GCSEs 2018 (11) Big week coming up

[mmzz]

old thread

And lack of competition breeds complacency

I accept that mistakes happen in any organisation, particularly with huge volumes of transactions going on. But this was such an obvious one for someone to spot/notice - unless the question setters do not look at the specimens (or it was deliberate).

I have a vague idea that it came about because the intended question was leaked and so they quickly grabbed the first question they had available and didn't really stop to think where it had been used before.

I could be completely wrong about that though. I'm not sure where I got that idea from.

brainmelt, for some reason her school is doing EdExcel Music, which means that she finishes at 7.30pm tonight (the exams take place at GMT time, no matter where you are in the world!) As far as dream soundtracks go, you've got a lovely one!
Wish I had a similar 'problem' - DD somehow didn't think the listening exam preparation involved much actual listening.

Ellen I'm hoping yours isn't doing EdExcel too because my DD has certainly not studied any Mozart for the exam, and now I've panicked her teacher has got the set works wrong (despite knowing this isn't the case!)!

mmzz I think that was mentioned on social media but I'm not sure if it's just a theory or if it's fact.

DD is singing while revising maths and sounding very cheerful - a 'free' day today so she is doing a morning of Maths, afternoon of History and an evening of bits ahead of next week.
She did the Ozy question and their teacher had not gone through this with them so I think it would be very unfair to have harsh marking when she did not enjoy an advantage but we will see - no easy answers.
I noticed on another thread related to crime in London that a poster had blamed it on the GCSEs being over and our dc having nothing to do - I wish!

Isn't Edexel the board where there are trillions of set works from different categories (Stage & Screen = Star Wars & Defying Gravity etc)and you have to study all ategories Its the board that ds's previous school does.

AQA is a choosing two from a list, one has to be Clock Symphony.

Alexander that's correct. Breadth rather than intense depth, it seems.

On another note, Stickerocks, my DD also gets extra time and for Spanish listening today, she said that it was all 'at the end' - so she actually didn't have it spread out throughout the exam. How she was supposed to remember everything she'd heard to finish the answers off I don't know! It meant that she was trying to finish writing answers when the next extract had started, and was not allowed to hear any extract again in the extra time to complete. Did your DD have the same experience?

Straight from that to a Music listening exam (happening now) with the same board - literally no point having an extra time provision if she can't relate it to individual questions as they happen. And she feels unable to request her rest breaks because of the instructions that apparently said the recording could not be paused. She is absolutely shattered.

Should the invigilator have paused after each extract for an additional amount of time to coincide with her extra time provision? What would other parents do/say (if anything) about this and to whom?

DD also did Singh Song. We have heard nothing from school. There were quite a few that ran out crying during the Eng Lit paper and the principal was asking everyone how they found it and he seemed quite concerned.

I woulod have thought she examiner should have paused after each extract. Ds gets extra time for very slow painful writing and slow speed of information processing. He's doing an dance exam next week and after each unset combination instruction he will get extra time to process the information before having to perform the steps.

farang so no adjustments for time zones? Interesting...

CIE music was on the hard side apparently but boy is happy with it. Now onto Maths 2 tomorrow!!!

-kyrenialady but why were they crying? Because they hadn't revised it? They must have been taught it, it's in the CGP guide and I've no doubt Mr Bruff has a video on it! The poem is quite difficult to memorise but it's not difficult to write about and the question asked was straightforward. So as long as they could write about the comparison poem they shouldn't have been so upset.
It's very important there's no disadvantage in choosing one anthology over another and AQA need to ensure that reusing a poem didn't cause that, but there wasn't anything tricksy about using Singh Song.

I suppose the students could sit in a different room for the listening exams but they only tend to be 45 minute exams so assume thats 12 minutes extra time ...so if there was 20-25 questions the extra time would be very negligible per question if the tape stopped...DD (who does not get extra time), stated that there was about 10 minutes at the end to go through answers and check them...she is a very slow writer (Hypermobility).. DD states that the questions can be simple at first and then get more complicated so I guess that also causes issues because the extra time could be over by question 12 if an extra minute was added to the first questions.

DD's school have put together an IGCSE Edexcel predictions paper with a mark scheme for Maths tomorrow (its a full paper)...I am happy to send it through to anyone although it maybe a bit later given exam is tomorrow - IT is IGCSE not GCSE....Higher...

Slower processing is indeed the issue with DD, so even 'negligible' extra time per question (allocated proportionally to the value of the question/length of extract( would help her get her thoughts in order to put them on paper. She was in an individual room for her Listening paper today.

Apparently the invigilator was following some instruction from the exam board and made a note with the exam that she thought that effectively DD had been disadvantaged by the method of allocating the extra time. The extra time is supposed to 'even the playing field' somewhat - in this case, she effectively didn't get it.

Hope I'm concerned for no reason!

Have pm'd you Teenmum60.

@Teenmum60 - yes please for the maths prediction paper!!!!

Anyone who would like the IGCSE paper could you PM email - I cant see there is any other way of sending it...(I will include mark scheme too)

Feedback from Spanish listening and reading exams is that listening g easier than mock but hard. Reading on a par with .rock but hard. Completed all questions ' but nan it was hard' of course it was hard it was higher level papers I wanted to scream! But I didnt

kyrie I agree with loose they should have revised poem as it was on syllabus. I mean my dgd has a real ' thing' about English and has got sick in previous English mocks but never has she ran out if exam howling over it. She howls after but only because she has a real aversion to English not because she hasn't revised!

Teenmum sent!

DD has the opportunity to stop the clock for 5 minutes per hour if her back starts to spasm. I have no idea how it would have worked in the listening exam if she had asked for a pause, because so few students took the subject that they were all put in the same room. I don't think anyone had extra time & DD simply put her head down & got on with it.

Todays feedback was "reasonable" which is the worst feedback she's given so far. She isn't a natural linguist and only took it because she doesn't have an artistic bone in her body, can't play an instrument or do a passable impression of Judi Dench for drama. I suppose we pushed her towards it to tick a box on future job applications.

Alex I loved your jette comment earlier! I'm sure some local newspapers do go in to take photos which could feature on the front page of the Daily Mail whilst others line up all the year 11s and tick boxes (we need someone who is at least 6'0", female & dark haired to offset the 5'0" blond lad with 17 grade 9s we must include.)

Sostenueto you are very patient with dgd! I hope Spanish went ok for everyone - I know the new language GCSEs are harder than they used to be so it's not surprising if it seemed hard - but definitely not a bad sign in itself!
Stickerrocks your dd is brave, soldiering on. I think they should still have given her another room in case she needed a break but I'm glad she got through it.
DS's school has introduced a flexible timetable, although thanks to special revision sessions, his first taste of freedom will be Friday afternoon after English.

Just found this thread!
DS has said "fine" after every exam so far apart from "physics was hard...well it's physics innit...if it was easy it would be biology" (he doesn't like biology and has no respect for it)

He's looking forward to Maths calculator tomorrow but not to Eng Lang 2 and History 2 on Friday as it's "a lot of writing for a Friday"
He's doing AQA and did the old man description "I would have had to write a whole story otherwise. Plus, descriptions are easier to gain more marks on than narrative"

Dreading DS2 doing this in 2020 as he hates writing for more than five mins and isn't interested in sixth form or A levels so has no incentive to revise. Annoying, as he's clever and conscientious and could do really well. Oh well.

All be over on 21st June!!

@cherryburn (sent)