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Original poster

Year 11 support thread

999 replies

pasanda · 10/02/2017 09:37

I can't find a new thread, moving on from the old full one, so I thought I would create one (please tell me if I'm wrong!)

Last night ds stayed up till 4.30am doing his biology coursework Shock

This time the tsunami affect didn't work and he left it far too late to do a reasonable job. Which is a bloody shame because he wants to do biology A level and he has done so well in his other controlled assessments.

I wait with bated breath to find out his mark

Oh well, thank God for half term!!

OP posts:
ifonly4 · 16/05/2017 17:37

Edexel French here. She's borderline A/B and feels she's secured an A, so went well for her. OCR biology, came out feeling she'd secured her desperately wanted A* and realised later she'd messed up one of the 6 mark questions which she actually knew the answer for.

OCR RE here tomorrow.

Just wondering if it's a good idea to find out what boards subjects are with before they do them, so we know immediately if we're talking about the same board and how it went.

Fozzleyplum · 16/05/2017 17:46

DS did AQA higher tier French today. Said both papers were harder than any of the past papers he's done (and I think he's done them all), but doable. He reckons the listening was more taxing than a past paper he did in class, for which they were told the A* boundary for that year was 25/40 marks.

He said AQA Biology was ok, but harder than the past papers.

Iamnotminterested · 16/05/2017 17:49

French reading "OK", listening ""Good" (Edexcel I think?), AQA H Biology "Good".

Iamnotminterested · 16/05/2017 17:51

...although the Biology did throw up a couple of random questions that DD was NOT expecting! :-)

NorthernLurker · 16/05/2017 18:01

Dd2 had biology today and seems quite happy.

Sprog19 · 16/05/2017 18:16

DS1 happy with Edexcel Biology though says there were a couple of questions that 'made him think' (!) and one 6 marker that he knows he messed up. Day off tomorrow and a music trip in the evening before law and chemistry on Thurs! No way would I have gone, but he has it all planned out and says that the trip will be good relaxation, so I'm going with it...

Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 18:38

If your dcs took AQA biology today search for #aqabiology on Twitter, it is hilarious, apparently there was a question on why was Darwin drawn as a monkey on an 1800s caricature. Bottom line everybody thinks it was easy therefore expect the grade boundaries to be sky high.

Laniakea · 16/05/2017 18:52

last year the C1 paper was 51 for an A*, I wonder if they can go much higher on this paper. Ho hum.

DD has done a chemistry paper, she's in the bath (again), going to do half an hour of tassomai then call it a night.

errorofjudgement · 16/05/2017 18:54

Fleudelise that's the paper DD took today, and just to echo, lots at her school thought it was a very easy paper.

cantkeepawayforever · 16/05/2017 18:57

DS also did AQA higher tier French, and general consensus seemed to be that it was a tricky paper.

BertrandRussell · 16/05/2017 18:59

There was a question about units of biomass that a lot of ds's gang got wrong apparently. He didn't mention the Darwin cartoon- I'll ask him when he gets back from football.....(That's how overconfident he is about RE!)

Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 19:01

DS also did the higher French AQA and didn't think it was hard. On the biology paper apparently he gave the wrong answer on question 1. Oh well, hopefully the rest of the answers were right.

Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 19:02

Oh and that is only if I take into consideration his reply of French was fine. God knows what that means

errorofjudgement · 16/05/2017 19:03

TSR has an unofficial mark scheme on their website, I'm not sure if this is helpful really, as 1) it's unofficial so not helpful in terms of grade boundaries, and 2) could be really disheartening to check the answers and discover you got it wrong, and 3) their answers might be wrong anyway!

..... But I still find myself checking it and comparing the answers to what DD told me she wrote Blush

Original poster
pasanda · 16/05/2017 19:06

cricketballs - thank you for that. I have written that all down and will give to him later. He has been doing loads of Unit 1 past papers which are the multiple choice as he has this next week (Unit 3 after half term) and got 37/40 for the last one. Averaging 35/36. He seems to think grade boundaries are extremely high for BS and to get an A* he would need at least 38. Do you know if this is the case?

He wants to do BS A level and then probably BS for a degree so it's important for him this one.

Fleur - you make me laugh about your ds. I love the monosyllabic -ness of them sometimes - sooooo infuriating! But glad you managed to get some more info out of him this evening!

namechange - that scenario made me laugh out loud! I would have totally panicked!!

DS has gone to his GF house tonight for a much needed break from it all. He's going to go into school tomorrow but not Thursday because he has PE on Friday and wants to cram for this as he has so far done hardly any revision on this subject.

OP posts:
Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 19:06

error at least you know her answers DS didn't want to expand further than two sentences. I guess he likes keeping me on my toes till results day. Hmm

Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 19:08

pasanda I think we established in the past we have the same kid living with us. Wink PE on Friday here also, not by choice, his school makes all of the pupils take it.

Original poster
pasanda · 16/05/2017 19:18

Bloody hell, that seems harsh!! My dd would absolutely HATE to take PE and tbh would be crap at it!!

OP posts:
cricketballs · 16/05/2017 19:20

pasanda yes the grade boundaries on unit 1 are that high (39/40 for A* unless there is an exchange rate question then it normally drops to 38/40). The unit 3 paper also has high boundaries but not as high as unit 1. I calculated last year 2 grade drops for lack of context so that is key. Pm me with your email and I'll send some context and higher grade revision stuff for ypu

Fleurdelise · 16/05/2017 19:24

DS is crap at it and he may fail it. Tried to drop it but unless I was bringing a letter from the doctors we couldn't do anything. I didn't understand why they would prefer DS to be entered and fail and drop their success rates but there you go.

His school is a Science and sports specialist, this is the reason behind it.

Dancergirl · 16/05/2017 19:58

If your dcs took AQA biology today search for #aqabiology on Twitter, it is hilarious, apparently there was a question on why was Darwin drawn as a monkey on an 1800s caricature

Yes, dd heard about that too and she doesn't even do AQA!

Apparently there are lots of jokes going round social media about why lungs are like trees which is from the Edexcel paper.

Sprog19 · 16/05/2017 20:34

Just asked DS about lungs and trees and he looked blank! He did Edexcel Biology today. Hope he didn't turn 2 pages over at once 😮

Ontopofthesunset · 16/05/2017 20:36

I heard about the lungs and the trees.

BertrandRussell · 16/05/2017 21:06

My dp is a football coach and tonight he had to intervene in an online row about the biomass question! I think that might be a first...........

BertrandRussell · 16/05/2017 21:07

on the pitch, I mean, not online!

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