GCE ICT 2025 Practical: The Database and Spreadsheet Tasks That Appear Almost Every Year

Question

GCE ICT Advanced Level Practical – High-Frequency Tasks (2019–2024 Analysis)

After analysing the last 6 years of ICT Paper 3, these tasks appear with alarming regularity:

Create a relational database with 3–4 tables and proper primary/foreign keys (Students, Subjects, Scores, Teachers patterns).
Query using criteria — especially date ranges, "LIKE" with wildcards, and calculated fields.
Create a report with grouping and sorting (e.g. results by class then by subject).
Parameter query — the one that asks the user for input at runtime.

Most repeated query type: "List all students who scored above 15 in at least two subjects in the 2023/2024 academic year."

The 2024 paper had a classic "send personalised admission letters to successful candidates" mail merge. This has appeared in 4 of the last 6 years.

I have attached (in comments) the exact structure of the most common database schema that has been used in three different years.

Who else is writing ICT this year? Let's share resources.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

For mail merge, they love when you show the "Preview Results" step and filter records before merging. That usually carries an extra mark.

Anonymous · Answer

The 2023 database was Students Enrolments Courses. I still have the .accdb file if anyone needs it for practice.

Anonymous · Answer

Please drop the exact VLOOKUP formula they usually expect for assigning grades A–E.