GCSEs 2012 support thread

[Kez100]

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

I don't think Gove can afford to have exam results get worse. He'll 'prove' everyone is crap by moving the goalposts as usual! I hope, anyway...
Very unfair on DCs if not.

Poor dd is all stressed and sad with a headache. Not happy with the french.

P&R and biology tomorrow.

RE re-sit for DD tomorrow, because she didn't get the best grade she could a year early. She got a B fgs!

Anyway, she has not been taken it seriously tonight. I was asking her sample questions from her revision pack and it was about the begining of the world. I said, 'how did the earth begin then?' and she sang the theme tune to 'The Big Bang Theory!'

Dd has Art tomorrow, and went in to school this afternoon to prime her board- only to discover that the teacher who had promised to cut it for her had forgotten!

So she has to be in at the crack tomorrow- driven by guess who. I am just a bit cross..........!

DD did her French listening today- edexcel higher level. Said it was really hard and her teacher helpfully did it along with them, told them the answers afterwards and DD thinks she got loads of it wrong Stress levels were high as one girl was 15 minutes late for the exam and they had to sit in silence waiting for her

She got an A in one of her practise papers a few weeks ago so I thought it was all going rather well...

Biology double award iGCSE and RE (ethics) tomorrow.

DS said "everyone" said the French was hard today - including the teacher! That's about the level of detail I get though, nothing about goats or men in cupboards. He mentioned in passing it was a bit unfortunate he has been revising the Islam part of his RE over the weekend, and he's just twigged it's the Christianity part of the exam tomorrow (don't quote me on the details or go into a panic if that doesn't sound right to you - I might have got it the wrong way round, he told me in passing a few hours ago and I've been at a difficult meeting in between ). Don't want to panci anyone!

Everyone at my DDs school thought the French OCR was really weird. It included a French version of the very bizarre Japanese news story from a few years ago of a woman living in a man's cupboard which he was unaware of until he noticed missing food - but transplanted to Belgium!

It sounds like all of our DCs had a bad time in the listening. Hope they can move on - never easy when you have such a hard paper like that. My daughter is sure her C has gone out of the window. Such a pity when someone works hard but that's the story of life for a 'borderliner'.

RE today. It's a short course worth 0.5 of a GSCE, so that is the only paper she will sit.

DS is doing an Ocr paper today, from further up the thread ds appears to be doing the .5 paper but he has another RE exam on the 11/6.

The RE paper apparently covers multiple religions but they study the subject from the perspective of one religion (Christianity in DS's case).
The teacher has repeatedly drilled it in to them that they Must Only Answer Questions x and y of the 20+ questions on the paper.
Two long answers required. Apparently if they answer more than two the examiner just marks the first two answers.
This did not stop one boy answering every question on the paper Islam, Judaism, the lot.

I know that my son (just starting year 10) will be doing the whole and it is the same as the 0.5 with one more paper to make it the whole. Maybe that is what your son is sitting? A whole one seems, potentially, much more useful.

Sorry just to clarify this happened in January on the last paper. DS is doing the whole GCSE there are 4 papers altogether. One done in January, one today and two more in June.

found this and its confusing me even more
DS is doing B602 and B603 which is listed as both short course j621 and full course j121

It is confusing.
OCR here too. According to his timetable there is an exam for both short and long course today, and then two exams on 11th June for the long course only.

Blimey, I'm confused too! Must get my head around it before my son sits his whole one.

Kez, the different boards seem to structure their RE differently. Dd is doing AQA and a whole GCSE is 2 exams or you can do just one and get a half GCSE. Dd did one exam last summer and has one more in a week or two to make the whole GCSE. It sounds similar to what your dd is doing but different to the OCR structure.

Those french papers sound a nightmare! DS's german isn't until after half term but I think I'll prompt him to get learning some of the more obscure vocab!

At least everyones French listening was dire. Across the exam boards and across the levels. Just hope rebanding puts it right and it's not a political conspiracy

Anyone gearing up for physics module 2?

His last 3 papers were all a C But TBH with the marks he was getting in school I guess it was quiet a relief.

Today... biology and p&r. Both ok according to dd. she's quite cheery anyway. Phew.

Nothing tomorrow.

DD thinks she may have stuffed up her Biology today - she's worked really, got A* on the first two modules and COntrolled Assessment and wants to take it for A Level. SHe seems to have had a bit of a mental block today. Oh well, no point dwelling on it! She had RE (through the medium of Welsh) this afternoon and says she wrote loads but it is hard to tell whether it was good or not.
Welsh Literature tomorrow.

*worked really hard

RE and biology for DD today. Biology fine but she didn't quite complete one answer in RE as she ran out of time.

RE was OK. At least it was all completed in English, not Welsh (or French!). Day free of exams tomorrow for my DD. good luck to those with them!

Sorry to hear about the tricky Chem paper. X fingers she has enough marks overall or for a low boundary. Think we might all be doing the low boundary dance in August!

Sorry, not Chem, Biology