The Gerneral Cerificate of Secondary Education or the GCSE excaminations for short are the standard school-leaver qualifications taken by virually all UK students in the May and June following their 16th birthday. If you come to a UK (1) school before you (2) the age of 16, you will study towards GCSE excaminationin up to 12 subjects. Some subjects are compulory, including English and matchematics, and you can select (3) , such as music, drama, geography and history from a series of options. GCSEs provide a good all-round education (4) you can build (5) at colleage and eventually at university.