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.

Yes she feels like she has a crystal ball as she predicted Wicked for Higher Music too!

DD already has her N5 and H English but loathed it and she's raging to hear Taylor Swift came up this year 😂

DC is predicting Andrew Tate for Higher...

Then the SQA go on to say that they will consider awarding an A1 if required by a university offer (which is pretty much just Cambridge University). Same with appeals I think. Which makes the whole thing seem rather unfair not least because you may apply the following year to a university that stipulates A1s.

Just spoke to DD. She couldn't remember how to answer 'use of language' questions and said second paper was full of them. Text was 'Good Friday' and it was a theme not character question. Overall she thinks it went ok.

History next for DD on Friday, but need to get her thinking about next week too as she needs to put in the hours for maths and she says there's a lot to memorise for D&M.

DD didn't think Paper 2 went as well but overall it was ok and she's so relieved to get English over with. German next for her on Thursday but she needs to start working on Maths too as she's not done much so far.

Yes a similar message here. Relief to be able to talk about conflict as that is her strong point. German next then history this week. Similarly there’s been nothing done for maths as it’s been hard to manage 5 in 11 days. Need to get through Friday and then blast through maths I think.

DD happy with paper 2 as it was ‘all that glisters’ which apparently helped with the comparison and 8 marker. Critical essay was Dulce so feeling relieved.

history Friday but needs to put in some maths and physics too

Well I think having read the set text extracts from the english paper it's obvious how the SQA/Scot Gov are pushing their "Scots" language with extracts from Tally's Blood, the one about the drunk guy on the bus (think that was Good Friday) and the one about the wee girl who's dad is dying of asbestosis. That last one I thought was very powerful but the language - urgh.

Also can't believe kids are still being subjected to the horrors of the Cone Gatherers which I suffered through in the late 80s.

Just spoke to DD. She couldn't remember how to answer 'use of language' questions and said second paper was full of them. Text was 'Good Friday' and it was a theme not character question

This is what I haste about SQA exams - so formularistic. If it is a ‘use of language question’ you pull up the ‘use of language’ file and fill in the blanks. If a theme question you retrieve the theme file and do likewise. Though to be fair, given the way my mind works, I would probably have done much better with this sort of teaching in English.

The exam also clearly tells you how many "uses of language" they are expecting, and directs you to the lines to look in for the answers.

DC is revising history and seems to have to dedicate a significant amount of time not to learning about the history but how to answer the various question types. If she fails, it won’t be because of her knowledge of the relevant historical periods but because she didn’t remember how to answer an ‘explain’ question.

It's the 'how fully' question that tripped DD up in the prelim. 20/20 for one question and 0 for another because she couldn't remember how to answer. Keep suggesting to DD to do past papers, but she won't listen and is focused on memorising facts. Used to get near perfect marks in S3 when it was just about knowledge, but dropped about 30% in the prelim for not answering correctly.

I was invigilating today in a classroom usually used for business study. All around the walls were posters explaining not the content, not concepts, but the command words and how to structure an answer depending on whether it said Explain/Evaluate/Identify/Define.

Higher English is even more formulaic. It’s got a terrible reputation in my child’s school. Less than 35% of kids who passed Nat 5 English took it at higher.

Wow @Sorrysunflower, I thought Higher English was an expectation for most pupils. In England and Wales, a lot of universities and employers will insist on GCSE maths and English, regardless of the course/job. I had understood that the same was true of Higher English in Scotland, but maths isn't required in the same way, even at Nat5. Is that not the case?

Universities often require Nat 5 maths and English (equivalent to GCSE requirements) but not at Higher unless relevant for the course.

That's interesting. My DD didn't want to do Higher English next year but was told she had to take it as it's a uni requirement. Looks like we shouldn't have taken their word for it.

It depends on the course. My eldest got 5 unconditional offers for biology/biomed science type degrees without H English

Indeed. Check out the course requirements for any of the degrees your child is thinking of studying before picking subjects. Higher English is so formulaic it has put many of my child’s friends off learning, their parents say. There are no mandatory highers at my child’s school, and it is popular to do higher music or a language as an alternative to English where seeking to broaden the type of subjects studied.

You would also need English Higher if you want to go into school teaching in Scotland after your degree.

I was going to say the same about teaching as that's what DD is going to do and she needed H English and N5 Maths (as well as other Highers but those were the essentials). Humanities courses in particular tend to want English.

Nat 5 maths might not be required for all university courses but I suspect most graduate employers would look to tick the Nat 5 maths (or Applications of Maths) and Nat 5 English boxes as an indication of basic numeracy and literacy.

i agree fully about the comments about Nat 5 History. My degree is History and I am pretty horrified by how formulaic it is. It the focus appears to be keywords not know facts.

We were also told Higher English needed for a lot of universities, but some would be fine with a subject with high written content (such as history or modern) instead. DD would do Higher English anyway, it's the maths that is of concern for her. Though Apps of Maths shouldn't be an issue. ~touches wood~

Grade-wise, we were told at options night that people generally go down one grade from Nat5 to Higher English. If high grades are more important than subject, it might be best avoided. Not sure if that's an observation across schools or just at DD's.