GCSEs 2012 support thread

[Kez100]

Here we go........hold on tight!

Any reports from LO's on 21st Century OCR Science Ideas paper yet? DD said she failed big time. Interested to know if anyone else's LO thought it was hard.

My DD had AQA English Language Foundation paper yesterday. Apparently there was a question asking them to write a 'radio script' which was never listed or covered in the syllabus. Having read TES it looks like a lot of teachers are unhappy with this question and I know that my DD's school is going to complain. Can anyone shed any light on what will/may happen?

MaureenMlove - dd wasn't overly enthusiastic about it. She said it was alright and that she answered everything. She said it was harder than last weeks. She was a lot more positive about last weeks paper compared to this one.

Orm - so sorry about the cat - what a terrible thing to happen.

Bruffin - DD also thought one of the AQA Physics (further paper?) was very hard today. She talked with her friends afterwards and they all got similar answers so it probably wasn't as bad as he thought.

DD just got home and said she was in tears at school before physics as she was so stressed - I think it is the cumulation of a couple of stressful weeks but at least the rest of the exams are after half term.

Fozzie, I am sure they moderate the marks in circumstances like those described, so try not to worry. No doubt, someone who knows will be along soon to explain what happens. Sorry your DD had a stressful experience. My DD did OCR which was OK apparently and she enjoyed the paper.

Orm - so sorry about your cat. I understand there is a standard compensation scheme which adds a set percentage according to the event which occurs - death of a pet is on that scheme. Your school can advise, I'm sure.

Another report back here of a horribly hard AQA physics unit 3 paper :(

Another " well that was the hardest so far....we hadn't been taught some of it" AQA physics 3 experience :-(

Being ds though he knows his target is 65 UMS from this paper ( out of 100?) so thinks that's still doable.

He's resisting the Islam paper tomorrow to increase his chances of A* rather than A ( mad child, we said A in RE is quite ok!) ...he got a b before. The funniest thing though is its a very multicultural school which possibly 50% Muslim and many got Ds in that paper - including a poor lad who was expecting a real trouble from his parents.

DD1 returned from Chemistry IGCSE this afternoon - and informed me that she put that bitumen was used for heating

She was only hoping for a C as it's by far her weakest subject but I'm wondering about even that! It's going to look bad on her certificate as the rest ought to be higher

She's wilting too now, losing the will to revise and we're having battles over it. Tomorrow is her 5th exam this week and she seems to have lost the impetus to bother or care. I'm trying to pep her up as tomorrow is Sociology and she's potentially very strong on it. But this afternoon she said "who cares what grades I get anyway?" and I don't know how to get her out of this defeatist frame of mind.

That's terrible about your cat orm Your poor DS, too. Definitely speak to the school as I believe they can inform the exam board.

DD did the first module of OCR Gateway Physics today, sounds like she had a better time then the poor DC's doing AQA. Minor angst for me, I logged into the SIMS Gateway this afternoon to find it was flashing DD as Unauthorised Absence. I ended up ringing School to see if DD was actually doing her Paper. I had visions of her going into meltdown mode and going home. Thankfully it was a glitch. DD rolled her eyes and said Mum!!! You didn't ring up!

for Orm & her ds too. How awful

Another hard physics report here. Am mentally downgrading a lot of dd's target grades now . On top of that she seems to have lost her History revision book

Orm re the cat

I'm really sorry hear about the pet cat and about the stresses your DCs are under now :( I am really not surprised after so many papers in one week. Hopefully the half term will give them sometime to recover their energies.

My daughters Additional Science Ideas paper today was OK but she says her friends who were doing Physics this afternoon said how hard it was.

She finishes tomorrow. She has to go in all day, but apparantly has to find herself something to do for the first two periods as Maths, History and a couple of other subjects with exams after half term are having two revision sessions. I hope she enjoys it.

So sorry about the cat, it's awful when something like that happens but particularly on an exam day :(

Another report of a hideous AQA physics, DS is convinced one of the questions wasn't on the syllabus

Very relieved though as that was his last exam for two weeks and then the end is in sight!

Another awful report from Aqa physics (Phys2 new spec) to add :(

If anything I think it is a good sign that they all found it tough, that was the grade boundaries should be a bit lower than normal.

Orm, so sorry about your cat.

Also bad report re AQA physics. Ds said much harder than any past papers.

He said P2 much harder than expected and P3 had a very badly worded question.

Hoping for low grade boundaries

Just clarifying the OCR 21st century science ideas comment that my daughter found it OK. She sat foundation not higher paper, so is probably not comparable to your DCs.Also, although she thought it was Ok, she did say it was harder than last weeks core paper on science ideas.

I am about all the information you all get.
So far, all of ds's exams have been "awright"

2 x RE tomorrow... Islam and, er... Islam 2 ?!? again

Yes, I haven't seen any reports from anyone on here, The Student Room forum or amongst DD and her friends who said anything other than it was brutal. Lets hope for low grade boundaries!

DS is convinced there was a mistake on the AQA P3 paper, he apparently wrote why it was nonsense in his answer. I just hope he is right. He seemed to think it was OK otherwise, so hopefully did okay.

No reports of a mistake here, mummy time - just hard. There were things they didn't expect - eg the chart on the stars and the question on geostationary orbit - but no talk of any mistakes...

Same gettingalife. Hard, with weird questions, but DS3 says he didn't spot a mistake (Mind you, he only gets Coco Pops and orange juice for breakfast, so it could be that :)).

Well from my lurk on the student room, he may have slightly misread/understood the audiology question, but depending on how it was worded could have got the mark from what he put.
However he seems surprised people think it was hard!
So hopefully he did okay.
But can I now get him to revise for his Maths after 1/2 term.
We just have RE today, which he is only doing because I didn't object fast enough. I might have a quick look to see what it's about.

My daughter arrived home last night in floods of tears, she has revised pretty hard for AQA Physics, it is not a subject she finds easy, but had been to all revision classes, learned a lot of the formulas, and been consistent in her revision. She seemed more confident about approaching this paper. However, she said several of the questions may as well have been in russian, they were badly worded and didnt think they were even in the syllabus....... this is obviously a national problem having read the other posts, so what can we do - presumably the schools pass their comments to the Examining Board and grades are adjusted if and when deemed necessary? I guess it is reassuring that everyone felt the same, - still didnt stop the tears though. Maybe this is Michael Gove's influence on the 'dumbing down' GCSES, ask them A Level questions, that will sort the wheat out from the chaff.

Half term now, hurrah, we can all have a lie in!