Continuing Year 13: January 2016

Phew! DS rang earlier to say computer science went really well! So relieved. He has worked so hard on it. It's lovely to be able to think that one subject is now finished and done with!

MyVisions how annoying for your DD and extra stress as well.

Sorry some of the chemistry papers were not kind. It does seem absurd to have so many different boards.

think I found the correct TSR thread - Dds paper was OCR Salters B which not many school use - it's all context led, but is (I think) the only one to still have coursework. Which is what Dd is pinning her hopes on, as today's paper was generally regarded as the hardest one yet .

If you do go on the Student Room MyVisions, could you let me know? I cannot get my head round that site, and never find what I want!

Chemistry (OCR) was "an average paper" according to DS. He thinks he did ok and the consensus among his friends was that it was a reasonable paper but one or two questions were "weird" .
I agree there should be one board. One exam for everyone. There are even different versions of the same subject within exam boards.

OCR Chemistry was awful according to DD - she's now planning what to do with a gap year, as she's determined she's not going to get the grades she needs . Might have a pootle round the Student Room and see how bad they think it was on there.

I do wish they all did the same board! Although I think it is a good thing that all the chemistry papers, from whatever board, seem to be at the same time as this must cut down on timetable clashes.

I will be glad when it is this time tomorrow, and the last exam done!

Oh dear Leeds, that's not good.
DD says AQA was 'reasonable', better than chem4, but she knows she messed up the 7 mark question.

Any views on OCR Chemistry? DD not a happy bunny.

DD hates the morning exams - she is not a morning person! And her hay fever is still awful
The news on student room is that AQA chem5 was a good paper. No news from DD yet

Good luck for ComSci and Chemistry today! Hope they go really well and everyone comes out feeling like they've given a good account of themselves.

Jax hope school are less defensive and more helpful today. Good advice in the posts above.

DD2 got up at 6 this morning to do a past paper (Chemistry), finished it, had breakfast, went up stairs to shower and get dressed, and fell asleep . She woke up in time to get sorted, but I don't know how much of an effect that will have had on her [sigh].

re invigilators not being great - DD is in a separate room for medical reasons (so as not to disturb everyone else if there's a problem), and has her tablets in a pill box on the desk in front of her. All previous invigilators have been lovely when she's asked them to remind her when it's x time as she needs to take her tablets. Yesterday's invigilator decided that she wasn't allowed to keep the tablets on her desk, snatched them away and marched off to the exams office to "get them checked out" . Not sure how she thought the exams office would be able to identify what the different white and pink tablets were, or why she couldn't put the "needs separate room" and "tablets" together and come up with "might be ill and need them", but thankfully the exams office (who love DD ) set her straight and DD got her medication back.

Not as serious as eg taking insulin from a diabetic, but without them DD would be totally brain fogged, probably fainting, and therefore failing her exam. Our invigilators are normally so lovely, this was quite a shock to the system.

Jax in your shoes, I'd be making as much fuss as possible with the exams office and head of year, the school can certainly (afaik) contact the universities directly, but yes, get a report in, even if it's only 2% consideration, then there's a paper trail if begging phone calls to unis are needed in August.

My DDand DS have been having a small bar of 70% dark chocolate before an exam and some almonds which they have said it helps!

Good luck all DCs with exams today.
DD has chemistry and is hoping that it is better than last week.
Then 2 to go - Friday and next Tuesday.
DD is definitely flagging. This sounds awful but I gave her a small glass of coke with her breakfast - I thought it might wake her up and get some sugar in her as she was half asleep and feeling sick. She did then have some cereal. She is not good first thing in a morning and won't drink a hot drink.

Good luck all, chemistry and computer science and whatever else. DS dropped computing after AS as there wasn't enough programming and too much writing!

A few of his friends have finished completely, next Tuesday still seems a long way away.

Chemistry for dd today. I feel quite nervous for her. She will be so, so disappointed if she doesn't make her medicine offer and I know this sounds very pfb but she deserves it! I've never seen anyone work so hard.

Anyone else got computer sciences this morning? DS is dreading it which is odd as he's a natural at computers, but this paper is apparently not the sort of thing he's a natural at!

He thinks this is the decider as he feels he could scrape his A* at maths if C4 goes OK but physics is a real grey area so he has to come out feeling good about this one. I will be absolutely dreading the post exam text.

Good luck to the chemists today too.

Out of 400, you need 320 for an A and 280 for a B.

Most (? humanities I think) are out of 400. Maths (and other sciences??) is out of 600. I thought all were a 50/50 split though.

Final grade depends on ums total, so it would depend on the exact ums within the grades, if that makes sense. So a low A could be pulled down to a B, but a high A might not be.

Coconutty , do you mean in general as I think it varies from one subject to another. Iirc In some exams AS is only a third of overall UMS, so good performance in A2 can counter lesser AS results. Some subjects currently still have coursework/ca options.