Hi Everybody,
We all know that CIE is an examination body under the University of Cambridge. And Edexcel is under University of London. These two examination bodies are undertaken extensively by international students. Different formats of questions, as well as of different difficulty levels are prepared by both the examination bodies.
I decided to conduct a verbal and informal survey among 18 of my friends, all of whom are studying CIE. Among them 13 answered that CIE question papers are ‘significantly harder’ than their Edexcel equivalent. Three said that they are the same. Only two said that CIE question papers are easier. I also asked all of them if they have ever solved Edexcel papers. Surprisingly, only 3 of them solved ‘a few’ Edexcel question papers. And they are ready to comment that Edexcel is easier!
So, I downloaded some English language question paper of Edexcel (GCE O’ Level). When I tried to solve them, I found that the Edexcel question paper was too lengthy, tested much more skills and was much more difficult than the equivalent CIE language papers. Similarly, I downloaded commerce, physics, chemistry and biology question papers. Physics Edexcel question papers was very easy compared to the CIE ones. Chemistry was much easier for edexcel. Biology paper was easy for CIE. The Bengali question papers were much more harder, lengthy and difficult in Edexcel too. While Bengali in CIE is a piece of cake for many!
What I think is that, Edexcel question papers tests more theoretical aspects. Whereas, CIE tests more applied and practical /creative concepts. Another interesting finding was that question repetition in Edexcel question papers were fairly common. If anybody solves the previous 10 years question paper before going to exam, he/she is bound to get fairly common questions and do well in the exam. Whereas, in CIE, I didn’t find a single example of question repetition in the past years questions (except few MCQs).
Feel free to express your own opinion regarding this. Try to present your own views and experiences in solving these two bodies’ question papers.
Cheers!