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.

Could she study at school?

Loop help reduce noise but if you are looking for proper active noise cancelling then you would need to spend quite a lot more,

Thanks both. I'll look at Loop. School is not offering study space (and is not easy to get to outside of the school bus times. I have shingles on my back at the moment and can't drive). She can go to my parents' house if it gets really bad, but she studies better here (usually).

Hi , DC sitting 5 highers . I thought I would be a bit more chilled this year - but apparently not !
Difficulty is that although DC is studying a bit , they are not probably doing as much as they should . I do get we can’t make them , but it is frustrating when they have worked hard over the years but can’t get completely motivated to do the final bit .
Can’t wait until they are over and they haven’t even sat the first one . At least we know there is an end in sight .

First invigilating shift this morning, good luck to everyone sitting Admin and IT.

My DS had H Geography yesterday, thought it went well. He "cooked" which apparently is a good thing.

For those with kids whose exams are all squashed together - thank your lucky stars you are not in England where they have a choice of exam boards. My niece is near London and the fact her school uses different exam boards for different exams means she has THREE on the SAME DAY. I know. Madness. One in the morning, one in the afternoon - the afternoon one is running at the same time as one of her other exams from a different exam board, so the kids affected by the clash (niece says about a dozen of them) have to be escorted out of their afternoon exam, sequestered in a classroom under supervision to have a wee break and a sandwich, then escorted back into the hall to do the third exam after everyone else has gone home.

MADNESS.

Maths Higher has two papers and for those with extra time runs over the start of Higher Sociology. I note that the SQA state that if, with extra time, you have more than 6 hours of exam in the same day then you can use EECS instead of the last exam - but just this year as they messed up by compressing the exam timetable (though I am not sure how much shorter the exam diet is than other years?)

There is a rule about total exam length in a day in England too - five and a half hours at GCSE, six at A level. After that the candidates can be supervised overnight and the last paper of the day can be sat the next day, or they can get a small uplift on their last paper. Not sure how supervision overnight works - it must be a safeguarding nightmare for anyone other than boarding schools.

I don’t understand the English exam boards system at all. Surely the school just picks the exam board who gives the highest grades and then it’s just a race to the bottom? Why not just have one exam board?

One state-controlled board can also ‘race to the bottom’ under political pressure to see better school performance. Ultimately it comes down to credibility. Lower standards too far and you are no longer credible. But grade inflation is widely recognised as an issue, including for SQA - 30% grade A at Higher last year, up from 25% in 2010. In England they introduced A (star) then redid their whole grading to 1 to 9 because of it.

👋 at all the new thread joiners.

Good to hear Geography went well @SnoozingFox

It was normal to have two in a day and not uncommon for those with clashes to be escorted over lunch to do the exam at a different time back in the 80s, but three in one day sounds excessive! We also had a couple of weeks off to study before the first exam too. Study leave only started this week here.

Great that they have more time in between them now.

Higher Geog went okay yesterday apparently for DD. Higher Graph Comm this afternoon, and then Higher Chemistry tomorrow. She's not done much chemistry revision for a while, so I hope that goes okay. Friday can't come soon enough, she'll be 60% of the way through by that point.

7th and final year of exams (or assessments in Covid), can't believe they are here already! S6 here with conditional uni offers (B at Higher) but I think the bare minimum being done!

This is so funny, I’ve just been taught this too by DS

Bro cooked - did well
bro is cooked - did not!

nat5 Graphic comms starting now!

@Chesticles I was thinking of your DD when I looked at the timetable to write last night's good luck message.

Hope it's gone well today for everyone.

No roadworks yet today touches wood.

Higher Graph Comm was awful apparently 😟. She felt there was loads that they hadn't covered in class. I know her teacher was awful, but I hoped she would be fine.
She'll just have to put it behind her and focus on Chemistry for tomorrow.

One here doing 5 highers, with first one, Chemistry, tomorrow.
needs 5 A’s for his uni choose so feeling the pressure for him.

Two doing chemistry here - one morning, one afternoon.

Fingers crossed she did better than she feared.

Sorry to hear that @Chesticles . 🤞for her. It's hard not to focus on what you couldn't do in the exam and give yourself enough credit for what you could do. Hopefully she's done better than she thinks. And the good thing about Scotland is that there's another year to try again.

Good luck to everyone doing Chemistry tomorrow. There seems to be a fair few of you in that group on here.

Hope Chemistry went well for everyone. Nat 5 seems to have gone well here which is a relief! A few days off from exams here and then 3 next week!

Mine found Nat 5 Chemistry quite tricky today, but had a go at all the questions at least. English next which she is really dreading. 3 exams next week is a lot. Just 2 here.

Chemistry has been the nemesis in this house over the last two years. A total rollercoaster over highs and lows. I hope that the fact she managed all the questions means it was better than she thought. Yes English here too. Then German and history. After that she only has two more which seems quite incredible. The next week is full on though.

Good to hear @Locallassie. Hope it went better than she thinks @LaughingLemur.

Good luck to those doing economics, photography, cake craft and Gàidhlig tomorrow.

Thanks, hopefully she'll have done ok. We have German next week too, her favourite subject so something to look forward to.

We have N5 English next week. I teach English and have had many kids writing last minute essays and going over Q types this week!

So, N5 English for my daughter on Tues. And then the next two are maths for both DS and DD. It's probably the biggest one in the household as it's the only condition for uni for my DS.