2024 exam thread

[motheronthedancefloor]

Hows everyone's kids getting on with their exams / studying?

DDs first Higher exam is D&M I think. She's been busy working on past papers but feels fairly confident. She is least confident about Chemistry.

I have a DS doing Nat 5s, he's my third child going through this so I feel like an old hand, although my older two had exams screwed by lockdowns. His first one is Modern Studies on 30th.

I am also working as an invigilator this exam session and have my first shift on Thursday afternoon for Nat 5 physics.

English is my DC’s 1st. They’ve had 1 week of supported study in the holidays and have a weekend coming up in school. After this week its study leave so effectively the end of S5 😱Revision going OK I think - can’t wait for it all to be over - roll on the end of May! It’s 2nd time round for us - 5th year in a row of SQA exams in this house - doesn’t get any easier. At least we haven’t had Lockdown and online learning to contend with this time. Also doing Chemistry and finding it very challenging but getting there doing loads of past papers too.

I’ve got two exam kids. One’s doing Nat 5s and one is S6 so doing mix of Highers and AH. Nat 5 DC has geography on Tuesday. Good luck everyone!

Mine has 2 next week- Higher PE on Monday and Physics on Thursday, then a bit of a break until English I think, with Maths and Biology after that. Not sure who's looking forward more to them being over!

DS doing Nat 5s. This is more stressful that I remembered myself. He is finding it really quite tough. His first exam is CDT which is on 1st May I think.

Then there's the looooong wait til results day :(

Recent press about our school being the lowest perfoming in the LA does not help us feel any less worried.

5 years since ds sat his NAT5s - 3 years of exams is tough and each year is stressful for different reasons.

Good luck to everyone's dc!

My ds has his first exam on Monday - higher Accounting (he is crashing the higher). Then he has a 3 week break until his next one which is Advanced Higher Maths. A week after that is AH Computing and then his last one is AH Chemistry which is on the 24th May. And then he's finished with school forever!

Dd is in 3rd year at Uni and only has 2 exams - sat one last Wednesday (which got interrupted by a fire alarm and they didn't get extra time to finish the paper!) And has the other this Wednesday.

Stressful time for all. Good luck to the kids and the families supporting them ❤️

My eldest is doing five Highers in this year's run. First one is Physics next week - he's been working hard and feels okay about it. Next is Eng, then Maths, then Computing and finally Chemistry. All fairly spaced out for which I'm grateful.

We got his estimates yesterday and he's estimated four Cs and an A (in English). I'm hoping this is conservative estimating 😬 he seems to think a C is fair enough for Chemistry which he's finding tricky, but hoping for Bs in Physics and Maths, and As in English and Computing.

Good luck to all - it's a miserable time.

It's reassuring that others find chemistry hard too

@dementedpixie that’s not good. Surely they should have got the extra time!

@motheronthedancefloor ds did Higher chemistry last year and think a lot of the class found the paper hard. There were a couple of unexpected D’s that I know of.

Ds has his first, AH music, next Wednesday then AH maths on Monday 13th April and AH computing science the following Monday. This is our third time doing this but his brothers are a lot older so nine years since the last one finished.

I think the grade boundary for higher chemistry was something like 35% for a C last year iirc (don't have it in front of me) so that does indicate it was a hard paper
She has a tutor for chemistry and also one for English. What's upsetting DD is that her tutor (a teacher) thinks DD will definitely get an A but her own school English teacher reckons DD will be lucky to scrape a B
The tutor got DD an A in Nat 5 last year and this year is so annoyed at DD teacher putting DD down that she (tutor) has gotten her other colleagues to check over DD essays, past papers etc and they all agree it's A standard.
DD being DD tells school teacher 'my tutor says...' so that didn't go down well.
Who knows who will be right. DD in low performing school and tutor in high performing school (top twenty league table)

Does anyone have experience of predicted grades submitted to SQA by school being very different to the actual grades achieved? Last year my son was predicted 3 x A2 and 2 x A1 and that is exactly what he got. He was 100% convinced he had exceeded the prediction. Did make me wonder if maybe they don't mark them and just go on the prediction 🤔😆or maybe my son is just not a good judge of how well he has done. With Nat 5 he ended up in tears after one as he thought he had so badly and ended up with an A1 so that kind of proves that point.

Exam markers don't have access to the predicted grades, they mark the papers.

Ah ha - well his teachers were spot on then. Even though he studied hard after getting those predicted grades.

Your son did amazingly well!

Only one of my son's predictions were right last year. He was predicted two 4s and got two 1s! But equally was predicted three 2s and ended up with Bs.

His English prediction is a 2 and I'm unconvinced. I teach (and mark for SQA) English and I think they've over-egged it because he got a band 1 A last year.

I find it so hard not having a scooby about the other subjects. It's all gobbledygook to me.

He also has a p/t job and works 12-14h a weekend. I don't want that to impact his revision but also know he's nearly 17 and can make that call for himself.

Good luck everyone's DCs!

My kids are past this now but these threads were a godsend when they were in the middle of exams. They missed s6 (ds) and s5 (dd2, and she left at the end of s5) due to covid.

Wishing you all well through the exams!!

Good luck to everyone.

DD has Nat 5s starting with her first exam tomorrow, so she is currently getting some last minute revision in.

Ds has just pointed out to me that the date I'd written down for AH Chemistry was the wrong one as it was updated to be a day earlier. Not sure if others have changed but I had to download the timetable again to get the correct date

Good luck to all of your DC. Strength and sanity to you all. It's a blessed relief when they head off to uni and it suddenly becomes none of your business. Had SQA from 2013 to 2021 without a break.

DS is highers this year and planning on leaving for college instead of going back for S6. first exam on Thursday with Physics. his first couple are spaced out but he then has a Thurs/Fri/Mon set with English, RMPS and Maths which feels hard-going!

I have 2 doing them this year, lucky me.

Eldest is in s6 (so just finished school technically) and has 2 crash highers and 2 advanced highers. However he’s sitting with 5 uni offers, mainly unconditional as he got 5 As last year and the one that’s conditional only needs a B in one of the AH which he should get easily. First one is physics on Thursday.

Youngest is a different kettle of fish he has ASD and is doing 6 Nat 5s. He could either pass them all or get 6 no awards :/ first one is also physics on Thursday.

good luck everyone

ds' first Highers isn't until the 9th. Math is the one that is a bit of a worry. He should be doing fine in all the others.
Good luck to everyone.