Science GCSEs level 1 start this week!

[OrmIrian]

I'm hyperventilating on behalf of DS1.... who had one wobble the day before he went back to school but is now irritatingly calm. I am dragging him kicking and screaming through his revision books. We have had lots of eye-rolling, tutting, surreptitious looking at the laptop, attempts to distract me with the Flight of Conchord DVDs.... but we've finished Biology! Hurrah! Exam on Thursday

Just chemistry and physics now.....

It's a bloody nightmare. I avoided science as much as possible at school and just scraped a C in biology. At least it makes DS feel better - he does at least know more than me.

Anyone else ?

orm - what did he think of the maths?

He hasn't done any maths as yet. Which is confusing as he's set to do it in one yr but apparently all the exams are at the end of the year. He's been put in for it early because he's a bit of a duffer it seems and they don't think he'll get better than a B no matter how long he learns I am still v confused.....

I wish DS would put some pressure in himself... He is so easy come easy go...

ds has just phoned and told me he has a CA on Mon

aaaaaggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh

so much for a weekend off.

DD is doing Triple Science, but due to less teaching time last year she won't do Physics till the summer. DD felt Chem went very well but it is her favourite of the three. Biology she is unsure about and missed a couple of questions out. She sat two German papers today -reading and listening. Reading was easy apparently they all finished with 10 mins to spare. DD managed to answer all the questions on the listening paper so maybe they talked really sloooooooooooowly on the CD as thats her major complaint about listening tests. Fingers crossed for all DC's.

Hi, My daughter has also been sitting the AQA science exams... she found Biology "OK" Chemistry was hard and nothing like the specimen paper for the new spec. Physics today she found not too difficult but she said that a couple of people in her class didn't check and failed to do the questions on the back page. A quick check on The Student Room forum suggests quite a few did the same. Ouch

My dd has done the triple science too and agreed biology and physics were ok but chemistry was a nasty surprise. Does anyone know the story behind the chem exam?

It does seem odd if it was totally different to what they had been taught but perhaps it was just worded very differently and was more demanding in that sense. I know a lot of people seemed confused by the lavander oil question but it was just getting them to apply their knowledge of distillation ( or something)
I'm guessing the grade boundaries may be low for Chem1 then if so many of them found it very difficult

Hully- sorry to have not got back to you, we had a weird 2 days at school following the exam as we found out on thursday morning that one of our Year 10 pupils had tragically died overnight. Its all very sad and we had to break it to the kids on thursday, who didn't know. I didn't really think about the exam till last thing on friday.
I looked at the question your DS mentioned and I have to say that it struck me as more a question about rates of reaction (which is C2 Chemistry). I checked with the head of chemisty and he agreed and has made a complaint to the exam board. It certainly wasn't beyond the brighter kids in terms of common sense (number of molecules and interpreting the graph) but thats not the point, it didn't really relate to the syllabus. My top set Year 10 said they managed to answer it but they did seem a little bemused as to why it was on there.
Hope the CA goes ok for him on monday!

the rest of it looked ok tbh, the Lavender oil question was a gift I thought and the earthquake question really was not that hard (there is a part on the syllabus discussing predictions of earthquakes and how scientists use data, reliability etc). I agree though that the grade boundaries will be lower for this paper than the biology and the physics papers, which do seem a bit more straightforward.

Pat - I am so sorry to hear that, it must have been a horrible shock for you and all the kids.

Thanks for answering my question - very interesting to hear! Let's see what happens.

Sorry once more, and have a big hug xx

Pat that's so sad and very distressing for all :(

Daughter found the lavender oil question easy but some posters on The Student Room seem to have been flummoxed by it.

So sorry to hear that news Pat, puts our worrying into perspective. Does anyone know when the results for these exams come out? It does make me cross that our dcs seem to have been guinnea pigs for a new type of exam without much preparation and chance to see the new spec. Thats absolutely not a dig at the teachers by the way, I'm just picking up on what people are saying about what a shock the paper was.

So sorry Pat

Thanks all, the kids sem to be coping well surprisingly, I think the shock still hasn't set in. The poor love spent her last day doing that sodding chemistry exam too, hardly the best 'last day' to have, still you never can tell.......

MrsRhod- We are being quoted march for the results but I don't think they really know, the marking system will be very different and I suspect stuff will need remarking and standardising more. I share your annoyance, the government never seems to think about the impact on teachers, pupils and parents when they make these sweeping changes to the syllabus and exams. We did our best and will have to hope that they will not be marked too harshly as they are effectively 'guniea pigs'. I remember when our syllabus changed a few years ago, the first time round our results were pleasingly good so fingers crossed for this time too!

Pat - I have told my ds to tell is chem teacher and tell his friends to tell their chem teachers...and try and get the word spread!