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Original poster

Year 11 GCSE thread continued!

440 replies

MorvahRising · 05/06/2014 11:52

We seem to have reached the limit on the other one!

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Original poster
MorvahRising · 10/06/2014 07:55

Res Mat this morning is AQA and Chemistry this afternoon is OCR.

We have been revising chemistry over breakfast. My contribution is to nod wisely and look knowledgeable.

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MrsMaturin · 10/06/2014 07:54

Thank you Atia - so why was this a surprise to all our children?

Chemistry today - I did some Bitesize tests with dd last night and she was 100%. Hope she likes the paper.

eatyourveg · 10/06/2014 07:38

Oh dear! ds said he scrawled "Where's the scale?" across his paper for the km/miles one - says he took a guess

B3C3P3 here today. The physics revision he's been doing for it seems to be all about cars! Picking up a Top Gear bias in these exams Wink

Coconutty · 10/06/2014 07:18

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AtiaoftheJulii · 10/06/2014 06:53

www.edexcel.com/migrationdocuments/GCSE2010/UG029981_GCSE_MathsA_Spec_2012.pdf page 63 or just find "miles"
Seeing as we are still so mixed re metric and imperial, it is useful to know them (for everyone imo, not just GCSE students!).

Best1sWest · 10/06/2014 06:00

Nocomet, 35 years for me! I really don't know why either.

bruffin · 10/06/2014 05:43

Dd was taken by surprise by that. Shw said they had never been told they needed to know that.

MrsMaturin · 10/06/2014 00:26

Is it in the spec? Dd didn't think it was.

Nocomet · 10/06/2014 00:18

best glad he did OK, it's slightly frightening to think
It's 30 years since I did WJEC maths. We were the first year allowed to use calculators and now the poor sods have been sent back to the dark ages - Why?

AtiaoftheJulii · 10/06/2014 00:06

It is in the spec though :(

MrsMaturin · 09/06/2014 23:54

They were given a distance in KM and a speed in MPH and told to say how long it would take to travel the distance. So you had to convert the speed to KMPH or the distance to miles and then work it out. If you had no idea of the conversion then you would indeed be screwed. Seems very unfair to me.

Coconutty · 09/06/2014 22:56

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Original poster
MorvahRising · 09/06/2014 22:53

MrsMaturin DS was a bit indignant about the km to miles question too; he didn't know it and clearly hadn't watched that episode of Top Gear!

We've got Res Mat and Chemistry tomorrow, can't remember the boards and am in bed so will check tomorrow. Glad today's over.

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sunshinecity17 · 09/06/2014 22:32

Did anyone else's kids do OCR maths?

AtiaoftheJulii · 09/06/2014 22:25

Have you many tutee's sitting exams this time?

Two GCSE, one AS, three A2. (Counts on fingers. Yes, don't think I've forgotten anyone!) Plus dd's doing GCSE and AS. Exam mode all round.

How did Latin go?

Anyone else for OCR Gateway P1P2P3 tomorrow? Dd2 is rather nervous, physics is her worst science.

KatyMac · 09/06/2014 22:18

I'm so pissed off with GCSEs & I'm not even doing them

Coconutty · 09/06/2014 21:01

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Lancelottie · 09/06/2014 20:30

Thanks, Eat and MrsMaturin! DS was probably relatively unfazed because he hasn't a clue what's on the syllabus, so would have been cheerily having a stab in the dark at half of it.

Emmylou717 · 09/06/2014 19:16

I have seen both higher and foundation AQA maths (and just sat and done them myself!). (maths teacher)

The foundation was a very fair paper with no nasty questions. Most children I spoke to found it ok.

The kids did not like the higher paper, the way it was worded for a few of the questions wasn't great. The paper itself was overall not two bad except question 16 which was quite tricky involving a mix of trig and algerbraic fractions and surds. The last question was quite easy just worded horribly.

Best to luck to all your dc sitting their exams.

Coconutty · 09/06/2014 19:10

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Best1sWest · 09/06/2014 19:10

Waves back to Nocomet. Glad to hear Maths went well for your DD.

DS was fairly positive about his (WJEC linear) and thinks he did enough for a C. There were some hard questions he couldn't do but he had a go at them.

Coconutty · 09/06/2014 19:08

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chart53 · 09/06/2014 18:42

DD also thought Maths paper was not the worst she had done but not the best. Agreed last question was impossible... she put the answer down as 42 ( the answer to the life, universe, and everything!)

Bouncingbeans · 09/06/2014 18:40

Edexcel here and a very unhappy DD. She found it difficult, panicked quite a lot and then realised afterwards she made some silly mistakes on the ones that she thought were ok.

She will be happy with a C so hoping the boundaries and the next paper work in her favour (and everyone elses!). Most of her peers found it easy apparently which made her feel worse.

She is in the second set, along with others working towards A/B, so there were always going to be some questions she couldnt do as they choose not to cover A* questions in her set but are told to have a stab.

Really not sure what went wrong for her today but think it was a confidence issue as we have had this with maths all the way through, she can do it, but just doesnt believe she can.

MrsMaturin · 09/06/2014 18:25

Sounds like everybody she spoke to was unimpressed.