English Lit GCSE paper today - Macbeth question

[Katrinawaves]

Any teachers who have seen today’s English Lit Ed Excel GCSE paper please or anyone who’s kids sat it?

My son came home to beat because he felt he’d answered the question on Macbeth well but as he was discussing it we thought he’d maybe misunderstood the question 😵‍💫

He thinks the question was about how Macbeth displayed guilt but we wondered whether the question was actually about the theme of guilt in Macbeth generally and so if he only wrote about Macbeth himself (as he did) he probably hasn’t done very well! It’s only paper 1 so I know he has a chance to do well enough in the other paper to achieve a pass but if anyone actually knows what the question was that would be helpful!

You really need to get out more …what is wrong with you? I feel sorry for you, someone who was upset asked for help, which I offered with no recourse to anyone else. Take a look at yourself, it’s not pretty

This!!!

It sounds like he has to face a second exam when he gets home.. and might worry that he's done badly when he may have actually been OK.

I don't think its at all helpful to weigh and measure each exam after the fact.
It could be so easy to lose confidence and doubt himself and that could really distract him and waste time in the next exam.

He's better off having an hour off. A good meal and a chance to start focusing on the next hurdle.

We're in the same boat OP. My DC read the question the same as yours and answered only about Macbeth as the character rather than the play as a whole. After the exam and speaking with friends he realised he'd interpreted the question wrong so he's upset about that.
I've explained there's nothing he can do now so try not to stress and focus on paper 2 and doing the best he can in that. He has dyslexia and so him misreading or misinterpreting the question was one of my biggest worries. It's happened now and there's nothing we can do but remain hopeful and be grateful it wasn't the English Language paper.
Not the start we wanted but onwards and upwards.
Wishing the best to all Year 11s going through this pressure x

There are a lot of issues in this world to get angry about, but this is far from one of them. So what if the papers are revealed earlier? It's less than a day's difference.

How the actual f*ck did I undermine his confidence? Did you even read any of what I said.

He said it had done well. He chatted a bit about the questions and how he’d answered them. I said I was glad he’d had a good first exam. Period. That’s all to channel my inner Miranda Priestly.

Are you seriously suggesting that I should have told him to shut up when he started to talk because a post match analysis is a bad thing? That doesn’t sound terribly supportive to me!

Yet again, I asked the question here only. Not to him. Not to anyone IRL.

And given that my hope for him is that he passes English so he can continue to sixth form to do the courses he wants- not that he gets 7s, 8s or 9s, a gentle reminder before the next one about reading the question a couple of times (without reference to Paper 1) is I think the lesser of many many evils.

I don't understand the point of trying to embargo questions that thousands of children across the country have read and answered 😀

They haven't sworn an oath of silence

I think the problem OP is that in your first post you say ‘we’ which made some of us think you were going over it with your son.

that said you don’t need to analyse the paper to manage your husband’s expectations -
he simply needs to know that sometimes people
don’t perform as well as expected in exams often through no fault of their own.

You can have no idea of what his marks will be & you don’t need to be having conversations about what they may be.

way to go on piling the pressure on your son. Conversations about what he is doing wrong, over analysing the questions he has answered and then discussing what grades you think he might get.

all whilst managing his fathers expectations.

he doesn’t need that pressure, just a gentle make sure you read the question twice before answering.

‘good luck & do your best’. Not this overanalysing his every question & exam. Poor kid

@goldencobra @Pinknotpurple Thank you

Ahhh.

no “we” meant my older son and me who were both in the room when he said it (discussing after he’d left the room). Not the son doing the GCSEs and me

Apologies if I misunderstood, but your original message stated:

My son came home to beat because he felt he’d answered the question on Macbeth well but as he was discussing it we thought he’d maybe misunderstood the question 😵‍💫
He thinks the question was about how Macbeth displayed guilt but we wondered whether the question was actually about the theme of guilt in Macbeth generally and so if he only wrote about Macbeth himself (as he did) he probably hasn’t done very well!

If anything in your words, tone or manner suggested that you thought he had misunderstood the question or had not done very well, as you revealed you did think, then that would have undermined his confidence. So long as it didn't and you hid your inner suspicions well, you are safe.

Reminding him to read the question and to remember to turn over (in case there is another question lurking on the back page) is only good advice.

I mark exam papers for literature and I wouldn’t worry about the way he responded. They will want to see other examples than just that in the extract but these examples can all be through the character of Macbeth, they really don’t have to look at a range of characters to get the top marks.

I hope all the kids have done well - mine managed to write a lot more than in the mocks, so at least there is something to mark this time!

You are insane

what will be, will be but if he doesn’t get a 4 or more in maths and English, he will not be able to progress to the next stage he has chosen for his life. So if there is a way to help him get those grades in those two subjects that is better than the alternative.

you are creating a narrative which didn’t happen to make yourself feel good. So you do you and your children. Your “advice” is not what the vast majority of people would consider to be good parenting.

Thank you. You did misunderstand but you were one of many who did.

Telling someone they need parenting advice when you have misunderstood the facts probably tends more often than not to attract a feisty response

Possibly a rule in case students who have a clash hace to spend the night under supervision of a teacher?

The only info I got was Macbeth was about guilt and Christmas Carol was about Christmas! I suspect history and science will get more analysis!

So funny reading all the comments about teachers not seeing the questions for 24 hours. I am an English teacher with 3 Yr 11 classes and had had conversations with at least 30 students about the questions by midday. Right down to the exact wording of each question and the extracts. Even the students I privately tutor have all messaged me. Of course we know what the questions were. I haven’t seen the paper but I really don’t need to. It is completely ridiculous to think we don’t find out the questions for 24 hours. 😂

The insanity is all yours.

I didn’t create a narrative. Its what you said in your posts.

If he fails, he can resit, its not the end of the world, though I am sure he would feel like it is from all the pressure.

don’t you have a husband to manage rather than going on the attack on mumsnet posters because they don’t agree with you

Dd did jekyll and Hyde. She was really happy with the J&H question today.

With the needing a 4 in English and maths - isn’t it English language and maths that’s required, not English lit?

OP ignore the posts on here attacking you extremely randomly. I’ve been thinking (to myself) of the questions today and how my DD answered them and I expect millions of parents have done the same.

DD did J&H and said it was about Hyde. (Or was it Jeckyll?). I got a lot more about Romeo and Juliet (conflict).

I think it is a stretch to call this years yr 11 cohort the Covid generation.

(And I have STEM boy who needs a 5 in English to go back to 6th form to do his science A levels).

Yes they did not take yr6 SATs but they were well into yr5 for the first lock down and their secondary education has been unaffected.

Tough crowd! Those moments are really hard aren’t they - when our child thinks they may have missed something/ misunderstood/ got it wrong and there’s part of us that just wants certainty about it all. And we can’t help but feel anxious and I notice your mind rushes forward to forewarning his dad to manage expectations , to concerns about college entrance and so on. Almost as if you must do something to manage the situation or to perhaps manage your anxiety about it all. I think many can relate to you but many are able to get less caught up in it, to be able to retain some helpful distance without losing caring and compassion. Tolerating uncertainty is much harder for some of us. You’re obviously a caring mum who’s trying to navigate it all as best you can.

The only people who have seen it other than the students are invigilators. I invigilated it today but deliberately do not read the papers.

But most of our students seemed happy with the paper on the way out.

The kids run up to the English office the second they are let out of the exam hall to tell you how it went. Between the giddiness, excitement and shrieking, you can normally figure out what the question was and what extract they were given if you listen carefully 😆