteria and don’t have the grade requirements for entry onto training courses like for QTS teacher training, nursing and midwifery.
Liverpool Tutor Company are working alongside A Star Equivalency Testing in order to help offer you the best provider for both the exam and GCSE Maths Equivalency course. A Star has the best services available at the best price in order to put you in the best position possible for your upcoming GCSE Maths Equivalency exam.
With A Star, there are two options when booking your course. You can either pay less and just only do the exam or you can pay £99 more and also gain access to all of the course materials like flashcards/revision guides/mock exams & mark schemes, as well as having your exam included in the price too. Of course, our tutors here at Liverpool Tutor Company will be available as ever to help you with any potential gaps you may have in your learning from revision timetabling to course content and confidence.
The GCSE Maths Equivalency Exams are based on the Edexcel GCSE Maths specification. This can seem daunting if you have spent a chunk of your time out of full time education so we are pleased to let you know that there have been slight modifications made to the GCSE Maths Equivalency exam in order to make it more practical and enable as much success as possible for the students that are taking it.
Depending how confident you feel, you will also have the option to sit your exam in either higher or foundation tier. We do recommend sitting the foundation tier GCSE Maths Equivalency exam as it has a much higher success rate and smaller amount of course content to learn.
Foundation papers are capped at a certain grade, so no grade higher than a Level 5 is attainable. Whereas, for the higher tier, any grade between 3 and 9 is available to achieve.
Just for an idea of what to expect. The grade boundaries for the GCSE Maths Equivalency exams are as follows:
Foundation Tier GCSE Maths Equivalency Exam Grade Boundaries
- Grade 4 (low C) (55% to 74%) Grade 5 (75% to 100%)
Higher Tier GCSE Maths Equivalency Grade Boundaries are as follows:
- Grade 4 (25 to 34%) 9 mark band 25 to 34 marks inclusive
- Grade 5 (35 to 43%) 9 mark band 35 to 43 marks inclusive
- Grade 6 (44 to 54%) 11 mark band 44 to 54 marks inclusive
- Grade 7 (55 to 68%) 14 mark band 55 to 68 marks inclusive
- Grade 8 (69 to 82%) 14 mark band 69 to 82 marks inclusive
- Grade 9 (83 to 100%) 18 mark band 83 to 100 marks inclusive
When it comes to booking and taking the GCSE Maths Equivalency exam, use the A Star Equivalency website to decide which date you would like you sit your exam on – using the calendar you can then see which dates are also more affordable as the prices reduce as the date gets further away.
On the exam day, you will be sitting both Paper 1 (Non Calc) and Paper 2 (Calc) back to back in the space of 2 hours. You will get an hour for each paper and each is worth 50 marks, which then decides your grade out of 100.
Since all of the exams are now online and remote, you will need to ensure that you have a computer/laptop with a webcam and strong internet access. And some paper & a pen for workings (and your ID). Once you have sat your exam, you will receive your results within 10 working days of sitting the exam or 24-72 hours if you paid extra for your results to be fast tracked.
If you have been reading this and thinking that the GCSE Maths Equivalency exams are something that you may be needing, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at Liverpool Tutor Company and we would be delighted to help you in any way that we can from booking the exam to passing with flying colours and enrolling onto your desired course!