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.

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It looks good but I worry if it might be a bit passive an investment of four hours compared to doing question papers and looking up where you get stuck. I guess it depends on the child.

No, I mean the marking videos, so DD will sit and do a past paper on her own, then use the video rather than the just marking scheme papers.

Thank you @RausageSoul we didn't need the videos for marking but the 2025 practice papers on the site have been really good for DD to do this afternoon.

DD2 thought Higher Design and Manufacture paper was fine… didn’t really elaborate, but for her that’s a good sign!

Good luck to all the Maths N5ers tomorrow!!

Came home, DD says she's revised enough and os spending the evening chilling and watching The Office US 🤣

Good to hear @TalkedTooMuchStayedTooLong. DD said Nat 5 D&M was ok. She was annoyed at not being able to remember some things that she had revised.

Maths revision has not gone well here. She's been trying past papers all evening and getting worse marks with each one, as she's not properly listening to where she went wrong to correct in the next one, her tiredness is increasing and her confidence diminishing. She wouldn't listen to me telling her to stop and learn a few things well instead. She was heading for an A at the start of the school year, but just didn't get on with a new teacher's style and couldn't follow the lessons anymore. I'm hoping something clicks for her in the exam and holding on to the silver lining that, as she can't fit all her Highers into S5 because of timetable clashes, if she has to resit, there's space for her to do that and hopefully she'd have a different teacher.

Good luck for those doing Music Tech and Nat5 Maths tomorrow. 🍀🤞

Thinking of you all with Nat5 maths this morning. Let's hope it's a good paper.
I, for one, will be glad when it is over with 😩

Good luck all those doing Nat 5 Maths. DD had a wee wobble last night about trig identities. She just needs to get in and get it done now. She had a really good prelim but lacks confidence and has a tendency to rush a bit. Once today’s over she has 13 days until her next and final exam. Plan is to take a few days off and then get started. She’s had really only one day off from studying in the last month and she needs a break. Not that she agrees with that but that’s a battle for another day!

We don’t have quite so long to the next exam but the plan is to have tomorrow off.

Good luck to everyone doing Nat 5 Maths. We've a nice break after it until French next week. Hopefully your DD was just overtired last night @Issy422 and will be fine today.

Wishing all the Nat 5 Maths DC good luck!

Advanced higher physics is tomorrow. My daughter will not be able to sit it due to a medical emergency. The course is 25% coursework, 75% exam. She did well in the coursework, didn’t do well in the prelim. The school tell me the grade will be based on the prelim only, not the prelim + coursework. That doesn’t sound right to me. Surely the coursework ought to be taken into consideration? Does anyone know?

Media seemed to be a reasonable paper yesterday. After a break it's back to studying today. 3/5 of the way through now!

This might be helpful - it gives the different sources of evidence that can be used: https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/foi-22-23-047-06-eccs-info-for-centres-2019.pdf

So definitely more than the prelim can be used, and should be used if it better reflects her ability. If she took her prelim (mock) several months ago before completing the course then I would read this as the school needing to provide additional evidence as the mock would not have covered the whole course.

Good to hear media was reasonable @cazzyg

Sorry to hear DD is unwell @Sorrysunflower

@CleaningSilverCandlesticks You are a fountain of knowledge on all things SQA.

Son said paper 1 of maths N5 was straightforward so that’s good.

Good to read that thanks for the update. not heard from my son as don't think they are allowed their phones back till after Paper 2

Same here. They have to hand them in to the school office. Thanks for the update @LoopyGremlin

son just messages. said it was very good. paper 2 also. says half the students have already left.

I'm always telling him to use all the time available. you get 1.5 hours for a reason. maybe it's different with maths rather than written subjects etc Idk!

Great to hear both papers were ok. I'm nervously awaiting 12 noon to speak with DD.

It’s not related to this year’s exams, but I don’t suppose anyone has DC with experience of AH English and AH Economics? We’re having a wobble between the two for S6…

Waiting for ds to report how nat5 maths went this morning. Glad to hear others saying it was straightforward.

DD just messaged. Didn't go well for her sadly. Not a surprise as she fell apart so much last night, but if it's gone as badly as she thinks, there's always next year. She's now determined to get an A in Apps, so today's challenge will be getting her to take a break this evening and starting with a fresher head in the morning.

Sorry to hear that @Issy422 . Hopefully she's done better than she thinks and she can go on to do really well in Apps. My DD thought it was ok, she knows she messed up one in Paper 1 and then couldn't work out how to do a bearings one in Paper 2 but apart from that seemed better than feared. She's having a day off tomorrow before starting revising for French.

sorry to read that issy. hopefully she's done better than she realises. does your DD school do maths and app of maths. At ours you do one or the other.

DS only scraped at C at prelim so a fail could still be a real possibility.

physics tomorrow-worst subject,