Year 11 GCSE support thread 4 - more exams

[HSMMaCM]

Anyone got English tomorrow ?

I watched a program about feeding students blueberry smoothies before a test and how their scores improved significantly.

Apparently blueberries have magical properties to help with memory.

I tried it with DS2 when he took a language aptitude entrance test for a school but it seems blueberries don't enhance language aptitude.

It hasn't stopped me waving blueberries under DS1's face each morning this week.

For anyone whose DC was worried by today's now infamous Edexcel Maths Higher paper, it has even made ITV news www.itv.com/news/2015-06-04/students-mock-their-gcse-edexcelmaths-exam-on-twitter/

Wouldn't they have to be fed blueberries while they were revising though?

Am so pleased to read twitter and see that everyone is saying g the same thing. Ds told me about Hannah and her sweets and the strange n2 0 thing. I'm gonna show him the twitter feed but not the answer bit.

Well at least they're ALL saying it was a difficult exam so that's 'good' !

Perhaps we should find exactly what this Hannah and her sweets question was and start a 'maths help' thread- see how the MN collective rates it?

I suspect trying to get my very fussy eater dd1 to eat blueberries, might be even harder than getting her to do a reasonable mount of revision

I think this thread is great though for us parents to let off steam - I think it's FAR more traumatic for my dc to be taking exams than I ever thought it was when I was taking exams.

I totally agree Back for good? I don't remember it being anything like this. Wouldn't worry about DD and Maths, seems like the wording was the mai issue and she assumabky was able to work her way round it.

See there is a petition about the grade boundaries.

Blueberries came with shopping this week for DS. Will.mske DD eat them whilst revising (I live in hope)

Good luck to Science takers today. Really hope it goes well and they get confidence back after Maths.

DH thought the sweets Q was pretty straightforward when DS told him about it; likewise the cone/cylinder Q.
He has a Masters in Maths though, so he should be able to do it shouldn't he?!

I'm hopeless at Maths, so all Maths is ignored by me

DD couldn't move on at all last night, despite copious support from us and going for a run. She said there's no point in revising anything now, and doesn't want waking up for Biology, so I expect a load of abuse when I go in this morning to wake her.

Completely agree about how traumatic it is for them now. Such a shame that the exams don't allow them to show what they can do rather than trying to trip them up and catch them out

Feel drained.

Oh BTM This makes me so angry, it is so unfair and talk about not having a level playing field from year to year, no one seems to give a shit about the effect all the messing around with GCSE's over the last few years has on those sitting them amd who will be forever judged on their results. Fingers crossed that Biology will be OK and she can regain her confidence.

BTM I hope DD has woken up in a better mood.

Good Luck to all today, last day before 2 days 'off'!

My DD is doing Biology and Music today.

I'll have to ask DD about the cylinder /cone one, she didn't mention it. I think she thought that quite a bit of the problem was that some of the questions were wordy and needed reading carefully to understand what was required. Perhaps similar to the issues causing a brouhaha about the new spec papers being too difficult and being scrapped?

Oh Tilly, sorry DD was upset by the maths.
Hope everyone will feel better this morning and decide tomorrow's another day IYSWIM

We have biology too today. Another one that matters more than most - but because it's a strength she wants to continue with - so that brings mixed feelings doesn't it?

Thanks for all tips everyone - am getting some blueberries in for next week
(our final week yay! )

It sounds GCSE maths was similar to iGCSE maths paper 1 which was so bad my sons were sending me links to the youtube videos about its awfulness. Paper 2 yesterday (iGCSE) was fine. Music today and then just history next week and it's all over until AS/A level/degree/post grad......

Yse, I agree the constant changes make things hard. Some people my age eg have no UCAS points even if they had brilliant grades, for on line job applications. Others took exams when no A was available. It's going to be more complex soon when GCSEs are marked 1 -9 rather than A A etc. If university degrees change from 2/1, 2/2 that will confuse employers even more.

Tilly, hope your DD has got some sleep. I agree with what you said about 'catching them out'. I guess ok if there's just one or two questions where the real mathematicians get it but the one who are just good at maths don't, but sounds like this one wasn't like that.

Yes it sounds from forums as if the wording was a big issue and different to what people expected having done lots of past papers. Guess those for whom Maths come more naturally were able to quivkly unpick what was being asked, others had quite a shock. I feel very sorry for those at DD's school doing the higher paper who had to contend with the fire alarm as well.

I've heard a fair few complaints of the Edexcel AS and A2 Maths papers this year with reports of people walking out in tears at various schools round here.

Think it's a bid to stop grades increasing so it can be said exams are more rigorous now but is changing the goal posts mid play for a lot of them yet again.

Wording definitely a problem I think. Very annoying for the DC, I really feel for them.

Hope your DD is OK today BTM, it is tricky trying to keep them going when they have a bad experience.

and to all the parents and to the DC, keep crossing those exams off everyone!

Well yesterday's maths doesn't seem to have upset ds too much he was up at 6 revising for Biology as he wants to do not at A level and hes predicted A* he felt he needed to get his confidence back. He's done some past questions and asked me loads about coeliac I think he's hoping that comes up so he can not only put biological answers but human perspective ones as well.

So glad it's the weekend tomorrow.

Next week we've got
Chemistry ADDITIONAL Tuesday Edexcel
Rs 2 papers on Thursday OCR
physics ADDITIONAL Friday Edexcel

So not too bad and then more science and graphics the following week. Last exam is 19th June, it can't come quick enough.

Good luck to everyone today tilly hope you're DD feels better after a sleep.

DD2 had OCR higher maths yesterday and said it was bad but it doesn't sound as bad as the Edexcel one and to everyone dealing with the aftermath (no pun intended) of that one.

DD2 is at a sleepover - it's the first time I've let her out of my sight since she was in hospital but her friend is lovely and sensible and her parents are lovely too so everything should be fine

DD1 has her uni final exam this afternoon so there is no respite for a worried mum here. She promised to text me and let me know how it went - hopefully before the cider kicks in and her texts become incoherent and full of "I love you, mum"

The thing is if it was mainly down to the wording, that can really suck for those who are really good at maths but bad at words. I had a colleague who was an absolute genius but very dyslexic, I can imagine this might have tied him in knots. It's weird enough that they have a QWC question on maths papers.

BTM I hope your DD is feeling better today. It is so hard when their confidence gets sucked out of them.

DS reported back pretty much the same as others, maths was ok until the last 4 questions which he said were fiendish. He managed to work his way through them but said some of the boys in the lower sets really struggled. Such a shame and really rocks their confidence.

We have Greek this morning followed by the 2nd biology paper this afternoon. Not too worried about the Greek but biology is his weakest science so he has had to put in lots of revision time. He did the horrible "leaf formation" edexcel 1st paper so hoping this one is better.

Good luck to everyone's DD and DS doing exams today. Thank God it's Friday!

Thanks everyone.

DH woke her up before he left and she had a shower and was getting ready, but when I went in, she screamed and shouted at me... which I probably deserved because when she was being rude and uncommunicative at 10pm I got frustrated and said that everyone else was in the same boat and that she needed to move on. Not a good start to the day