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.

Hope your DD isn’t too down @Issy422my DD says there was a stinker of a vectors question that she just wrote a lot of working for but has deffo messed it. Also something on bearings.

we’ve got apps on Friday too, which is hopefully the safety net

Yes, at DD's school they either do Maths and Apps or just Apps. I think just focusing on Maths would have been better.

DD knows she doesn't have 40 of the 90 marks on today's papers, so now a case of hoping she didn't drop any of the remaining marks and scrapes through. DD has decreed that we are not allowed to discuss anything more until August and no talk of Apps after Friday either.

Just had a heartbreaking conversation with her though, where she said she'd have to get 100% in both Apps papers to try to get a decent grade overall and I had to explain to her that they were two separate exams 😲. I don't know how she had failed to realise or how I didn't get that she didn't realise. She even commented that the exam hall was half empty as half the year doesn't do both. Up to the October test they always had a combined mark for both, so I guess she just somehow hadn't realised that they were now separate. That explains the 'delusion' the other day of saying she had 74% on one of the prelims. She also probably would have planned her revision time better. Oh well, what will be will be and if the worst happens, she can always resit in S5 or S6.

Putting Physics in between the two maths papers seems the most bizarre timetabling. Surely there must be loads of kids doing all three?

Most schools do maths or apps, not both, and those who struggle with maths tend to get directed to apps. Given physics requires a good understanding of maths I doubt many students do apps and physics.

It is strange how they can pick up complete misunderstandings of things you take for granted they know. It reminds me of DD transitioning to secondary and not realising you have to move around the school for different classes (like everyone here, a Covid ‘transition’). At least you can reassure your DD Issy422 that her performance today will have no impact on her apps grade.

That's what i'm telling myself Issy. hopefully Ds will pass his humanities nat 5s and go on to highers, resitting maths Nat5 alongside it if required. Although after the horrors of last Friday's history who knows :(

totally agree with your comments about putting physics in between the 2 maths papers. Madness.

Oh that is heartbreaking @Issy422. Surely the school should have explained this to them? It seems a lot doing Maths and Apps, at our they do one or the other. Fingers crossed she's scraped a pass. DD is so glad she's not doing Physics are her friends who are have been very stressed. Really strange decision to have them on consecutive days.

I think my son’s school said you could do both maths and apps but that was only for those they were expecting to do very well in maths. We opted not to do both as didn’t see the point. Glad we didn’t now as have physics and engineering in next two days and wouldn’t have liked apps added into the mix!

Yes it is odd to have maths and physics on consecutive days. Ds has neglected physics revision a lot because passing nat5 is so much more important. Which is a real shame.

Physics has definitely taken the hit here for maths, and zero apps revision so will be a cram tomorrow night.

Then absolutely nothing until Art!

Ours do the opposite. Only those who are expected to do well in maths do both maths and apps. Everyone else does one or the other, generally based on ability and aspirations.

It seems crazy to place the burden of 2 maths courses on those less likely to do well.

Ours was the same, top set maths get put forward for apps too, but you can opt out.

Good luck for physics tomorrow.

DD is in top set maths, so maybe the other classes only do one or the other, but she has just had a crisis of confidence this year.

She has talked a bit more about the exam. She was hoping for vectors and bearings but isn't sure she got them right. She did say the dreaded 3D co-ords question came up. We were struggling with those last night, sat with a Rubik's cube working it out. Think it hadn't come up since 2019, so were hoping that it'd been taken out but aware it could be due to come up and hoping for the former. She's actually ok about the exam. Has a much better 'nothing she can do about it so no point worrying' attitude than I do. I think she was resigned to it.

How do resits work? When I did my exams there was a November resit, but since that's not a thing now, do they generally drop an expected subject to redo the failed one? Thinking, if it happens, DD would be better just going to the two, weekly maths after school sessions that are solely maths (there are another two for apps), rather than a full year repeating a class teaching to both exams.

I think it is a great shame that you can’t do November resits - you can for GCSEs. Whether you need to drop a subject and resit a year would depend on the child and school. If the subject knowledge is there but they had a bad day then the afterschool classes may suffice. If there are large gaps in understanding then it may be better to resit the whole class.

Not sure if this will help, or give the fear to your DC but the answers to paper 1 are on clellend maths:

Sorry @cazzyg and @RausageSoul
i meant only the most able maths students get to sit apps alongside maths. I just didn’t express it well! Everyone else got the option of maths or apps.

DD thought Maths went really well.

But Music Tech, she was definitely flagging. Two exams in one day is too much, especially with two maths papers. Luckily it's not worth a huge percentage and the practical coursework is weighted more heavily.

Did anyone else do Music Technology today?

AH Physics for DS tomorrow.

Not Economics but I teach AH English if that's any use?

Thanks @YouBelongWithMe DC trying to decide between the two subjects. AH Economics directly relevant to uni subject choice (though not a pre-requisite), but AH English offers good opportunity to develop some other skills. Is very strong at economics, but also good at English, and is a fairly prolific reader. Thinks that it could be easier to get a better grade at AH Economics, but, thinks AH English could be really interesting although believes it’s very hard. Teachers have advised that both subjects useful, choose what you would enjoy the most. Part of me wants to encourage English, I think it’s interesting and useful, but I totally get he doesn’t want to risk grades as will likely be applying to very competitive courses (in England, so AHs will really matter). And words of wisdom?

(sorry to crash the exam chat!!)

What elements of H does he enjoy? The AH course is very different - no RUAE, the exam essay is comparative with at least two texts, and the coursework is worth 60% in total.

I love the course - there's opportunity for personalisation and specialism. I've had kids tailor their year to their interests and loved it.

Being a reader is so helpful for the dissertation. So many aren't and have very little interest in writing 3500 words on a text of their choice!

The dissertation will definitely develop important skills if uni requires extended writing in any form. Also think it's a great course for learning how to manage time and redraft.It's also quite an enjoyable course!

Thanks for that link @RausageSoul . Paper 2 is up now too. No wonder they were stumped by the bearings question, it was a sine rule question in disguise. DD just measured it with the protractor but knew there were too many marks for that to be the answer.

@YouBelongWithMe thank you for that. It was the dissertation that really appealed. He’d been thinking about his reading and been trying to read a bit more classic literature, over the last year he’s been reading a lot of political and philosophy books. I think he’d really enjoy the course, but I get the pull for a subject he thinks he’d find a touch easier to do well in. I think the opportunity to develop essay writing skills is useful too, I’ve been amazed at how little essay writing has featured in the Higher curriculum compared to my recollection (several decades though, so it’s not entirely correct!)

And the Higher essay really is a regurgitation of taught analysis. I try to allow as much independence as possible, but the confines of the assessment are REAL. AH is genuine, independent analysis and responses to complex literature.

@WhatWouldTheDoctorDo my youngest did AH English and YASS Economics (same level as AH). Loved both. Found 1st year economics at uni quite different from AH (more like applied maths). Found she was quite behind other students who did A level Economics and Further Maths (she did AH Maths). Said academic writing in subjects like history might have been more useful than AH English for uni.

I spotted that on the timetable and thought it seemed unfair. Maths is such an important subject and long paper that it shouldn’t have any other exams on the same day.

Interesting to see these up so quick but DD is taking the ‘it’s done so moving on…’ approach and I am not sure going over it with her is a good idea.