Combined Science OCR 21st Century - really need more practiced questions

[scifibi]

DD is sitting the GCSE Combined science paper after half term but she is really struggling - I think it's the more applied side of things? - there are very few past papers for her to work on, I've suggested she tries the same paper in other boards - that's if they do a combined paper?! - any other resources she could tap into would be very helpful - she really needs the practice on this paper.

Without buying it it is hard to be sure but this book looks like it might be useful. Maybe see if a local bookstore has it for you to browse.

I teach AQA but try these:

mathsmadeeasy.co.uk/gcse-science-revision/gcse-combined-science-ocr-past-papers/

revisionscience.com/gcse-revision/science/science-gcse-past-papers/ocr-twenty-first-century-gcse-science-past-papers

And my students really like www.senecalearning.com/

If the spec is similar I’m happy to send you some AQA resources too if there’s a topic in particular that your dd needs help with.

The specimen paper is locked for teacher use only.

So we have the Specimen, June 2018 and November 2019 - 3 papers? I'm hoping that someone has written similar questions to help their students?

You could try searching the resources section of TES (tes.com) - you’ll need to register to download but there may be teacher written resources to help.

The new courses across all the English exam boards only have last year’s papers (restricted still to teacher use only, though your DC may have been given a copy as a mock paper) plus one (or sometimes 2 )specimen papers, there is very little available at all to anyone yet. A textbook might have more examples?

21st century science is a bit eerm “ not that great”
However for mixed science papers you could try aqa synergy which have more than one subject in each paper.
That would be a better bet bet tbh than someone making up questions, even the first set of specimens are always notoriously off the mark.
There is probably ( haven’t taught ocr for 10 years) a locked set of second specimens, even at this point may be worth emailing their teacher about it

I’m going to email the teacher - we already have the text books but the questions on the exam papers are weird at times - dh struggles with the answers - he did Physics at Cambridge and has a very poor opinion of the examiner’s knowledge at times, very critical of poorly worded questions and dd hates and is not very good st physics, it’s all very difficult, wish she’d done triple and just ignored Physics.

Actually you are lucky there are 3, no idea why they are still permitted a November series.
Just had a look at the sample for the fourth paper and it is just how science works and practicals so any of the question like that pulled from any of the exam boards would be good practice.

any of the question like that pulled from any of the exam boards would be good practice not really any of the papers in the lock - she scored an 8/9 in her biology, a 7 in her chemistry and a 6 in her physics paper - the combined paper was a low 5 - it requires skills that she struggles with.

any of the papers in the lock in her mocks

Any of the how science works questions obviously, not all of them. These skills aren’t newly tested btw, but more emphasis on them was found in the old caus ( unit 4)

Thanks - maybe it’s a whole paper dedicated to them and they have not been taught how to approach them.What is old caus ( unit 4)

It was a teacher assessed unit, the kids sat paper 1 under exam conditions in class, planning an experiment, identifying variables etc, lesson 2 they carried out the expt, lesson 3 they plotted a graph of their results, lesson 4 they sat another question paper very much in the style of your paper 4. Mostly sacked off because teachers were “helping “ too much

@Rosieposy4 I have googled but I am struggling to find the old caus (unit 4) - could you possibly link to the resource please?

One thing I thought of for her (if she hasn;t alredy done this)

Work through the Foundation Papers, it will still be practice in that style of questions.

Also the past papers that she has, go through them again with the mark scheme so that she knows exactly what the examiners are looking for on those papers.

@Comefromaway Foundation papers are a great idea! - already on it with the mark scheme I've suggested that she goes over the papers again just to be 100% sure she can answer all the questions - that's if she reads them correctly!!!

Sorry OP, they are all still on teacher access only so any link would need a password.
Make sue she can plot graphs, go through the practicals with her, what was changed, what was being measured, how could it be improved