Finishing (not starting) Year 13 support thread (number 5!)

[Littleham]

Exam season starts....

Antaresisastar Two glasses for you. Twins doing A Levels must be fun!

Figment & Decorhate & Atia & MrsB (and anyone else who is worrying)- I really feel for your dd's, so much pressure. Hope they make the offer but if not I just wanted to let you know how happy my oldest dd is at her 'Insurance' university. She wouldn't swap it for anything now.

I have been testing dd for Biology next week - the male sex organ of all things.

It's the English pre-test for Oxford mumslife.

I imagine we're all worrying Littleham - it would be a rare bird who wasn't!

Lets hope we are all worrying about nothing molio. It is going to be a long wait until results day isn't it?

Atia - I'll still be around for years yet as ds is in year 9.

Why are there so many names for a blinking sperm through its development (about 8)? Just call it a flipping sperm and be done with it.

Hearing Physics really bad this morning. OCR A.

DS just got home from OCR A Physics and said it was bad too. His Physics teacher predicts low grade boundaries. Q1 was apparently blatantly wrong and two other questions related to units studied for AS exams last year and not the unit todays exam was supposed to be on

DS has just braved looking up the comments on the Physics paper on TSR and it seems that everyone else thinks the same. Fingers crossed that nexts weeks Physics paper is better.
In his favour, he has just re-sat one of his Physics AS units so that info was fresh in his mind - more of a disadvantage for those who hadn't done AS Physics since last year.

Physics harder than the past papers is the verdict here too.

bigblubus What Physics unit were the AS questions from?
DD resat the mMechanics AS paper, but guessing it was Electricity as that's more related. At least next weeks paper has a higher weighting.

circular, my DD thought OCR PHysics was hard, too. She said some of her answers seemed really improbably (very high or very low numbers), so she went back and changed them, but now she thinks she was right first time.

She has been complaining bitterly about OCR. 'I hate them. They're devils!'

Circular He said there were bits from both AS modules - Electrons, waves and photons, which he re-sat last week and also a bit from Mechanics unit which he didn't re-sit but said he remembered.
He said the grade boundaries were low last year and that paper wasn't as hard as this years!
Let's hope that next week's is kinder - although he has to endure the 2nd Chemistry paper first.

DD said that AQA English Lit had 'nice' questions which has made her very suspicious and she is predicting it will have a high grade boundary.
She said everyone came out of her exam relaxed and smiling which makes a nice change.

Dd had Edexcel English and her verdict was "it could have been worse!" I think she is reasonable happy with it.

Littleham I will be here for years to keep you company as my ds is also in Y9. Life will be very strange for him when dd goes as she is his partner-in-crime!

muffinmonster DD also doing OCR maths, thought those have been OK so far (C2 retake and M1). then promptly stresses that means low grade boundaries.

Does anyone else have a DC doing general studies tomorrow? DD1 is but I think she lost her exam mojo after her last AS paper last week. Gen Studies seems very much 'after the Lord Mayor's parade' for her. Which is a shame because she will have to declare it so if she gets a poor grade it will look shoddy even though it's 'only' General Studies. She got an A for her AS so you'd think she'd be looking at a decent grade for A2 - but apparently no, she reckons she won't. I do not know what forms the basis for this prediction though.

DS said AQA Physics this morning was 'good'. This fills me with dread Last year he often said his AS exams were good or fine and ended up with average results, so who knows what to think?!

My dd was doing OCR English, lol, and says WJEC Eng Lit was today too. She's happy enough, anyway, phew.

C3 (Edexcel) for both my older dds tomorrow ...

(And I have a y9 ds too: ah well, guess we're stuck with each other )

Happy to be stuck with you as Huey Lewis once said!

DS said that WJEC English lit was really straightforward which probably means sky high grade boundaries. He thinks he did ok but has no idea what sort of grade. He needs to get his maths head back on now for C3 tomorrow.

Mrs B & Littleham - my younger ones are in Y9 & Y6 so will also be around for years. Please let neither of them want to do medicine

I'm cross that the exam boards seem to be trying to catch them out rather than testing what they know in the science subjects.

Fingers crossed for everyone doing Maths tomorrow

We have just had this conversation at dinner Decorhate. It is the same in humanities. They seem to be coming up with strangely phrased questions designed to catch them out rather than test that they have learned the syllabus.

Dd said that several people came out sobbing after the Chemistry exam yesterday. I do feel that our young people seem to be under an awful lot of pressure these days.