Year 12-13 AS levels and beyond

[HSMMaCM]

Following on from the preparing for AS levels thread.

Hopefully everyone is finishing off AS exams.

That must feel good HSMM - to get to the last one!
Then you can all enjoy summer

Here DD has General Studies this afternoon & Biology tomorrow
Then a malingering Stats paper next week - but at least there's some revision time between them now and they're not all on top of each other like they were in the two weeks before half-term.

Hope everyone had a good half-term? Ours was OK - DS managed to see a few friends. But with revision it was a bit dull - like the weather!

I've just been into DS's room for the traditional post-exam clear up. Oh my goodness, it was like a scene from CSI! I've found all sorts of odd socks, biscuit wrappers, mouldy coffee cups, scrawled notes etc.

Nutty, your organised colour-co-ordinated DS made me think of that scene in the InBetweeners with Will!

Three more days....we can do this...

Good luck to those with exams.

dd3 seems to have started revising seriously again for the final push. She managed to avoid General Studies thank goodness so she doesn't have that exam. Two this week on Wednesday and Thursday.

it was like a scene from CSI! You could always draw a chalk line around the mess ono.

Ouch nutty that sounds painful. Lots of moisturiser needed and plenty of water. Hope he recovers soon.

Good luck with the exams today.
DS has gone to college today without taking sun cream or after sun, the twit!

Oh dear....DS messed up the politics big time by writing answers in all the wrong sections of the question booklet and then crossing through one of his answers by mistake. So he was in a big panic and his mind went blank. I have spent the last hour mopping up the tears and calming him down

Oh no ono. It is horrible when something like that happens. Exams are not always a good test of how good someone is at a subject. Some students are better under continuous assessment.

Can you distract/cheer him up by buying a really lovely lunch or buying him a cool piece of kit ( well it works for my DD).Alternatively can he have a chat with his teacher as they're normally very good at minimising this sort of thing.
Commiserations though,its really hard for children and parents during exam season.N nobody ever tells you that being a parent is the hardest job you will ever do.

Oh dear ono. He must have been in a real panic when he realised

ono it might be that the marker can work out which answer goes with which section.

I'm pretty sure they do what they can to try to make head or tail of it!!!

My DS has politics now. He was double booked so guarded over lunchtime. No phone, no PC what will he do? Stare into space for an hour and a half?

Getahaircut
At my sons school they go into Isolation. Usually eat somthing and if they are sensible they have packed a book to read or revision notes.
They might be allowed to sit outside if there is a quiet corner where the other boys can't see them. Definitely no phones or computer access.
90 minutes staring into space is perfectly feasible. Otherwise sneak a quick sleep !!!
Good luck. My DD did Politics this morning. Said it was OK.

Our sixthform doesn't do Politics as an A Level but I imagine it covers a massive amount of information.

Thanks everyone, we just watched Game of Thrones together on the sofa and agreed that it could be worse, at least we weren't about to be killed by the dead!

I have managed to persuade him to get on and revise for unit 2, no point in worrying about what can't be changed. It is such a shame for him because he had worked so hard.

It probably isn't quite as bad as he thinks ono? That's what I was telling myself after DD's geography exam a couple of weeks ago. Like your DS she'd put in a lot of work and went in feeling positive but it just didn't go well on the day. I tend to think some of that knowledge must have showed itself in there somewhere though?
Anyway as you say onwards and upwards - film together on the sofa sounds good too

What a shame ono. I'm sure I've read that examiners do try and work out what answers go where if people muddle them up, as your DS did, and also award marks for crossed-out answers if they haven't been replaced by anything else.

I know someone who wrote an entire A-level paper in pencil (rather than the obligatory black pen) and wasn't penalised in any way. It's a nuisance for the Examining Board because the paper can't be photocopied and therefore has to be marked by one examiner only...but they did it.

Hope your DS is calming down now and focusing on his other exams.

Oh no Ono! I am sure the others are right and the examiners will try to make sense of it. Horrid though when he has to do the second one still too.

Fingers crossed for everyone this week. DD seems to have got into her post-exam stride of partying/lounging about!

Ono I would suggest he or you contact the exams officer. As I understand that in some papers questions get distributed to different markers, so if the answer isn't in the right place the marker may not see it. The exams officer I would think should be able to flag this up so hard copy is used, or something? (Just from common sense, no specialist knowledge here, and I may be completely wrong).

I know a GCSE exam marker and she mentioned that she only gets specific questions sent to her, so she would only see the answer written in reply to that question (& wouldn't see the rest of the paper).

From what DD tells me General Studies questions were on vegetarianism and climate change, so she and her geography friends were pretty pleased about that. She still got a bit carried away with one question compared to another though - those bad habits are hard to break! But she was going for the full 18 marks for the 18 marker (out of 65 in total) Apparently the 17 marker suffered somewhat. But as I said to her I guess there's something to be said for the pursuit of excellence - not sure it's overly rewarded in our education system though, compared to pragmatism, level headedness, and time management?!

Thank you - good plan to contact the exam officer, I will do that. He now says he doesn't even know if he wrote the correct candidate number but I expect that is just because he is not in a good place. Poor kids, such a lot of stress. It's a shame that performance is judged on a single day but such is our education system.

ono

Oh no ono
Have you been able to speak the exams officer at the school?

ono I hope you manage to contact the Examinations Officer today. That really does sound like a grim experience for your DS - and you.

We are lurching on till the 15th.

Biology this afternoon.

Biology this afternoon and the that's him done. Fingers crossed for a good paper

Here too X