GCSEs 2018 (9) Will we get to half term, for never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and who is Banquo

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Thread 8

@mmzz I knew he'd come good. Enjoy your chocolate!

Ah, there's no way DS would do chemistry A level - much prefers biology!
Off to bed soon, yoga first thing in the morning - a new idea to take my mind off GCSEs!

I think dd is planning on going to the gym most days for a couple of hours if she can.

sosteneto are you sure your DGD isn’t my DD?
She wants to do geography at a level, and is also enamoured of kpop! We are cruel parents because we won’t let her go to London to see them.

Mmzz not surprising he hit out after a tough day but so pleased he redeemed himself. to you for coping with it all!

DS3 is having tonight off completely, then back to the 'slog' of 2 hours a day over half term from tomorrow.

Thanks Sost - I know, she's just knackered. Sorry to hear about your vertigo - hope the doc can sort it out for you

Cheers Teenmum and EllenJane for the solidarity too. She's just been snotty crying on my shoulder and is fine again now!

dd is a very calm mood now, comparing notes with ds2 on the unseen poem and what they both wrote, and talking about moisturizer; she needs me to buy the expensive kind for her.

mmzz I had this last week with dd, he will feel better tomorrow.

Here's hoping a half-term break will provide a good chance to rest, recuperate, ease the time pressure of study, create more sanity and prepare all for the final slog!

Our 'half-term' is only two days, but because there aren't any exams scheduled, it's still a bonus week of study

Already the mood has shifted in our house to positivity - DD still talking about how 'brilliant' her answer for CIE English Lit was yesterday. Hope she's right! ("I KNOW I'm right, mum" she says)
And she now wants to see the Christopher Ecclestone Macbeth, which we'd never knew existed until reading Kingscote's post above!!

I see you a fellow early riser farangatang.
Here's hoping that this week gives even everyone a chance to catch their breath.

Just catching up with the thread.
hmcaswas it's tough, isn't it? Even when you know that they are using you because they feel secure enough in their relationship with you to let you be the one who they take their stress out on and still be there for them the next day.
It's easy to say, easy to recognise the truth in it, but nearly impossible to not let it hurt anyway.

So much for lie in! Pup up and about wants her walk! I will lurch my way round in a bit. She's the only dog I know won't do her jobs in her own back garden ( sigh) so just put her on lead out the front in PJs for a quick whizz and now she's dozing while I get dressed (grr!)
Today did and dgd off to city to buy clothes for dgd for summer and 6th form. Dgd said she will be revising all week we said you WILL have a day out and you WILL enjoy it!

mmzz I've been called allsorts this last few months so bad I had to bite my tongue really hard not to spill beans over my ' other news' the other day. It is true that words linger in your head much more than physical things. But cheer up my dear, its part of DC growing up and trying to cope with tremendous stress and expectations and as you say he is comfortable in knowing you will always be there for him no matter what, which is a great achievement as a parent.

Re the English lit papers, I'm going to ask you all an impossible question to answer: how bad could it be for DS?
He was predicted an 8 and he's been delivering level 8 answers everytime for a few months. He did about 30 hours of revision for it.
However, he thinks he did badly in various both papers, especially yesterday, and hearing what he wrote, he does seem to have missed the screaming obvious (eg the whole of AIC is about social class!). He says himself he was struggling to find anything to say "so did the English trick of saying the same thing three different ways". I don't think that's going to fly with the examiners. Plus, he got the Singh Song poem which I think is harder than what sounds like the pre-rehearsed Ozymandias poem that half (more than half?) the cohort got
Everyone else seems to think yesterday was an easy exam, which implies high grade boundaries.
So how bad could this be? A 6? 5, maybe? 4??

Sostenuto about your other news, do you mind if I ask how things are going?

Feels very strange that DS has no exams now till June 7th! It would have been better if they'd been spaced a bit more evenly really but now we've reached this point I'm glad they were front-loaded.

mmzz yes, they have the power to really hurt you at times.

sost hope the vertigo gets sorted.

mmzz just seen your English Lit post. Obviously it's difficult to say without seeing what he wrote, but I'd be very surprised if he dropped that many grades if he's predicted/working at an 8. The grade boundaries were high last year, given that it was the first exam on the new syllabus, which suggests to me that they mark positively/leniently. I think it's very difficult for us, as adults with a lifetime of reading behind us, to grasp the standard expected of our 15/16 year olds. I'm always slightly surprised when I look at the examples of top band answers released by exam boards. When you read the grade descriptors/ examiner reports you'd think they were expecting undergrad level analysis, but they're really not.

If he's genuinely had 2 bad papers then I'd guess he'd drop a grade or 2 at the most. But I think English Lit is a really difficult subject to call in terms of how well you've done. Having done the O Level, A Level and a degree I was surprised many times by marks I received.

Sost hope the vertigo has gone now - that's very unpleasant while it lasts. Naughty pup to wake you up so early!
Mmzz it's impossible to predict grades but his answers may well be better than he's letting on or than he realises!
I know no one was thrilled to see Singh Song but as long as he made sure he actually compared it with another poem and made some reference to language etc he'll have done fine on the mark scheme. It's a single tier exam - a lot of candidates don't write much, if anything, or don't compare to another poem.

DS needs a 5 in english to get into the sixth form. TBH I didn't think it was in doubt, but now i'm glad that its (apparently?) english language, not lit that they meant when they said "English".
However, it does make me wonder if DS needs to rearrange his revision priorities and maybe be willing to drop a grade or two in things he doesn't need for next year, in order to not be opening the results in August and discover that he got all the difficult grades but hasn't got the English.

mmzz I'm sure he'll easily make the 5 (and more) in English Lang. As Loose says, this is a single tier exam and encompasses the full range of ability. The standard for a 5 simply can't be that high.

mmzz even if he did a bad paper I would think it would be very unlikely he would drop from an 8 to a 5. The standards for a level 8 student and a level 5 are just too different.

Very relieved to wake up to 10 days exam free. Nor do relieved to realise that d's is not even halfway through! 11 papers done but has 14 more to go! 1 x each science and Geog 2x English 2x Maths, x4 Music and Food

mmzz I think you and your ds might need one final mr bruff video

Mmzz just to add what others have said the difference between an 8 and 4/5 is huge. I have seen it myself with 2 A* DD s and level 3/4 DS. The range in standard is enormous. Makes sense now when they say it’s an untiered exam that everyone takes. In the mock DS wrote nothing for the unseen poem and two short paragraphs for of mice and men so about a page for the whole exam and still got a 3. He now manages a page for each question so hoping for 4/5. If you look at the exemplar answers in the website which usually provide a range you will see it for yourself. It’s very diffferent to say higher tier single chemistry where you can drop down the grades quite quickly

Mmzz - Your DS may find that he has done better than both you expect....enjoy the chocolate.

Sost - I missed your Vertigo post - hope you are feeling better.

Anyone's older DC's studying Chemistry at A-level?