Ari's right. Since this is an international board and most people are from around Asia and Africa, it's a long shot to know how many schools would be in any way relevant to yours. Still, I would've done this too,
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since I get excited at little things. If you're like me then
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Here's my school's scenario:
1) I used to have from 6 periods to 9 periods, sometimes less (and sometimes more due to staying back for extra classes). Each period was of 35-40 minutes.
2) I used to go home earlier than my previous school, most of the while.
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3) We didn't have holidays for a January session, but usually holidays for our Mid-terms/Pre-mocks were...before the Mid-terms and Pre-mocks. Being an Islamic state, the holidays center around the religious holidays, so last year there were two weeks of vacations in end December before the mocks. Probably a little behind this year. For May/June, holidays were marked with our Mocks (17th April for me) though I kept going to school for practical preparation till May 3rd (my first exam was on May 12th). Other schools had been off since end February too.
4) Ari answered.
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5) Ditto above.
6) It's much, much, much harder. If IGCSE was skydiving then AS-Level is...diving from Venus towards Earth. BUT, if you keep yourself at it and never give up, you can emerge with good results.