Maths and RS GCSE today

Likewise, ds did IGCSE Edexcel higher spec A today 😫 not a strong subject and the topics he finds easier weren't on the paper. Hopefully will be on paper 2 instead! Are you home edders too?

DS said maths (AQA higher) was easy, which worries me as it's one of his worst subjects and relies on the calculator papers to get him a pass. RS was 'meh' apparently. What he did say was there were 7 questions and you were meant to answer 4 but a lot of his friends didn't read that. Again, not sure how factual that is, he's amazing and obviously I think very smart but exams are not his strong point (he isn't NT).
After English lit and history meltdowns I've told him to stop giving exams a post mortem, it's done, don't pick over the bones now as there's nothing to be gained from it. Chemistry and geography tomorrow, I think he'll sleep all weekend!

My sister pretty much said the same, a mix of questions but there was some toughies.

@noblegiraffe So what grade would be achievable without the working out?

The foundation paper is mostly irrelevant on this issue because the maximum grade possible is 5, which is still equivalent to grade C.

How many questions like the one you give can you find on the higher paper? There are always exceptions, but the higher mark questions are given more marks for a good reason - they want to see you demonstrate more understanding than just a final answer.

I thought a lot of it was pretty straightforward. The last few questions were nasty but they are meant to be. There weren’t any questions like the overlapping circles one from a couple of years ago that was just mad.

@noblegiraffe what were your thoughts on the edexcel higher today? Did you think it was any more difficult than usual?

When maths coursework was scrapped it was decided that the GCSE exams needed to incorporate an element of demonstrating mathematical thinking into the exam to account for the lack of coursework. These were called 'Quality of Written Communication' questions and were marked by a star on the exam paper, where pupils had to show they could communicate mathematically.

When the Gove reforms to GCSE came in, the QWC questions were scrapped. Now there are questions were they might be asked to show detailed reasoning, but on Foundation (if we're talking about a grade 4) then these will be where you could just guess the correct answer (e.g. which holiday is cheaper, which packet of toilet roll is better value for money) so you won't get the marks for just saying 'Holiday A' or 'The 8 pack of toilet roll'. On an angles question they might ask you for some angle rules to go with your answer.

The question below is worth four marks. It does not say show your working.

I've also attached the mark scheme. If they write 19 on the answer line and nothing else, they get 4 marks.

They are not interested in assessing the thinking process.

At higher, they'll be interested in constructing proofs but there certainly wouldn't be enough of those questions to drop you to a 4.

Same here - DD is also very annoyed with herself but she says lots of her friends did the same and for her paper it was only 4 marks but very frustrating to have missed them. They won’t do that again I guess.

Your example is of the one or two mark questions that don't require the working out. How can full marks be given to the questions that are designed to require working out?

Do you think the exam boards are not interested in assessing the thinking processes behind the answers? How can the exam boards distinguish people who can explain their thinking processes from those who can't if they allow full marks to be gained from almost every answer without showing an explanation of the answer?

Disillusioned kid here, too.

What board? I'm hearing AQA was ok. Edexcel/Pearson really tough.

Yes mine too. Left a lot 💔

My pupils did AQA and thought it was ok. I've got one class doing higher and also spoke to a few doing foundation. They were all relatively positive about it.

My son is a weirdo maths geek who likes the non-calculator paper. I am an accountant who can’t imagine anything worse. He thought it was ok.

I didn’t ask him about RS, as the school force them to do it and essay writing isn’t his thing.

We are spoilt as my mum used to teach Chemistry and is helping my son with revision. Which is a massive help as DS isn’t a natural scientist.

Noble is absolutely correct on how the mark scheme is applied. In the majority of questions you can get full marks with only the answer written down.
Which is a massive relief for me as some of my brightest pupils do almost everything in their heads and I'm having a very hard time training them to write down their methods. I'm not in any way concerned about them only getting a 4, although I'm slightly worried they might miss out on the 9 just because they've made a couple of mental arithmetic errors.

If someone only provided final answers without showing any working out, they would only achieve the modern equivalent to grade C

No, if someone only provided final answers without showing any working out they would get full marks on most questions.

Full marks for correct answers will mainly be about addressing the possibility of being able to work out the answer in a way that's not mentioned in the marking scheme. These questions still require the working out to get to the final answer.

Again, no.

If a question is e.g. about booking a holiday, paying a deposit and then paying the rest in monthly instalments and the question is how much is each instalment, worth 3 marks, then they will get 3 marks for the correct answer even if they did all the calculations on their calculator and wrote nothing down but the answer. The assumption is that if they got the correct answer, they did a correct method, they just didn't write it down.

DS did AQA and was quite happy with it. Edexcel is known to be a tougher paper. Two years ago one question was practically impossible to answer.

I need to ask my sister who is a maths teacher how today went, I think she said in the past that their higher paper is Edexcel, but for foundation they do AQA. I'm not sure what sets she has though.

Quite amusing that a pp is trying to tell the maths teacher how papers are marked.

My DS thought maths was OK, better than he had expected. He has also just told me he has found it online this evening with all answers so has worked out roughly how he has done from that! His is Edexcel Higher paper.

@noblegiraffe You're taking what I said too literally. Let me rephrase what I said to be technically correct:

"The questions are designed in a way that requires you to show working out to achieve above the modern equivalent to grade C. If someone only provided final answers without showing any working out, they would only achieve the modern equivalent to grade C."

Is that better?

Full marks for correct answers will mainly be about addressing the possibility of being able to work out the answer in a way that's not mentioned in the marking scheme. These questions still require the working out to get to the final answer.

If any thing, I suspect that a paper with 100% correct final answers and 0% working out would ultimately get a fail grade. Not because the answers are wrong, but because they would suspect the student of having access to leaked answers. I've seen some creative ways that students sneak answers into exams. 😂

Dd didn’t turn over the final page of the maths paper and so didn’t do the last question, despite having lots of time. She’s annoyed with herself, as she’s been revising maths every day and working really hard at it.

looking at it the maths paper was about right, nothing substantially more difficult than prior years. I think every year I hear nieces and nephews saying it was the hardest ever and then it’s fine

In my experience of my ds doing gcses last year, the ones that he thought were a disaster he did better in.

He was predicted a 4 for Eng Lit. Ended up missing out the whole 40 mark unseen poetry question, thought that was it and so did I but managed to get a 5!
The 2nd Chemistry paper he thought was a disaster but got higher marks in 2nd than 1st one!

I’m a bit of a loser so I’ve looked at all the teacher solutions to the maths papers on TikTok

if you’re a geek like me then the channel is https://www.tiktok.com/@mathsconcierge?_t=8mPCnkXfs01&_r=1

@leonaab you said that if your final answers were all correct but with absent working, you'd only get a 4. This is just utterly wrong.

If you get the A mark, the M and P ones are implied by the fact that you got the right answer. The working out specified for the method marks in the markscheme is not required to be shown as part of your answer unless the question explicitly asks for it, which it usually doesn't.

Obviously kids aren't going to be able to answer a 5 mark question without jotting down some workings, but that's not the same thing as being required to write those workings to get the M or P marks. The M and P marks usually come into play when a student hasn't got the correct answer.

Population of a data table is usually a question in its own right, rather than part of the working.

Both DD and her friend's said todays math paper was worse/harder then any of the practice past papers the had done. All are in top set and predicted 8/9's.

DD is looking exhausted as well is also doing Chemistry and geography. I would say at least it Friday, so she can have a lie in on Saturday. Except her school are having English intervention for English on Saturday which starts at 8.55 until 11am.