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!

The one saving grace is that he has an unconditional offer for the course he really wants to do.

No unconditional here...
That would take the stress off a bit...

Lol at idea of stem kids having an advantage. My kid’s friends doing biology have five papers in biology and started on the 3rd May. My child does stem and has 13 a level papers. She has had physics and maths this week. Her boyfriend doing English, music and history only has 6 exams.

I don’t see the point competing about this stuff. It’s hugely stressful for all our children.

My child has an a level exam every day in the week of 12th June. Fun times!

^this. And certainly plenty of content in the STEM subjects, the Biology content is huge.
Let's hope they can all do themselves justice.

DD did further maths exam today and says it was a killer. She didn't understand the last 3 ques so gave up and didn't even try to answer so that's 40% of marks gone already. I feel so bad for her, she's distraught and it was her first exam so now she thinks they'll all be impossible. She literally couldn't revise anymore than she does.

I think the system is unbelievably stressful and actually pretty pointless. My DD did English lit OCR yesterday and the Hamlet question was bizarre. All that learning and revision for a badly worded question- yes I get that they need to think outside the box and not just regurgitate learned essays but this one felt too random and no idea how a set of examiners will have a fair marking scheme to cope with a whole range of interpretations.. the grade boundaries are absurd so they either are very generous with marks or no-one gets the As and Bs needed for many Uni places . It’s all baffling… she has had 2 psychology papers alongside and on her knees now..

To me it just doesn't all add up. This is the first set of formal exams for this cohort which adds to the stress - yet they've got to get the grades to enter a University system where they are expected to pay to study. My DD has been invited to a 'firm offer holders day' at the beginning of July - 'to meet her fellow cohort, meet the tutors and get summer work for the start of the Uni term'. I mean what if she doesn't get the grades? She's fully invested in this Uni but she might not get in if she has a bad paper. The disappointment will be ten-fold on results day if she doesn't make her grades - the pressure is immense - it's madness.

What was the Hamlet question?

And they are constantly being told that all is back to normal and 2019 grade boundaries and all that - a lot of mg DDs friends are obsessing over those boundaries and adding to their stress. In English you seem to get about 95% to her an A*. I just don’t understand it

Sorry, this is a useful and supportive comment...how exactly ?

Hamlet question was
something about what are “images and ideas” on theatre - don’t know exact wording but it was very vague and threw a lot of them..

God it's all awful.

That physics paper was hard, according to ds and all the kids taking it with him.

And I know that you have to return to "traditional" marking at some point but these kids have never sat a public exam previously and they missed a good half year of GCSE content at least. Well, unless they were at private school. Ffs. The GCSE thing is really bad for physics candidates especially the ones who aren't doing maths a level. At least if they were doing maths a level they'd be getting the maths content necessary for physics from that. It does feel incredibly hard luck for them.

This would have only happened if her own specific SPLD meant that her extra time allowance took her over the A level time limit but yes can happen but because they need it to be on a level with other students not tk get an advantage!

@Larner DS2 (who does do further maths) said he felt for people sitting physics without further maths, because the maths was complex (this was the AQA paper).

But I asked him about how the curve grading works between different boards and he said each board grades on their curve to determine who has each grade and then they're all smushed together - so if your board had a super-difficult paper your grade will be determined against other people who sat the same paper, not against people who sat other boards. (Seems mad to have different exam boards tbh but 💁🏻‍♀️)

@Noway88 and others. It has been announced that he grade distributions are being returned to the 2019 profile. It is anticipated that to achieve these distributions, the grade boundaries may need to be shifted (lowered).

Big difference!

@PacificState yes, Ds says there's a clear divide between those who do maths and those who don't while those who do further maths have a slight advantage again. But, further maths isn't for everyone! I think in other years all of these kids would have at least have had more GCSE input to put them in a bit better stead. With all the stem subjects, having a gap in previous knowledge can have really bad ripple effects because if you don't know one base process/function etc you can't learn other stuff that follows on from it.

@Radiatorvalves- so your DS18 does English Lit, History & Politics too? Hope they all went well for him and he had a well deserved break today.

Re each board grading based on their own curve- this can give rise to problems even with a single paper. Take yesterdays OCR English Lit exam. By all accounts the Hamlet question was really tricky and quite “out there”(I think it might have involved Metatheatre) On the other hand, the Richard III question on the same paper, the play DD studied, was about Act 1, Scene 1,” Today is the winter of our discontent…” .and apparently rather straightforward. So, should those who answered the Richard III questions be marked more harshly than the poor souls who had to answer the awful Hamlet question? If not, won’t the grades at the top of the curve be the Richard III students rather than the Hamlet students? Sorry, I haven’ been able to express myself well. I hope that makes sense!

I've no idea @scabby1 - at least with maths/physics everyone has to answer all the questions! I suspect we're getting into the more theoretical area of 'how do you measure comparable achievement in different contexts' and 'why even do we determine people's futures on the basis of closed examinations' and quite soon we'll all be in a tearful heap. Urgh. and / for everyone, roll on half term.

I don't know if it's relevant but I remember seeing an English teacher on youtube (Mr Salles) say that you shouldn't go for the easier question in GCSE lit because it's harder to get the top marks from an easy question. Maybe it's the same at A-level?

Urg, it's brutal isn't it. It would be much better to have a more continuous assessment based system, albeit with exams as progress checks within it. All this fucking revision ... Education is supposed to be about knowledge and learning. End of school assessment is supposed to be about ascertaining aptitude and fitness for work/further study. A levels are just high octane performative displays of I don't even know what. Stamina? Nerve?

I would avoid student room. Ds said had a peek and wound him up. I looked and could see why! All analysing questions and a mix of it was great and others with crying emojis. Not a healthy place for a stressed boy.
He doesn't usually look and says not going to look again during exams as doesn't help in moving forward...

Bizarre.

@Superdupes I don’t think “not picking the easy question” works in the context of the English Lit example I gave because each school has a choice as to which Shakespeare play to study, and there is only one question per play on the paper.

I do hope someone answered "do it on the radio"