Medicine 2018 part 3

[SomersetS]

Hope you all find this - didn't realise I took 999! Whoops.

Think DD had mixed feelings about biology today. She's not sure how she did

Yes DS found biology " tricky" today... he is a boy of few words

Similar feedback from DD although different exam :)

Mine was just glad it was only 34 pages long 😁

Mmmm. Never can tell. DD declared it "good". She said at least this time she knew what the examiners wanted. Fingers crossed for Chem tomorrow.

DD didn't like biology today (ocr A). Too much like a geography exam, not enough proper biology. Hopefully paper 3 will be better!

Interesting you should say that adrinkofwater, DD's Geog teachers were sure antarctica would come up Geography - it didn't - but it did come up in Biology! Sounds like a lot of questions that required some deep thinking, DD seems OK about it. Need to keep up the energy levels for Chemistry tomorrow ... good luck all. DD then has a week's break to continue to revise more Biology and Chemistry. Presume the maths students have others in between.

DD felt ok about today's Biology paper, Chemistry tomorrow and Physics on Thursday. I hope they are ok but she is worried about combined Physics as last year's was horrendous 🤔

DD thinks chemistry today was ok. Made a couple of silly mistakes but seems happy enough

DD was very happy with Chemistry too, which is a bit relief as the one she was fearing most. She had 40 minutes to go over and pick up any errors but experience is that even with time, she is still prone to making stupid ones and not seeing them, so cross fingers there were not too many!

DD ocr chemistry also felt happy, like biology lots of application not just regurgitating knowledge. Nice long break so a lie in today / she was shattered yesterday evening. Hope all your DCs can grab a lie in too before the final hurdles.

DD said AQA Chemistry a disaster. She loves organic, struggles a bit with the maths of inorganic. Seems the "organic" paper was 60% on the "inorganic" element of the course. Mostly maths.
Not happy in Somerset.

Maths today here. Said it was hard. Might be glad if those AS level marks !!

Oh no, sorry Somerset. Geography curriculum in Biology, Maths in Chemistry, it all seems a bit unfair. Hope your DD is not feeling too deflated and panicky. This exam was only 1/3rd (assuming) of final grade, so still much chance to get that A.

yes somerset, maybe DD is being very hard on herself, as I suspect a lot of our DC are. As swing says, there is still chance with the other papers, and I'm sure the grade boundaries will be lower this year as lots of people have said how hard the AQA exams have been this year.

Fingers crossed ladies!

Fingers crossed for your DD too Somerset, DD's school are abandoning AQA Geography after hearing about this years paper. But it will impact grade boundaries, in OCR Biology AS I think 50 something was an A. I presume AQA have one more exam to go next week too - hopefully that one will have everything in it that your DD is a star at!!

I think the third paper is a bit different and to do with tutorials? Don't understand what this means. DD said that was ok, but it's the part she liked the least.

Biology Edexcel seems to be a bit different. Also something to do with turorials, but also a text she had to prepare and will be asked questions about. Or is it the same with the other Boards?

Somer DS is coming to the end of 1st year of A levels.

Younger DS is finishing his GCSEs this week :)

You all seem so knowledgeable, I need to have a good read through of thread

Hello WheelyCote - the thread goes back a long way, loads of good advice, stress and ups and downs along the way. Feel free to ask questions though.

Swing & Sometset, Ocr third paper is called ‘unified’ it is 90 mins and timing is an issue. Dd describes it as being able to ask anything and everything on all topics - same for chemistry too. How confusing that the boards are so different - I wonder how many schools will review and change exam boards?

So far I think DD feels all her exams have been Ok but not great. She seems calm, but I am internally panicking!

I have a question that I am hoping someone can help with. DD did an EPQ. It was submitted in Oct/Nov and she got the result in Jan. Obviously she submitted her UCAS form before she got the result, but its not being done at the same time as all the other exams - ie now. So my question is will her Uni's get the result through UCAS (or however they get the A level results) or does she need to tell them and if so how? Its not part of her conditional offer, so I don't know if that makes a difference if them getting it. But as she got an A* I am hoping that it might make them more lenient if she drops a grade!

DS got an A* in his EPQ but I don't think it counts in medicine, unless people can tell me otherwise?

Adrinkofwater - although your DD submitted it and got result the school don’t send off results until May when a batch of EPQs are moderates and checked from each school. So her official result will be sent with her other A level results to UCAS. All the medical schools I visited said they wouldn’t include EPQs in any decisions.

My DS found OCR physics very hard today - did anyone else take it?

Tbh glad epq isn't included as DD didn't do particularly well! She hated doing every minute of it but she did bring it up a lot in her interviews so was useful from that perspective. But mainly from a describe something you found challenging angle rather than its content!!!

@Movingmountains - my DD took OCR unified physics today. She found it mixed but said that it was easier than last years which they did in their mocks. She was dreading today out of all her exams so was slightly relieved. She thinks the grade boundaries will only be slightly higher than last year's which were ridiculously low. If you daughter had done ok in the first two papers she will probably be ok 😊