AS Levels

[MABS]

Anyone else suffering through this at mo?!

Frank . Well done to them all for keeping going let alone trying so hard.

Anyone else have a dc doing Physics AS tomorrow? Ow. Hours of asking questions about waves...

DD said Geog could have been worse...

Ha! MABS - just spoken with DD2 and she said it was fine, the worst of all her exams, but fine. Whatever the hell that means. A 17 year old's fine can be alarming different from her mother's...

Frank, you go girl with your Pimms in the afternoon!! Cheers! Hope you have some fab friends to help you through, and to share your August celebration!
Sorry, have just noticed you don't just have girls, but a DS too! My y10 DS laughed the most at Dara! He loves chilling with 'Mock the week' clips on youtube with Dara.

DS had last one today (yippee)! All AQA. Apparently Maths ones pretty good, Further Maths a mixed bag, Physics easy (!?) and Chemistry OK. Whatever that means! Will find out in August

My niece is staying with us during her exams. They have all gone really well so far but Geog today was her last one and she burst into tears as soon as she got home. :( Apparently she only did 2/3 of the paper - she missed out a whole topic! She's googling retakes already.

mind - I think he must watch Mock The Week more than I thought possible! He LOVES it. Yep, a poor lone DS among my three DDs. And cheers indeed!

ATC - for your niece. I hope that she's ok.

3boys - yay to them being over for you too.

DS reports he found C2 ok but a lot of his friends thought it hard

2nd physics paper tomorrow then he's out celebrating the end of exams with friends - even though he's still got further maths next week

Frank - sounds like you've had a really hard time, I am sure you must be so proud of your dc

Googled Dara, he's not coming anywhere near us, so I've pre-ordered the DVD as a Xmas present (has to be the earliest Xmas shopping I've ever done) !

My DS had S1 & D1 Maths today - the D1 was really hard he thought, but C1 & C2 have gone well he hopes, and fingers crossed for FP1 next week.

This is when I wish his school had let them sit C1 or at least 1 module earlier - they always have all exams together. He had 24 GCSE papers to sit last Summer as they stick to this approach.

Last bit tomorrow, physics three hour paper in two lots, one in the morning and one in the afternoon and then it is all over.
DS says this is the hardest one by far, he is upstairs revising, I think he is growing roots into a chair, over all he has been OK but in the the last couple of days he was becoming increasingly snappy and tetchy so I am glad it is all over, well almost.
Good luck to all of them, they did tons of work and hundreds of hours spent revising, nothing easy about that, and sod to all who think and say "ohhh, but it is so much easier these days"

My poor ds1 has just rung me in a state of panic (he is at boarding school). He has his Economics As tomorrow and is stressing out BIG time. Oh dear, I feel awful for him. He also is finding the heat really difficult.

I agree with strictlovingmum these kids today work really hard. It is 4 constant years of exams, far, far harder than we had in the 70's. I think it is time Michael Gove and the media gave them some credit and stopped saying how easy it is.

Any advice I can give ds please?

Can you chat about things to look forward to? Holiday?

I teach AS and had s kid with chest pains due to stress. We chatted about after exams, about what he really wanted to do at uni - anything to get him feeling like the exams were not the be all and end all of life etc.

Easier said than done!

best of luck

mumblecrumble thank you. We did chat about other things: about him coming home next Friday, about his sister and brother and mundane family stuff but he sounds so stresssed, is convinced he won't sleep (gave him a meditation/relaxing technique to try) and has headed off to his room to do more work. It seems odd that this exam has freaked him out the most.

My DS has economics tomorrow too. He saw a private tutor recently who advised him to keep his sentences short, and to leave a space between each one ( for a tick!!). I feel calmer thinking that if it goes wrong, or not quite as good as they would like, there's always re-sits! Am I right in thinking that re-sits are really common for ASs? Best of luck for economics! Is it your son's last one too? Freedom from revision is spurring mine on!

Just PE left to do next week. I think he will sleep for a week. Good luck to your son mindgone for tomorrow. Trouble is they need a decent mark for the ucas application. Ds's school is already talking about preparing their first draft of their personal statement when they get back after half term. Ds doesn't even know where he wants to go or quite what he wants to do yet!

Ref the PS, ours have been told to hand in their first draft on the Monday they get back after half term. You're right it's so difficult for them specially when they haven't yet decided on courses.
DS has work experience and 3 intro to engineering type courses on between July and September - his teacher has told him to draft the PS as though he has already done them including what he gained from them

so agree Frankwippery, what does fine mean..!? DD has French today, she will fail, she has already warned me and i do believe her sadly :( then 2nd Geog and PE next week, doesn't finish til next Thurs.

Frank- well done for holding it all together with your DCs at what must have been a difficult time for you all.

DD said C2 maths was "ok" - definitely a lot better than the previous day's chemistry, so thats a big relief.
French today as the last one- her best subject so fingers crossed for that.

Mumofthreeteens- hope your DS is OK. It's hard when they are away at school at this time, isn't it? My DD rang in a state on Weds after Chem, but by yesterday morning she had dusted herself down and got her head around Maths C2 which she was dreading and actually she says it was "ok". Sometimes they have these moments and just "need to vent"- hopefully having a bit of a rant at you will have got it out of his system!

Mindgone- re-sits do seem quite common at AS level- even where students have done pretty well ( ie As and Bs) to see if they can get more UMS points especially when they know that the course they want to do is very competitive. I know that they have to put AS grades on applications though- but also teacher predictions, so hopefully if a student has just had a bad exam which has pulled a grade down for now, a teacher who knows that a pupil is capable of better and will likely score much more highly in a re-take would reflect this fact in their estimated grade on the UCAS form?

Any teachers or uni admissions people amongst us who can advise?

milliways ds said everyone found D1 was harder than usual, so hopefully the grade boundaries will be lower. It's ds's last A level module (no idea why they saved an AS module for the end of the course) so fortunately he doesn't need to do well as he already has the A* he needs - it's only his pride that will be hurt if he gets a low mark.

Thanks MOTT! Economics went well today, hopefully for your DS too. Freedom now! Well done to all who have finished, for now, and chin up to those still plodding on til next week!

Thanks Gelatinous - Thats what DS was hoping. Glad to hear yours has already bagged an A*!

Thanks milliways, he is in a fortunate position - but he does also need an A* in further maths, so no room for complacency for the remaining modules!

I finished yesterday, freeeee

Wed and Thurs to go...