A level stresses....[history depression today and more to come...]

[DinkyDaisy]

My ds is usually quite calm and collected but his history paper today [a whopping 40% Russia paper ] depressed him. He is angry with himself. I screwed it up he texted me at work. Timing that he thought he had sorted through revision went a bit awry for starters.
He is trying to move on but it is hard. He took the night off from revision as the next exams are after half term.
I am sure he is not alone...
He is avoiding exam talk at school as a history post-mortem will finish him off I think.
He needs AAB for university choice and he is doubting himself now...
Good luck to all going through this!

Yes. My DC did this yesterday and was quite upset (needs A* in Physics for his Uni). Looking at The Student Room and Reddit the consensus is that it was particularly hard and I am sure the grade boundaries will shift down.

English and History on the same day is ludicrous as it's a popular combination and many students who take one will also take the other. It was a long day for anyone sitting both, and my heart goes out even more to those who need extra time.

He’s mainly upset about English lit because the grade boundaries are extremely high (I think from memory they’re the highest of all subjects). So he’s worked out that he’s lost the A star and probably also the A

This is doom laden nonsense as until all the scripts are marked, no-one knows how hard the cohort as a whole found the paper. He might have missed the top grades but he might not and he cannot know that until the results are back.

Anyway, there is literally no point in catastrophising - just do the best you can and then pick yourself up and get on with revising the next one. Your son might find this article helpful: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220725-catastrophising-how-toxic-thinking-can-lead-down-dark-path

It isn’t doom laden nonsense . He has a SpLD and is very analytical. He calms himself by working through after sitting a paper and calculating where he has lost marks so that he can then calculate what he needs for the next paper. It literally stops him being doom
laden.

Ive explained that it’s irrelevant now since it’s done and he’s lucky anyway in that whilst he is predicated A star A star A, he only needs BBB for his first choice. He is still allowed to be upset though as we all are when we feel like we could have done better in something. It doesn’t help that one of his classmates got her English lit moved due to the fact that it was on the same day as history. I’m sure having had a good nights sleep he will have a different perspective.

Am I the only parent on MN whose DC isn't predicted 3 x A* or even AAA?

It doesn’t help that one of his classmates got her English lit moved due to the fact that it was on the same day as history

Is that possible?

Mine was similar but doesn’t do English thankfully so has her next exam today.
She has a bit of a break now until 5th June which is great.
Best of luck to all of them

DDs BF did it yesterday and claimed it was easy but he’s pretty arrogant and has an unconditional so he can afford to be complacent

I'm not sure the STEMMERs would agree they're at an advantage! DD doesn't start until early June (she'd have preferred to have started earlier), but she has 9 exams in 17 days, with several on consecutive days.

The clashing here seems to be ridiculous, but the other papers are more spread out? DS has his 9 exams over 28 days with obviously half term in between when he'll get a breather mid way through.

I also feel for this cohort, who did not do traditional GCSEs.

It may help for them to keep in mind that the announced plan is to return to the 2019 grade distributions. Depending upon cohort performance, the grade boundaries could be very different.

Yes, but they would have had a 3 way clash (eg history, English and film ) and this involves overnight 'sequestering'.

Traditionally, reasonably so yes. It is fairly widely know any subjects with coursework has a bit of 'equalising' going on with exam grade boundaries , rightly or wrongly.

But it is true if everyone crashes and burns, those boundaries will shift.

It was only a two way clash (History am and English pm). Its possible she gets 50% extra time though. DS only has 25% so just did his pretty much back to back.

Yes that is spectacularly bad organisation. Though they may be using different exam boards.

@scabby1 my son is the same! Tough but not as bad as younger son who had 4 GCSEs (geography chemistry and 2x Spanish) on the same day. DS18 said his hand nearly fell off and he needed more paper. He’s sceptical as to whether the examiner will be able to read latter stages of his Empire musings.

I think the AAA predictions based on hard work, mock exams based on work already covered in class are unfair. A students can cope with complex, unexpected questions, thinking out of the box...because they are A*. No amount of 'but DS/DD worked so hard, knows so much content...' can compensate for innate intelligence. When did getting 'B' become a failure? Its all madness - made so much worse on MN.

To be fair the "madness" comes from the fact that most of the top 30 universities ask for As for most of their courses.

Thsi is the only circumstances under which 9 hrs of exams is possible

If the total duration of three or more examinations to be taken in one day is more than 5 hours 30 minutes for GCSE examinations or more than 6 hours for GCE examinations (AS, A2, A-level), centres may wish to arrange overnight supervision.
However, the candidate should be offered the opportunity to sit all the examinations on the scheduled day. The centre should submit a request for special consideration to the relevant awarding body for the final paper which has been taken.

I disagree that any student, however analytical, can work out their own marks on an exam paper they’ve just sat while in the exam hall. It’s literally not possible, certainly not to the extent of being able to work out whether you’ve missed out on grades or not. Exam marking is a trained task and markers get retrained on it every year! I’ve known teachers with many years experience disagree on how essays should be graded (we usually end up in the same band but not very often on exactly the same mark) so how a student can work it out is beyond me. This might give a student a feeling of control but it’s not a good thing to rely on.

Not suggesting that it is accurate but its a coping mechanism and enables him to calm himself and not stress if he feels worried about an exam that has been sat.

@WednesdaysPlaits Yes, because they want to attract the top 5% - many universities and many courses do not demand A*.

When will they revise the whole system? I hate it. I didn't grow up in this country and there wasn't this kind of stress as by this time students already had a firm offer and the hard work was done, based on coursework over the last couple years and a few exams (which carried considerably less weight) and other factors. To think a migraine or silly exam scheduling could affect a child's chance of going to their preferred university? And doesn't matter if it's an A star or a C, if they need it they need it, and one child's very best effort and ability may be that C.

Apologies, I got my maths wrong.
It was 8 hours 15 min in exams.
DS had History from 8.30 - 12.15, and then English Lang & Lit from 13.30 - 18.00.
Even so, a crazy long day. Especially as he didn't get his full break because he has to hang around to print and sign his paper afterwards.

And an Ancient History exam the day before...

And no overnight supervision was offered. It was do it all in one day, or don't do it.

I guess because it was two exams. The rules don't assume two could be that long. I think extra time in exams can be a double edged sword and lots of older students perhaps don't realise what happens if they have back to back exams.