GCSE Chinese (Mandarin): the papers, the marks and how to get a 9

GCSE Chinese is four papers, each a quarter of your grade

Both boards test the same four skills, and each paper is worth a quarter of the GCSE. You sit all four at one tier in the same summer. Foundation tops out at a 5, while Higher runs from 4 up to 9.

Your school picks the board, and the choice matters, because the two boards' speaking tests and word lists differ. We'll call them Edexcel and AQA from here on. Here's how they compare, Foundation first and then Higher:

Sources: the Pearson Edexcel 1CN0 specification, Issue 5, and the AQA 8673 specification, version 1.2. We checked AQA's characters on its June 2024 Higher reading paper.

On both boards, listening and reading questions are in English, and you answer in English. Two papers also include a translation: Chinese into English in reading, and English into Chinese in writing.

Your teacher conducts the speaking test and records it, then an examiner at the board marks the recording. So the person you talk to isn't the person who grades you.

Chinese kept its exam when French, German and Spanish changed

If you've heard that GCSE languages changed in 2026, that change didn't reach Chinese. The government's new subject content brought read-aloud and dictation tasks to French, German and Spanish, first examined in summer 2026.

The Department for Education's page says the older 2014 content "will remain current for all other MFL subjects". Chinese is one of them, so both boards still run the specifications first examined in 2019.

The only recent change came from Pearson. In 2022 it reissued the Edexcel specification with a retimed Foundation writing paper, which now offers a choice of two formal tasks in its second question.

So past papers from 2019 on are still the right format, apart from Edexcel Foundation writing papers set before that change. Neither board had announced a new Chinese specification when we checked in November 2026.

Is GCSE Chinese hard if you don't speak it at home?

It's hard, but the results make it look easier than it is. We read both boards' grade statistics, and GCSE Chinese draws a very different crowd from French or Spanish.

An evaluation of the government's Mandarin Excellence Programme looked at the Chinese GCSEs taken by England's Year 11 pupils in 2024. Nearly two in five were the Cantonese-speaking version, and the report believes most of those were taken by private candidates who don't study Chinese at school.

The same report estimates that another fifth to three tenths of candidates learn Mandarin in the community. In other words, most of the people you're graded alongside speak Chinese at home.

Every Cantonese candidate sits Edexcel, the only board with a Cantonese option. Here's how the June 2026 grades compare with French on the same two boards:

Sources: Pearson's grade statistics for June 2026, UK candidates, and AQA's results statistics for June 2026. Both are provisional. Each board's 2023 to 2025 figures show the same split.

For a student who learned Mandarin at school, a better yardstick is the same evaluation's data on pupils without Chinese heritage. More than a third of those in the programme reached an 8 or 9, against under a quarter of similar pupils outside it.

So if Chinese isn't spoken at your home, a 7 is a strong result and a 9 is possible. You'll earn it the way the programme's students do: lots of speaking practice, characters learned by hand and every paper practised against the clock.

If you did grow up with Chinese, our guide for heritage speakers shows where home Chinese gives you a head start and where it doesn't.

How many marks do you need for a 9?

You need most of them: in 2026, about four in five of the Higher-tier marks at Edexcel and nearly nine in ten at AQA. Each board scales its papers so each counts for a quarter, then sets the boundaries on the total.

The boundaries move every year, and the lines for a 7 and a 9 have risen each year since 2024. We lined up the Higher-tier totals for the last three summers:

Sources: Pearson's grade boundaries for June 2024, 2025 and 2026, and AQA's for 2024, 2025 and 2026. The totals are scaled marks.

Read the 7 as roughly three fifths of the marks and the 9 as four fifths or more. If your mock scores sit near a line, we'd aim a few marks above it, because next year's line may be higher.

If you have mock or past-paper marks, put them in below. We built this calculator from the boards' own scaling tables and boundaries:

Treat the result as a guide, because the lines move every year. Use it to see which paper would lift your total fastest.

The Foundation tier caps you at a 5, and that 5 isn't cheap. In 2026 it took about three quarters of Edexcel's Foundation marks and three fifths of AQA's. If your teacher thinks you can reach a 6, Higher is the only route.

Each paper has its own line for a 7 and a 9

Only your total decides the grade, but the boards also publish a guide line for each paper. These show us where the marks are hardest to find.

We turned each Higher paper's lines for a 7 and a 9 in June 2026 into a share of that paper's marks:

Sources: Pearson's notional component boundaries, June 2026, and the component rows of AQA's June 2026 boundaries. Raw marks; only the total sets your grade.

At AQA, half the writing marks were enough for a 7, but a 9 took more than four in five. In our reading, writing is where accurate characters separate the top grade from the rest, so start your character practice early.

Half the speaking marks are in the conversation

Speaking is a quarter of your GCSE, and both boards give the biggest share of it to the last part. That's the conversation with your teacher about the themes you've studied.

The rest is split between a role play and a task built on a photo. We worked out each task's share of the speaking marks:

Sources: the Edexcel and AQA specifications' mark schemes; our arithmetic.

The mark schemes reward the same four things on both boards. These are what examiners listen for:

• Developed answers. A reason, an example and a second sentence beat a one-line reply every time.
• Opinions with justification. Say what you think, then say why.
• Three time frames. Chinese verbs don't change for tense, so show the past and future with time words and markers like 了(le), 过(guo), 打算(dǎsuàn) and 会(huì).
• Clear tones. Edexcel says that for Chinese, intonation "encompasses both intonation and tones", and AQA's conversation gives five marks to pronunciation, intonation and tones.

One more thing the grids show: each Foundation grid's top band matches the Higher grid's second band. So a Higher student who answers like a strong Foundation student lands in the middle of the Higher marks.

The role play: five prompts, two marks each

The role play is a short exchange in a set scene, such as a hotel, a shop or a job interview. You get the card during your 12 minutes of preparation, with the scene and five prompts in English.

Each prompt earns up to two marks for getting the message across, and AQA adds five more for the quality of your language overall. Two symbols on the card matter:

• "?" means you ask the question. Edexcel's Higher card has two of these and Foundation has one.
• "!" means an unseen question. Your teacher asks something you couldn't prepare, and you answer it.

Short, exact answers win here. This is how three prompts from a hotel card of our own might go:

• I'd like to stay three nights. 我想住三个晚上。 Wǒ xiǎng zhù sān ge wǎnshang.
• To the unseen question "Have you been to Beijing before?" 你以前来过北京吗？ Nǐ yǐqián láiguo Běijīng ma?, you answer: I came once, last year. 我去年来过一次。 Wǒ qùnián láiguo yí cì.
• And you ask: excuse me, what time does breakfast start? 请问，早饭几点开始？ Qǐngwèn, zǎofàn jǐ diǎn kāishǐ?

The examiners' reports we read keep naming the same slips. At Edexcel's Higher tier, the 2025 report found most students dropped marks on the two questions they had to ask. They changed the question, added details or turned an open question into a yes-or-no one.

AQA's examiners add three more. Read the scene line, because a question about "this cinema" means the one you're in. Don't answer with a negative, like "I don't have a pet", when asked what pet you like. And when a card says "ask whether", a plain 吗(ma) question is right; 是否(shìfǒu) isn't needed.

Prepare the unseen question by guessing it. On Edexcel's Higher card, one prompt is always in the past, so have a past sentence ready for every scene.

The picture task: describe the photo, then go beyond it

The second task starts with a photo and five questions. The first asks what's in the picture; the rest move out to the topic, your experiences and your opinions.

The boards name it differently and mark it differently. Edexcel's picture-based task gives two thirds of its marks to what you say and a third to how accurately you say it. AQA's photo card marks communication only, so a clear, developed answer counts for more than complex grammar.

Our advice is to start with a short, concrete description in the third person: who, where and what they're doing. AQA's examiners note that a guess needs a reason. "They're happy" earns nothing on its own; "they're happy, because they're smiling" does.

• In this photo there's a family eating by the sea. 这张照片里有一家人，他们在海边吃饭。 Zhè zhāng zhàopiàn li yǒu yì jiā rén, tāmen zài hǎibiān chī fàn.
• They look happy, because they're all smiling. 他们很高兴，因为他们都在笑。 Tāmen hěn gāoxìng, yīnwèi tāmen dōu zài xiào.
• Then bring in your own past: last summer I went to the seaside with my family too. 去年夏天我也和家人去了海边。 Qùnián xiàtiān wǒ yě hé jiārén qùle hǎibiān.

For AQA's top band, its 2025 report says you answer every question clearly and develop at least three answers in three or more clauses, with an opinion and a reason. On Edexcel's Higher tier, the fifth question is unseen, so keep a few all-purpose opinions ready.

The words in the questions trip students up as much as the photo does. Edexcel's examiners saw students talk about a local event when asked about an international one, and any resources when asked about natural ones.

Your tones count here too. When a tone changes a word's meaning, the listener has to work to understand you, and the mark schemes describe exactly that as lost clarity.

Treat the conversation as a dialogue

The conversation is the longest part, and it's where the two boards differ most. You choose where it starts, and the board sets the rest.

At Edexcel, you pick a topic from one theme at least two weeks ahead. Your teacher lets you talk about it for up to a minute, then asks questions. The second half is on another theme, which your teacher picks from two that Pearson sets, and both halves get equal time.

At AQA, you pick a whole theme, not a topic. The second theme is the one that wasn't on your photo card. AQA's examiners are blunt that a prepared speech doesn't work: a presentation "is not an acceptable format", and long monologues cost marks for spontaneity.

AQA also has two penalties to avoid:

• Ask your teacher a question. If you don't, you lose a communication mark. Ask it early, because a question after the time limit doesn't count. A statement plus 你呢(nǐ ne), "what about you?", is fine.
• Fill the time on both themes. At Higher tier each theme needs at least two and a half minutes, or two marks go.

Edexcel doesn't ask you to put a question in the conversation; its examiners say the questions belong in the role play.

On both boards, the top marks go to answers that develop and connect. Here's one of our own, in a student's voice, to "Do you think learning Chinese is useful?":

• I think learning Chinese is really useful, because so many people speak it. 我觉得学中文非常有用，因为很多人说中文。 Wǒ juéde xué Zhōngwén fēicháng yǒuyòng, yīnwèi hěn duō rén shuō Zhōngwén.
• Last year I went to Shanghai and ordered food in Chinese, and the waiters understood every word! 去年我去了上海，用中文点菜，服务员都听懂了！ Qùnián wǒ qùle Shànghǎi, yòng Zhōngwén diǎn cài, fúwùyuán dōu tīngdǒng le!
• Characters are hard, but the more I learn, the more I like them. 虽然汉字很难，但是我越学越喜欢。 Suīrán Hànzì hěn nán, dànshì wǒ yuè xué yuè xǐhuan.
• In the future I plan to study in China for a year. 将来我打算在中国学习一年。 Jiānglái wǒ dǎsuàn zài Zhōngguó xuéxí yì nián.
• What about you? Do you find Chinese hard? 你呢？你觉得中文难吗？ Nǐ ne? Nǐ juéde Zhōngwén nán ma?

That's an opinion, a reason, a past story, a complex structure and a future plan, in about half a minute. Learn the building blocks rather than a script, so you can rebuild them for any question.

If you don't understand, say so in Chinese. Please say that again, 请再说一遍(qǐng zài shuō yí biàn), or sorry, I didn't understand, 对不起，我没听懂 duìbuqǐ, wǒ méi tīngdǒng, are repair strategies. Both boards accept them, and AQA's examiners note that asking in English can cost language marks.

Pearson's examiners found that students did best on themes they knew well, such as family, festivals and school. They were weaker on work, volunteering and the environment, so give those topics extra vocabulary time.

The writing paper rewards every bullet point

Writing tests characters by hand, so it's where even fluent speakers drop marks. Both boards set short and longer tasks, each with bullet points you must cover, and a translation.

At Higher tier, the longer task is worth the most on both boards. Here's what each board sets:

Sources: the Edexcel and AQA specifications. Each paper is scaled to a quarter of the GCSE.

Foundation papers start smaller, with a few sentences about a photo or a topic, a short note and translation sentence by sentence. On both boards, one Foundation task is the same as the shorter Higher task, so a strong Foundation student meets it too.

Character counts are a guide; neither board penalises a few more or fewer. Covering every bullet point is what matters. AQA won't put you in its higher content bands unless you cover all four bullets, and Edexcel's top band needs every bullet too.

We found the same misreadings in every year's reports. Students wrote what they "always" do when the bullet asked what they "used to" do, "how often" for "where", and what they "brought" when asked what they "bought". Underline the question word and the time frame in every bullet before you write.

Here's a model of our own for an informal Edexcel-style task about your last holiday, 84 characters long:

• Last summer holiday I went to Scotland with my family. 去年暑假我和家人去了苏格兰。 Qùnián shǔjià wǒ hé jiārén qùle Sūgélán.
• We stayed in a small hotel and went hiking every day. 我们住在一个小酒店，每天都去爬山。 Wǒmen zhù zài yí ge xiǎo jiǔdiàn, měitiān dōu qù páshān.
• The weather wasn't great, but the scenery was beautiful. 虽然天气不太好，但是风景非常美。 Suīrán tiānqì bú tài hǎo, dànshì fēngjǐng fēicháng měi.
• I think family holidays are fun, because everyone relaxes. 我觉得和家人一起旅游很有意思，因为大家都很放松。 Wǒ juéde hé jiārén yìqǐ lǚyóu hěn yǒu yìsi, yīnwèi dàjiā dōu hěn fàngsōng.
• Next year I plan to go to China to see the Great Wall. 明年我打算去中国看长城。 Míngnián wǒ dǎsuàn qù Zhōngguó kàn Chángchéng.
• What about you? Where do you want to go next year? 你呢？你明年想去哪儿？ Nǐ ne? Nǐ míngnián xiǎng qù nǎr?

Three habits cost students marks every year. Some write both options of a choice question, which earns nothing extra. Some write spoken Cantonese, which Edexcel penalises in the writing paper. And many write a character that sounds right but isn't: AQA's examiners saw 公圆 for park, 公园(gōngyuán), and 作天 for yesterday, 昨天(zuótiān).

If you can't remember a character, AQA's examiners advise writing the pinyin rather than leaving a gap, but only as a last resort, since pinyin costs language marks. As their 2025 report puts it, "It is better to be simple and clear than complex and unclear."

Translation marks leak through small words

Translation looks like the easy part, so students rush it. The reports we read show the marks go on single words and small structures.

We collected the words that caught students out in recent English-to-Chinese translations, from the Edexcel and AQA reports:

• Laptop is 笔记本电脑(bǐjìběn diànnǎo); many wrote tablet, 平板电脑(píngbǎn diànnǎo).
• Download is 下载(xiàzài); some wrote the wrong second character.
• Next summer holiday is 明年暑假(míngnián shǔjià), not next summer, 明年夏天(míngnián xiàtiān).
• Environment, geography and strict are 环境(huánjìng), 地理(dìlǐ) and 严格(yángé), all often miswritten.
• Although … but needs both halves, 虽然(suīrán) and 但是(dànshì), unlike in English.

Going the other way, into English in the reading paper, every detail is a mark. Keep the negatives, the time words and the numbers, then read your English back to check it makes sense.

Practise translation as a daily five-minute habit, and learn to write the characters you translate, not just recognise them. A translation is the one task where you can't steer around a word you don't know.

In listening and reading, answer exactly what's asked

The listening and reading papers test understanding, so you never write Chinese in them. Recordings play twice, and you get five minutes to read the paper before the first one starts.

In our reading of the reports, the questions are written to catch people who grab the first matching word.

The Edexcel reports describe students choosing "red" as soon as they heard 红(hóng), and missing that 就要(jiùyào) means "about to". The hardest question on the 2025 Foundation paper turned partly on 一百多年(yìbǎi duō nián), over a hundred years, which many heard as a hundred.

The examiners also spell out rules that cost students marks:

• Give one answer per mark. Only the first answer before a slash counts, and brackets are ignored.
• Tick exactly the number of boxes asked. Three means three, not two or four.
• Answer from the text or recording. What you know about mooncakes doesn't count if the recording says something else.
• Match the question's time frame. AQA's examiners saw students answer a question about what someone will do with what they did.

Use the reading time to underline each question's key words and to cross out answers that don't fit. In reading, leave the translation passage time of its own; at Edexcel it's worth 7 marks at Higher.

The word lists are about HSK 3, plus topic words

Both boards publish a vocabulary list in their specification, and both say it isn't complete: the papers can use words that aren't on it. So treat the list as the minimum.

We extracted both lists, about 800 entries each, and matched every entry to the new HSK, China's official Mandarin exam, as set out in its latest syllabus. Here's how much of each Higher list the HSK levels cover:

Source: our match of the AQA and Edexcel lists to the 2025 HSK syllabus by written form. About 7% of each list is on no HSK list.

The rest are topic words that the HSK saves for later levels. Pet, 宠物(chǒngwù), museum, 博物馆(bówùguǎn), and download, 下载(xiàzài), are all HSK 5. Words from the themes examiners say students find hardest sit higher still: part-time job, 兼职(jiānzhí), is HSK 6, and charity, 慈善(císhàn), is in HSK 7 to 9.

Names and British school life, like school uniform, 校服(xiàofú), and pound sterling, 英镑(yīngbàng), aren't on the HSK at all. So an HSK course alone won't cover your list.

Two more of our counts help you plan. Each Higher list uses about 700 different characters, a little over what HSK 3 asks you to recognise. And the two boards' lists share only about half their entries word for word, so a generic "GCSE Chinese vocabulary" deck may waste your time.

Learn your own board's list by theme, and say every word aloud as you learn it. Edexcel groups its words under five themes, from identity and culture to the international and global dimension; AQA uses three broader ones.

A 12-week plan to a 9

Twelve weeks before your speaking window is enough to move a grade if you practise most days. The plan below suits a Higher student aiming for an 8 or 9 who learned Chinese at school.

It assumes about 40 minutes a day, on top of lessons. Here's how we would spend it:

Our own plan, built on both boards' formats. Your speaking test can fall any time from mid-April to late May.

If you speak Chinese at home, flip the balance. Spend most of your time on writing characters accurately, formal written style and the exam's question types. Fluent speakers still lose marks for reading out learned speeches, writing both options and using spoken Cantonese in writing.

If you're on Foundation, aim for a 5 and practise the same tasks at their shorter lengths. Take the Higher papers' shared questions as stretch work.

If you have six months, add a reading habit before the plan starts. Ten minutes a day of graded stories builds the vocabulary that the lists leave out.

Free practice: start with your board's own papers

Use your board's own papers for the real format, and add practice in that format for volume. These are the free materials we would use, in this order:

• Your board's past papers. Pearson posts recent 1CN0 papers and mark schemes on its qualification page. AQA posts papers, listening audio and even past role-play and photo cards on its assessment resources page, a year after each exam.
• Examiners' reports. Pearson publishes one for every paper and tier each summer, and AQA's follow a year later. They're the best free guide to what loses marks.
• Our three GCSE workbooks. Speaking, writing, and reading and listening, each covering all five themes at both tiers, with audio. They're free with a SayMei account; the collection page has all three.
• UCL's Confucius Institute materials. Its GCSE page has free vocabulary books for both boards, word audio and a speaking bank by theme.
• A YouTube series on the writing paper. Ms. Luo's Mandarin Class walks through the GCSE writing paper question by question, including three time frames and translation.
• Listening practice by level. Our free listening practice has dialogues at about GCSE Higher level, with audio and pinyin you can hide.
• Real-life listening on YouTube. Mandarin Corner makes videos for intermediate learners, so it suits Higher students and heritage speakers who want more than exam recordings.

Our workbooks are practice tasks in the GCSE format, written by SayMei, not official papers. SayMei isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Pearson Edexcel or AQA, so use the boards' own papers for your final mocks.

The dates for 2027, and what to do if you're a private candidate

The 2027 exams follow the usual pattern: speaking tests from mid-April, and the written papers in May. These dates are on the boards' own timetables:

• Speaking window. Edexcel runs from 15 April to 20 May 2027, and AQA from 12 April to 21 May. Your school picks your day inside it.
• Listening and reading. Tuesday 11 May 2027, in the afternoon, on both boards.
• Writing. Thursday 20 May 2027, in the afternoon, on both boards.
• Results. Thursday 19 August 2027.

Schools must enter you by 21 February 2027, the JCQ deadline, and pay a late fee after that. Resits happen only in the summer, because the November series is for English and maths.

You can also sit GCSE Chinese as a private candidate, through a school or exam centre that takes outside entries. The catch is the speaking test: the centre must find a teacher to conduct it, and AQA says the entering centre must supervise and authenticate it.

The boards' own entry fees are about £56 at Edexcel and £67 at AQA. Centres add their own charges for private candidates, so ask for an all-in price that includes speaking.

On the day of the speaking test, you'll have 12 minutes to prepare the role play and picture cards with no dictionary. At Edexcel you may make notes on up to one side of A4, but not for the conversation. At AQA you hand your notes back before the conversation starts.

Where SayMei fits, and where it doesn't

SayMei can help with the parts of GCSE Chinese that need practice volume. Our three GCSE workbooks are free with a SayMei account and follow both boards' formats. The flashcards' HSK decks hold most of the GCSE words, and Mei Lin, SayMei's AI tutor, lets you practise answering out loud.

SayMei teaches Mandarin, with Simplified characters by default. We don't teach Cantonese, so we can't help with Edexcel's Cantonese speaking option; our Mandarin vs Cantonese guide explains how far apart the two are.

We can't mark your GCSE answers, predict your grade or show you the real role-play and photo cards, which stay confidential until the exam. Your teacher, your board's mark schemes and its examiners' reports remain the best judges of your work.

SayMei Premium costs $5.99 a month for 200 minutes with Mei Lin. Depending on your country, you start with a free first lesson or a free week that needs a card, as our pricing page explains.

What to do next

• Check your board and tier. Ask your teacher, then download that board's specification and word list.
• Do one role play this week. Give yourself 12 minutes to prepare, as in the exam, then record it.
• Start a mistake list. Write down every character and question type you get wrong, and review it weekly.
• Read your board's latest examiners' reports. They show where real students lost marks.
• Put your speaking window in the calendar. It opens weeks before the written papers.

Start with the GCSE speaking workbook: it has a role play, a picture task and conversation questions for every theme.