This is unusual for me to post, but I’ve been feeling really hopeless about my grades lately and I genuinely need advice from people who’ve been through something similar. I’ve been an academic achiever for as long as I can remember, until Year 9, which honestly felt like the start of a complete downfall. Since starting IGCSE, my grades have been really inconsistent and all over the place.
I take 6 subjects: EFL, EMath, ICT, Chemistry, Physics, and Business. My first assessment was 3 good subjects and 3 Ds. Midterms became all Cs and 1 D. Then my second assessment improved a lot — I got 3 As, 1 B, and 2 Cs that were literally 1% away from Bs, while the B itself was only 2% away from an A.
Now finals came around and I ended up with a B, a C, a D, 2 Es, and an F. These are genuinely the worst marks I’ve ever gotten, and it’s also my first time ever getting Es and an F, which honestly affected me more than I expected. I know a big part of it is lack of effort, inconsistency, and giving up too easily sometimes, which is hard to admit. The F was Business with 33%.
Another thing that made this exam session difficult was that we originally only had to take 2 papers per subject, but another paper got introduced not long before exams. I struggled a lot adjusting to the new structures, question styles, and overall pressure, especially while already feeling behind.
I still believe I can improve in Math (67%), Physics (51%), Chemistry (45%), and EFL (73%), but I’m really unsure about ICT (49%) and especially Business. I have around 3 months before mocks and 5 months before the Oct/Nov globals.
My parents think I shouldn’t even take the globals anymore and want me to switch to GED if my mock results are bad. I understand why they feel that way, but I genuinely want to prove both them and myself wrong by taking the exams and doing well. I’m planning to seriously grind for the next few months through past papers and more consistent studying, but I keep doubting whether improvement on that level is even realistic. I know I can improve if I work hard enough, but I’m scared of putting in all that effort the wrong way and getting nowhere.
Has anyone here gone from really low grades to As/A*s within a few months before IGCSEs? Or is anyone else struggling like this right now? I’d really appreciate any advice or honest opinions on my situation.