Continuing Year 13: January 2016

I don't normally post on here but I have just been told that C3 had 9 questions not 7 & that there wasn't as much time to check it. Apparently I will still have 3 teens living at home next year .

Yep Edexcel here too. Been looking through TSR posts. Some guesses at 58 UMS for A boundary. Does that make any sense to anyone? I don't really know what I'm talking about here! Anyway hoping that means ds might get the B he needs if C4 not even worse. We were hoping for an A . Bless him, all this pressure. I got a C but they still let me into medical school

Needmoresleep - your DD could look at Bioengineering if she decides after a gap year not to do medicine .....I fancied doing it myself when I went to some engineering talks at open days with DD!

AQA chemistry tomorrow, C4 on Friday and then just 1 physics paper next week to go.......

Edexcel C3 here. DD says it was a lot more odd than previous papers and a lot more to do in the time. She says that of nearly all papers so far - particularly about the timing. She normally finishes a C3 paper very quickly and checks every answer in detail. Today she finished but knows she couldn't do a couple of bits and didn't not have much time to go through it to correct mistakes. She says no one found it easy.

Dd said it was awful, might as well not have sat it. We'll wait impatiently for the student room answers, I guess.

Apparently others found it hard but Ds seems to think he struggled more than everyone else. Really hope he can focus on C4 now, with it's reputation of being worse

Not heard yet. I know last year's paper was difficult compared to previous years.

Ds just texted to say C3 was awful. The worst exam he's ever done and he could only do half the questions. anyone else heard yet?

C3 here today too. Got my fingers crossed for this one - DD and her friend are desperately aiming for 100% on this so they can do worse on C4 which is harder!
Good luck to all DCs with exams today.

C3 maths today so very important. I hope it goes better than the physics! Having said that, the multiple choice answers were on TSR yesterday. DS had said he was very worried because so many of his answers were Bs and Ds and past papers have been fairly evenly spread between all four letters. However the answers did seem to have a big slant towards Bs and Ds so hopefully he hasn't done too badly on that. I shall tell him later after the maths so as not to distract him!

Good luck everyone who has an exam today and see you back here later - hopefully feeling

Watching a film here after eating 'brain food' (salmon) and chocolate for afters!

Not going to nag about work tonight, if he wants to chill he can chill.

Yeah, the way raw scores translate into ums varies greatly. I remember for dd1's English Lit last year (and the few years before) you needed about 95% raw to get 90 ums, which just seems like the exam is too easy! Maths is usually roughly 90% raw = 90 ums, although it's definitely possible some years to get 100ums without getting 100% right!

I thought that too, about the 90%, and the reply was something about 90 UMS, not raw score.

Hope it turns out ok for him

Edexcel physics was a nice one today apparently.I don't think many schools do edexcel for a level physics? A teacher friend from another school said her school didn't like it because it is a newish syllabus and not many practice papers.

Oh ok, I tend to think of A* as being over 90% (as it was for the A level Maths which he did last year). So maybe he has a bit more wiggle room.

But then, I'm sure ds knows all this already, and he is used to doing practice papers and probably has some idea of what feels like an A* performance - he really isn't feeling it today.

DS1 is AQA a too.he thinks just under 80% last year Dumbledore.

On the whole DS thought it could have been worse but struggled with the momentum question.

Thanks for the welcome. It sort of helps to know that others didn't like the Physics paper either. Ds told me that all his friends thought it was fine, but maybe they are not aiming as high as ds. He is going to do Physics at uni (if he gets in ).

His others exams so far have been ok I think. It is hard to know. He hasn't come home as dejected as he was today. Ds only needs one A from his 3 subjects but when I said to him re today's Physics, 'never mind, maybe you are on course to get an A in one of the other subjects', he didn't seem that optimistic. So then you wonder just how well the others have gone.

But 66% boundary for grade A last year?! Any idea re the boundary last year for A*? That alone has given me a bit of hope.

Sorry AQA Physics was a hard one. DS did OCR Physics today & said it was ok although 'the wording of some of the questions was strange'. C3 tomorrow & needs to get 90% in that, think I'd feel a bit happier if he was doing some work for it.

Glad your DD's feeling a bit better about STEP 2 Snowy. Grade boundaries in previous years have sometimes been quite low which gives me a tiny glimmer of hope. Probably no-one comes out saying 'that was easy'.

Passed halfway point now - 7 down 6 to go.

I am working from home for a couple of days this week Morvah and it is distracting - normally DD is at school and out of the way!