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Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

OCR AS Core 1 Maths today - DD in floods of tears

60 replies

Lottielo · 18/05/2016 11:25

DD just called and said the exam today was much more difficult than any past papers and there was one question in particular which she felt didn't provide enough information to answer. She is in a terrible state.

Would be interested to hear from others whose DCs took the exam today or those who teach the subject. Was it really as bad as DD says?

If she gets a very bad result (likely), can she retake the exam next year at the same time as the A2? She's also worried about how this will affect her university applications.

Also, could she ask to take the Edexcel exams instead next year (she says Edexcel maths papers are much easier than OCR)?

OP posts:

JinRamen · 18/05/2016 17:48

Where can you get a copy of the overseas ones to practice on?

I hope all the dc who took the test get the mark they need.

kitkat1968 · 18/05/2016 18:52

DS was doing OCR M2 today and said it was much much harder than any previous pape er .He said some did not finiish

AlwaysTeaTime · 18/05/2016 19:02

DD1 came home after doing this paper and burst into tears too. She'd done every past paper from 2005 and hadn't got less than 90% in any of them, so was very confident going in. It was her first exam and she's now panicking that all the others will be as hard/harder and that she won't meet any of her predicted grades- I hope the boundaries are really low, I think the lowest for an A was 54/72 or something from 2011 so DD's teacher suspects it will at most that. The issue is that she's really weak with C2 and was hoping to make up marks in C1; now it will have to be the other way around.

noblegiraffe · 18/05/2016 19:08

Always if an A is 54/72, then that will get 80 UMS points, exactly the same as 64/72 last year.

kitkat1968 · 18/05/2016 19:17

Noble did your school have any students doing OCR M2?

harridan50 · 18/05/2016 19:23

Today my daughter sat Ocr C1. Followed by Home Economics. Closely followed by History. In total 5 and a half hours of exams with 2 half hour breaks in-between. Totally exhausted and demoralised following the maths and has the same timetable next week.

LittlehumHams · 18/05/2016 19:31

dd3 usually gets 100% in C1 past papers and often finishes them with an hour to spare.

For the OCR C1 paper today she didn't have as much time left at the end and couldn't do one of the questions. She figured it out afterwards and said it was more of an 'out of the box' type of question. Her class came out visibly upset with a lot saying that it was terrible so I think the grade boundaries will be adjusted down.

AlwaysTeaTime · 18/05/2016 19:32

Ah okay I didn't realise that was how it worked Noble so it's reassuring- she usually gets a B in C2 so it's not dreadful, just worse than the other modules and she was hoping to get as close to 100UMS in C1 so that slips wouldn't be as costly and she could still get an overall A. The problem, as you said, is that she's been worrying about university (she wants to be a doctor) and how this will affect her for that instead of focusing on her other exams. It doesn't help that this was the only subject that actually had proper past papers she could do- all her others have a new spec!

hazelnutcase · 18/05/2016 19:46

My dd phoned me at 11:30 in floods of tears too

noblegiraffe · 18/05/2016 19:46

kitkat I did bump into a further mathematician who sat M2 after C1. He said C1 was fine, but M2 was absolutely horrible. I don't know what the teachers thought of the exam though.

LittlehumHams · 18/05/2016 20:11

I think a lot of students found it harder. There is already a Hitler youtube clip for OCR C1.

GeorgeTheThird · 18/05/2016 20:22

My son is doing further maths (OCR). He said C1 was fine and no one at his school seemed to find it that unusual. He travelled home with a friend doing "single" maths and who is much less able than he is, so I think he had a good idea how his cohort found it.

LittlehumHams · 18/05/2016 20:33

Well this is the twitter page.

twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=ocr%20maths%20core%201&src=typd&lang=en-gb

My dd was fine too but I think a lot of people were phased by the exam.

APRMCK · 18/05/2016 21:13

OCR Core 1 Maths 18 May 2016 (Not MEI paper)
Quote from Maths teacher on Studentroom - "This was definitely the most difficult Core 1 ever." He has provided answers to the paper and he also commented that he normally does C1 without thinking but even he had to consider some of these questions!
www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=4096521

imamumof5 · 18/05/2016 22:13

DDs called me to pick him up after the exam, the plan was to go to his friends afterwards i knew something wrong, as soon as he got in to the car he was clearly upset and angry . now the worried started about the uni application, the predicted grade, the resit , what to do next.. knocked his confidence down ..he needs the grade for medicine now he thought the whole world collapse , breaking my heart to see your kid so upset , try to give some support dont know if its will help

SoupDragon · 18/05/2016 22:25

Not MEI paper

That might explain why DSs experience was completely different then.

Travelledtheworld · 19/05/2016 04:22

My DD also found it was not what she expected.
Odd questions in her opinion.

GeorgeTheThird · 19/05/2016 07:37

DS's paper is marked MEI on the timetable (not that I know what it means!)

SAHDthatsall · 19/05/2016 07:43

Feeling grateful that DS is doing AQA exam board now! He said their C1 was a little harder than expected and he did have to actually think about a couple of questions but overall it was easy as usual.

Moonlightceleste · 19/05/2016 08:26

Re EDEXCEL being easier than OCR, if I recall correctly I was told by one of my UK teacher friends that the EDEXCEL questions themselves are sometimes marginally easier than the OCR, but the grade boundaries for EDEXCEL tend to be set slightly higher to compensate. But this was a couple of years ago so things may have changed. My other worry with changing syllabus would be even if the school allowed it, different syllabi often cover slightly different topics. Again, things might have changed.

I have to admit I don't understand the whole story of how UK exams are being messed with but I feel so sorry for the students caught in the middle, it's so unfair when they work so hard and get confronted with something totally off the wall compared to the past papers.

sledgehammer · 19/05/2016 09:10

I don't understand why they have to mess with our children's heads so much. These are highly motivated teenagers who really want to contribute to society and are compliant with the system. I realise that their ability has to be tested for universities to make decisions, but deliberate trickery is downright cruel. More children are being encouraged to take maths as a support for science and aren't necessarily gifted, just genuinely interested in gaining a fair qualification. This behaviour by exam boards is creating a generation of disillusioned and over-stressed young adults - and parents.

SAHDthatsall · 19/05/2016 09:23

These are highly motivated teenagers who really want to contribute to society

Really? Not many would fit that definition I suspect

Bolograph · 19/05/2016 10:19

deliberate trickery is downright cruel

You have some evidence that's happened, right? I mean, you've read the paper, found the deliberate tricks, that sort of stuff?

The step up from GCSE to AS is huge. The step up for maths, particularly for people who haven't done an FSMQ, is even greater. There is a huge difference between doing a past paper in your bedroom and doing it with 200 other people in an exam hall. For what it's worth, there was similar outcry about C1 and C2 last year, and three years ago (the years my children took them). ASes are hard.

noblegiraffe · 19/05/2016 11:08

Yes I've done the paper, yes it was much harder than recent years, yes the grade boundaries will be (much) lower to compensate. This isn't the usual complaint about a paper with a hard question on the end, this is a complaint about a paper which is significantly more complicated than previous years and given that OCR have been churning out near-identical C1 papers for over a decade now I think the students are justified in feeling aggrieved. C1 has been seen as the easy paper, the one that students feel most confident about. To totally knock that confidence by replacing the expected paper with a more complicated one (even if the grade boundaries compensate) is hard on the kids. If you go in expecting to get over 90% (an A) and can only do 80% (usually B/C), then you are going to come out feeling terrible. Learning later that everyone found it hard and crossing fingers for grade boundaries doesn't completely alleviate the worry. Kids need these grades for their future.

This is OCR's fault, not the students' fault.

LittlehumHams · 19/05/2016 12:04

The MEI OCR is a different paper so that is why your ds was fine GeorgeTheThird.

I felt sorry for the students as some people in dd's school gave up half way through the paper. It will favour dd in a funny sort of way as she persisted and worked out the answers. However I do think it is unfair to undertake such a dramatic change all at once.

SAHD - Really? Most teens I know doing A Level are highly motivated. They might not all be hyper academic but they do want to do their best.

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