CIE is Cambridge International Examinations and is a sister company to OCR, which offers GCSEs and A-levels etc. Edexcel is a subsidiary of the publisher Pearson, and it offers IGCSEs alongside the full range of UK qualifications. They are both respected bodies in the UK and their qualifications have equal value.

 When you choose your IGCSE/International GCSE or A-level subjects, you may also have a choice of exam board. Exam boards are organisations that offer qualifications to students, and it’s their job to produce exam papers, mark your work and award your grade. For school exams, we work with two main boards: Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) and Pearson Edexcel.

Syllabus/Curriculam

Their examinations are benchmarked at the same level of difficulty, though everybody has their own opinion about which particular subject is easiest with which board. For instance, some say that CIE has a reputation for being easier for English, and harder for maths, but unless you have a large group of students taking both exams it’s difficult to make a fair comparison.

But most of the students perception is CIE generally considered to be harder and tougher than Edexcel mainly because they have to maintain more of an international standard than Edexcel. Edexcel is more UK based, hence their difficulty as well as course structure and paper structure is more in line with the UK system, whilst CIE is an entirely free body and they set their own exam structure which is as well approved by QCA.

Starting off with the structure differences in CIE exams. As you probably know Edexcel, AQA, OCR exams are all 6 paper exams, but CIE A level Chemistry, Biology and Physics are all 5 paper Exams and Mathematics is a 4 paper exam.

• Paper 1: for the sciences are a 40 question multiple choice paper.

• Paper 2: for the Sciences is a AS core content Structured paper
• Paper 3: for the sciences is the one and only practical paper lasting 2 hours.
• Paper 4: for the sciences is a rather long and hard A2 content paper with the application units for each subject.
• Paper 5: is a planning, analysis and evaluation paper, you may not have seen in UK boards.
• As for Maths you have the compulsory P1 which is AS pure. Then you have an option of going for some more pure which is P2 or mechanics P4 or Stats P6 to complete an AS. So for AS you need P1 and one of P2, P4 or P6.
• For A level maths you need the AS modules obviously, and compulsory P3 and one other paper you haven't used already for AS.

Their examinations are benchmarked at the same level of difficulty, though everybody has their own opinion about which particular subject is easiest with which board. For instance, some say that CIE has a reputation for being easier for English, and harder for maths, but unless you have a large group of students taking both exams it’s difficult to make a fair comparison.

But most of the students perception is CIE generally considered to be harder and tougher than Edexcel mainly because they have to maintain more of an international standard than Edexcel. Edexcel is more UK based, hence their difficulty as well as course structure and paper structure is more in line with the UK system, whilst CIE is an entirely free body and they set their own exam structure which is as well approved by QCA.

"So how do you choose between them? Both boards offer qualifications that are internationally recognized and accepted by colleges and universities around the world."