Is it too early for an A level support thread!

[HereWeGo2023]

Hello all, apologies if there is already a thread but I can’t find one.
May had finally rolled around and the first exam is a mere 2 weeks away. Exam stress has hit our house! It’s feels like everything is about waiting at the moment - waiting for the predicted grades, waiting for the uni offers, waiting for the exams to start, and then the long wait for the results!
This is our youngest DD but the first one in further education so would love to chat to other parents going through this

Feedback from Chemistry 2 ‘fine’. Apart from an annoying calculation error on something that should have been straightforward. 2 more exams and 4 more days to go…….

Well done. One to go here wednesday, but the time is dragging. so near completing, seems like the worst bit.

Chemistry P2 (Edexcel) was OK but in the words of dd it was no paper 1 (which she was v happy with). Most people fo Jd it harder than P1. She was very tight for time.

Just two more to go!

DS says paper 2 edexcel chem much more straightforward than paper 1 so I guess it balances out - his classmates thought the same. Just one left - hooray!

DD also thought that EdExcel Chemistry paper 2 was much better than paper 1 - but very tight on time, and no time to go through and check answers at the end. She also thought that the paper tested some of the 'peripheral' knowledge rather than the core content.

Two more exams to go on Wed and Fri this week - and counting down the seconds!

Religious Studies paper two today was ‘ a peach of a paper’ according to dd.

two more to go; dreading biology paper three.

Oh God, really?
Care to say why?
That is DD's last paper...
I remember her saying she didn't want anything on genetics to come up...?

RS Paper 1 here for DD today (CCEA). She was happy enough with it but said one of the Part A questions read more like a Part B which threw a few of them. She seems happy enough but I do worry she is a little complacent and checked out. RS has always been her strongest subject and I do worry she maybe isn’t putting the focus into it as much as she could. Hope there’s no nasty surprises in August as a result

AQA chem paper 2 here. Dd1 extremely upset. Said it was horrendous. Looks like.shr is having a full on meltdown (still.at school).

Bio p1 went well. P2 was awful and many od dd answers differ from her friends/ rough online mark schemes. Reckons she has got about 40 marks max across paper 2

Dreading p3 as its going to be a big mountain to climb to get the B grade she needs

OCR Chemistry 'easy' apparently. Grade boundaries are usually ridiculously high though so who knows?
On to Stats and Mechanics tomorrow.

I’m so sorry for your dd - I hope you get her home then she may be better away from those dissecting the paper.

My dd was distraught after OCR Bio P1 and it’s horrid to see.

I hope she feels better soon.

So sorry also. As pp says distressing to see.

Thanks for explaining. Mostly I have no idea how my DD feels or how the papers were - she just grunts and flops and doesnt like me to ask - her way of coping with it I guess.

All the best for the next one Wednesday.

Thank you both. She is home.now.and calmer. Just need to make it through the week and then see. Other papers she was fine, so clearly found this one very hard. Organic chemistry was always her weakest area so she was worried about it but it seemed to have been worse than envisaged.

Pleased she’s home - has she just got Chem p3 left or is she doing Bio / Maths too?

Bio on Wednesday and chem on Friday ... I told her to stop torturing herself looking at the student room !!

Just read this out to DS and he agrees 100%.

Deffo stay away from the student room - it’s always full of people chatting shit about how easy it was and they’ll be disappointed if they don’t get 100%. TikTok is normally better and you get some funny pictures.

Haha so just my dd who preferred P1 which covered everything she likes.

She says that both Edexcel Chem and OCR Bio still have some pretty massive topics which haven’t been covered.

If Chem Paper 3 has
a cricket section DS will be away laughing…

As it is I think he’s going to have to rely on long term memory as enthusiasm for studying has well and truly faded now.

@KittyMcKitty I’m not sure he’s thought about what hasn’t been covered so that’s a helpful tip! Good luck to your DD I hope it goes well for her.

@Travelban My DD found the AQA chem paper 2 hard. A few tears when she got back but not the full on sobbing that happened after further maths. She says all the cocky lads came out thumbing up at each other and saying it was easy, which really upsets her, because she doesn't find any of it easy. I've told her a million times that it's their way of dealing with the stress of exams,and it's no indication of how hard/easy the paper was or how well they've done, but she won't listen.

I think she's just exhausted from the stress of it all TBH now. Roll on Friday.

Thank you for sharing this, I do think they are exhausted too. Fingers crossed for thr next ones, can't wait for this week to be over!!

Ps Dd fine now, had calmed down a lot and is watching a film.!!

‘Fine’ has turned into 10 marks unnecessarily lost and ‘what if that means I don’t get into university’. TikTok reviews have a lot to answer for. Trying to get him to put this behind him and to sleep well tonight before maths tomorrow.

My dd agrees with yours @KittyMcKitty Definitely some big topics which haven’t come up so far in either EdExcel Chem papers, or OCR papers. Paper 3 for both could be interesting 😓