2025 SQA Exams

[Issy422]

With SQA exams starting tomorrow, is it time for a general exam thread?

It's just DD for me, doing Nat 5s. My first 'anxious parent for formal exams' experience. Starts with Music on Monday and ends with Art & Design on 26th, so we've exams throughout. Study leave not started here so first exam is on first day of study leave. She's over revision already so going to be a long 5 weeks.

This gives a bit more: https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/foi-22-23-047-06-eccs-info-for-centres-2019.pdf

I am sure I read somewhere about sometimes being given small uplifts in marks rather than using alternative evidence, but can’t find that now.

So sorry for those of us with stressful circumstances today. You are right, we could not have imagined how stressful our kids’ exams would be. What a shame that a different way of expressing something they actually knew has disadvantaged lots of kids. Only comfort is - this will be national. They will tweak the grade boundaries in response hopefully.

Same here. Teachers agreed was a brutal question

My DS also missed it out.

History is his favourite and best subject but he said today's paper was horrendous

DD is the same she actually wants to study History at uni has done since she was about 8 but not today she thinks she's blown her chances god love her!

DC didn’t love the Nat5 paper today at all. Very flat after it. It’s so hard to watch them struggling isn’t it? I know it’s all good life experience but it’s hard to see.

I don't know how this would work as it would only affect those that did this topic, but it seems like all of our DCs did it, so maybe it will impact the overall grade boundaries.

DD only realised what the alternative topics were today and was miffed at missing out on studying Mary Queen of Scots.

Lying here awake still upset that son didn’t do as well as he is capable of. Such a shame so many seem to have been caught out by poor wording or ambiguous questions. Fairly confident that he will pass but he had been predicted an A grade and doubt that will happen now.

I am sure she didn’t do as badly as she fears. But if her previous coursework was of a consistently high standard then I am sure she could persuade school told let her study Higher History even with a poorer Nat 5 grade. Universities won’t care about Nat 5 once she has her Higher.

There was a similar issue with H English last year and the 10m Q for Men Should Weep. I remember a meeting was held at SQA and I'm sure markers were issued new marking instructions which tried to level the field.

My DS is the same. God i've hardly slept from worrying. He got an A in prelim and predicted at A. Now concerned he won't even get a C.

Maths & Physics next week :(

I’m so sorry reading this, I would have felt exactly the same. I think they do pick up when one section has scored very badly and try to level things. So horrible for them when they’ve put so much work in.

Hi ,
Higher History went well yesterday for my DC too . Agree it is nerve wracking for them ( and us parents ) .
I am worried that DC isn’t fully appreciating the big jump from Nat 5 to highers and that when he says it has gone well , that he just means good topics for him have come up , but worry that he hasn’t answered the question fully . But then would equally worry if he said it hadn’t gone well …

But fully accept that it isn’t us sitting the papers and there is only so much we can do to support them .
I am sorry to hear that the nat5 history had one / some tricky questions . I hope as others have said that the SQA take this into account when marking .
I have bleated onto My DC continually about take time to read the question , to make sure you are answering the question that is actually asked . But how do you get round it , when all of the pupils can’t understand how a question is phrased . It does seem really hard for the pupils and I can see why it would completely throw them off their stride in the exam .
Higher maths here on Monday and then we will be more than half way through .
Keep on going everyone , the end is in sight . Will of course do a family celebration at the exams but am feeling like I should also do something just for me to mark the end too .

Was also just thinking of ( some / not all ) celebrities ( Beckhams / nepotism ) comes to mind when their DC sit exams , are they as stressed out , or are they chilled , as their can choose to become part of the family brand ( no qualifications needed ) ?

I do hope they sort it out somehow. DD is also predicted an A in history, but thinks she lost 11% from two questions she didn't understand before any deductions for ones she was able to answer.

The problem with a poor question is that the marks for that question may be adjusted, but it can have adverse effects on the rest of the exam, either through less time for other questions or setting in panic. I have first hand experience of this from my A level maths. Question 1 was non-calculator and you had to complete it before you could move on to the calculator questions and weren't allowed to come back to it later (a daft set up because we all surreptitiously checked the answers with a calculator later on). I can't remember now whether there was a mistake in the question or it was just harder than it should have been, but iirc we all spent an hour or more of a 3-hr exam on it, leaving not enough time for the remaining questions. It was national scandal and thankfully my university took my physics result as evidence of maths ability and let me in anyway, but others weren't so fortunate and lost their places.

I hope the rest of the exams go more smoothly. Definite lack of motivation here. She did way more revision for her prelims. Have just gone with a desperate, old-fashioned bribery attempt, with £1 for every hour of D&M revision and £1 for every 10 marks on a Maths past paper (but she has to attempt the whole paper). Not sure it's had any effect though. Would have thought the idea of having to do another year of a subject she hates if she fails it would be motivation enough 🙄. How do you motivate your DC?

I can see how one rogue question such as the one on "franchise" which threw a lot of kids can cause issues - because it was only an issue for the candidates who had done Scotland and the Great War for their Scottish topic. If they had done Mary Queen of Scots, or the Scottish Wars of independence or (I forget what the other topics were) there would not have been a question using tricky language. I suppose though if the SQA spot that there is a massive drop-off in marks for that particular question they can adjust accordingly?

I don’t think they do adjust it for the individual questions though. I think they just adjust the grade boundaries overall, so they still have e.g. 17.2% of kids getting an A (made up figure) but
-kids that would otherwise have gotten a high B but didn’t do the odd question get an A, and
-kids that would have gotten an A but had the odd question get a B.

I remember similar happened with history higher a couple of years ago. It really threw DS. He ended up with a B. Every other exam he’s ever sat before or since has been an A. It completely knocked out his chances with his top 2 uni choices.

HOWEVER he is now studying something he loves, at a uni he loves, and is glad that he got the B (lesson in resilience) and didn’t get his first choice uni (he’s sure he would have hated it).

I guess what I’m saying is they can study incredibly hard but there is still a really big element of luck in what happens on the day. The only way to change that would be for the SQA to bring back appeals based on prelims, but they have been very clear that they won’t do that.

There must be some sort of quality assurance between topic questions though where they have various topics like history to make sure all topics have comparable questions.

I guess we'll just have to wait until August to see what happens with Nat5 History, and as PP said, at least schools know it was an odd paper, so hopefully won't impact being able to do Higher.

I've just done the 2024 past papers for Apps of Maths. It's good for them that it is so practical, but as someone who deals with salaries, project planning and house renovation, it felt like all the boring bits of my life in one exam 😂. (I do know it's not aimed at me). At least I got it all correct, so I don't feel the need to do the others.

If Maths and Apps of Maths are supposed to be comparable, why do they give formula in Apps that they need to use and don't get given in Maths (area of a circle, Pythagoras and gradient)? Also find it odd that they don't give equation of a straight line and trig identities in the Maths one. Either you recognise that in the real world, people can just look up a formula and don't need to memorise it, or you don't. Having some and not others seems bizarre. Appreciate it's far better than it used to be when we had to learn them all and maths was as much a memory test as a maths one.

Wasn’t there problems with History curriculum and the exams last year ? And teachers themselves raised concerns ?

Yes, the pass rate was reduced by quite a lot, certainly for higher. They had made the exam harder. From what I’ve been told by a teacher, they’ve made it harder again this year. For example, where as it used to be ok to talk about sheep farming in New Zealand, now you have to identify the breed of sheep to get the point. Mad!

Should have said above that this applies to higher.

Apologies for the triple posts. Info on the issue www.heraldscotland.com/news/24571825.gilruth-asks-meet-sqa-unfair-exam-marking/

It’s madness that after that publicity, they’ve made it even harder this year.

It was the Higher which was the issue last year, and the Nat 5 this year though.

I'd imagine that when the SQA gets its much-promised rebrand, with completely different staff and policies and people who actually know what they're doing, everything will be peachy. Oh wait...

They have also changed the process for invigilators claiming their money this year making it twice as long as twice as complicated.

Yes, and an issue with History the year before was that the SQA issued pre-exam guidance (last year of Covid adjustments) that stated certain topics would not be part of the exam … and then included the topic in the exam. The kids would have been far better off if they just hadn’t issued any guidance.

Just clearing out some Nat5 history notes today - not those of DC2 who has just taken Nat 5 but those of DC1 who took it a couple of years ago at a different school (I had hung onto them just in case they might be helpful for DC2 but she never considered them as she had her own notes)

One page was a list of topics covered under era of the Great War - and there at the bottom of the list was ’extension of the franchise’

C’est la vie!