Applying for Uni 2019 Part 6: exams, leaving school/college (the end of an era), a long summer holiday and Results Day on the horizon

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Just when exam season gets fully underway our previous thread has almost filled up. Everyone welcome .

Anyone's dc have aqa music today?
Section A was insanely hard apparently...

Framed - DD initially said bits were ok. The essay at the end wasn't in the expected form, so she wasn't totally prepared for that. It's the one exam she's lost a lot of marks on in two marks as it's so intense, so hard to know exactly how it went.

BBC article

About the leak.
It's roughly what dd was led to believe. Most that was out there was the blocked out questions (and only 2 from the paper), I don't think there are any reports of full questions being freely available.
It was a worse leak last year, apparently, because it was leaked on the Friday with the exam on the Monday, and some questions were fully leaked. This was leaked with only just over 12 hours to go.

The rumours about paper 1&2 being leaked only have started now as far as I can see, so I don't think any from those were freely available.

There were some fake questions "leaked" some of which were clearly jokes.

What was an issue was it being leaked overnight, when Edexcel didn't have any staff available to ask twitter etc to take them down. That's something they need to get sorted.

Apparently it was thought to not be genuine because whatever question number it was shouldn't be mechanics/statistics, so it wasn't taken seriously by a lot of people, and, now having looked at the mechanics one, what was available on line you could only see the diagram and a little bit of info so you couldn't actually do the question.

I'd imagine that it will be easy enough to find the leak as it came out on-line. So that's traceable, and that means that people responding would be through the internet too so full evidence there-even without tracing the money side, which would almost certainly be bacs.
That means that anyone who paid for it will also be traceable, and, unfortunately if they put it out on WhatsApp groups for school or whatever then that would be trackable too-which means that innocent parties, who may have not wanted to see the questions, could also be burnt by that, if they decide to take it that far.

This has happened before with Edexcel, they do need to ask themselves what more they can do, and why they are having the leaks and the others aren't to the same extent.

And the person who did the leak needs to be put in a position that neither they, nor anyone else, thinks it's worth doing again.
It's not fair on the children who have worked hard, whether or not it makes any difference to them, they will feel it's made a difference and it adds to their stress.

Certainly one of the petitions has screenshots of the whole paper, taken from other social media (WhatsApp?). DS only saw the scribbled version & only 10 minutes before the exam!

Yes, there are lots of people on twitter saying that the full paper was seen and on offer. DS felt that this was one of his better papers out of 3 so I hope they don't feel the need to mess with the weighting of this paper but there do seem to have been several people who were offered the opportunity to cheat.
Search for @pearsonedexcel for their statement and comments on Twitter.

DS seems unphased by the whole maths leak thing.

We had the ceremonial dumping of piles of paper notes into the recycling this morning. He has one exam left (FM) but not for a week and a half so he is relaxed and heading out for the day with friends.

Wiifitmama gosh for once I've been more cautious, advising DS not to throw away A Level course work yet.That day will come on Results Day, once we know that he's got the grades although it would be great to get rid of all those piles of papers.

My non-mathematical brain is struggling to see how they can factor for some of the Edexcel A Level candidates potentially having seen the leaked questions? Could someone explain in simple terms, please?

I think usually they do some kind of statistical analysis to spot odd patterns but this seems to have been so widespread that I don't see how they can.

The last push here, but Dd seems more distracted revising for last 2 exams on Monday. Not helped by friends who already have finished posting on instagram

LIZS good luck to your Dd for the final push. Although my Dd has an intense timetable, at least she’s finished now. The double exam days are nasty.

Thank you , and she's even in isolation for final one! There is a pot of Carte d'Or in the freezer ready for Monday evening.

Coleoptera, anti-climactic really is the word for it.

LIZS your poor DD being in isolation for her last exam.

Good luck for the DC doing the final push. Most of DS's friends don't finish until this week.

The entire them of this year at GCSE and A Level appears to have been weird questions. I am so disappointed in question setters. At least at A Level , you have (mainly) students who can think on their feet but at GCSE , some of these awkward questions will have left young people marooned.

Oh gosh yes to so much writing!! DD ended up with her hand in a support bandage before the final exam as her hand was going into spasms.
I’m so thankful they’re over now.

The weird questions are so demotivating - there were questions (biology mainly but also chem) which were designed to walk them into traps ... not interested in giving an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge.

Dd is seriously struggling to revise now - both papers are unified & always ‘odd’ ones with low grade boundaries ... god knows what she’ll get this year. I really don’t want her to look back & regret not giving that final push.

She’s way more excited about her job! She’s got two weeks off after her last exam & then she starts work.

DS also struggling with revision for the last Chemistry/Biology papers, it feels like these exams have gone on too long.
It’s slighty worrying as he did badly in chemistry paper 3 last year (he’s retaking) just have to hope the questions aren’t too odd.

Just can't shrug of this "sick in my stomach " feeling over the EDEXEL maths.
Ds was feeling quite good after papers 1 and 2 and was confident in paper 3 .
He likes sats.
All very well people saying to just use teachers predictions...but he wanted his own grade ( which i was hoping it would have a * on the end !! )

piggywaspushed

You are our insider . What can you find out tomorrow at school.
I know it is not your subject ...but pleeeease !!!

I've just been talking to DS & reminding him of the contingency day. He says if Edexcel actually admit the extent of the leak it may have to be reset, or use predicted grades as he believes it was incredibly widespread & not just the two obscured questions. He said he would be surprised if there wasn't someone in every school who had seen the whole paper. It's do annoying. He us predicted an A but after papers 1 & 2 was holding out an outside hope of an A*. If he has to resit he will gave been partying got several days.

Pearsons / edexel ?? Not sure which said no re sit in their statement.

But whatever they do will have soured the resuts .

The Sunday Times is running an article on the leak in today's edition - it would suggest that the breach originated somewhere in east London.

Yes, I was thinking that an exam paper leak is just the type of scenario that the 'contingency day' was created to cope with.

Sorry ...my source for that was on Twitter.
And cant link ..and unsure the source of that !!

Would that be the 28th june ..contingency dau for all schools?

Hopefully they will respond sonn with what is going to happen .
So not fair on the students

Some have finshed by now .
To get back in that mind set of exams and revision again will be hard .

Ds only has chemistry left ? Wednesday.
He is in chemistry mode.
They cant at the last minute add in another maths exam ?