These are the topics that come up the most in real GCSE Maths exams. Start at the top. 💪
1 · Which tier are you?
2 · Which exam board? (set to yours — change if you like)
⭐ Revise these first — they're worth the most marks across recent papers.
How far down should I get?
Roughly how far down this list you'd want to be for each grade. These are ballparks, not promises.
Why a range and not a number? The low end assumes you'd get every single mark in every topic above it. Nobody does that. The high end allows for dropping about one mark in four, which is a lot closer to real life — so the honest answer is somewhere in between, and further is always safer.
Notice the range gets wider the higher you go. That's the real lesson: at the top grades there is no shortlist — you need most of the paper and you need to be accurate. Grade boundaries move every year, so treat all of this as a steer, not a target.
Quick wins · easy 1 & 2-mark questions to nail
The number shows how often each has come up since 2017.
Based on real GCSE Maths exam papers (OCR, AQA & Edexcel) from 2017 to 2024. This shows what comes up most — a great revision guide, not a prediction of your exam.
