GCSE maths and English - why so hard?

[Notcontent]

I am all for high academic standards. But it seems to me that the approach to maths and English at GCSE is a bit puzzling.

I think the issue with maths is that the exams are set at such a high level that only the most mathematically gifted students can do the hardest questions so you end up with very low grade boundaries. Targeting so many questions at such a high level can quite off putting to many students.

For English, both English literature and English language are really quite similar in that it’s all about analysis, which seems very narrow. It seems to suit people who can just waffle on in a meaningful way, under exam conditions, but really English is so much more than that…

[whenwillthemadnessend]

Anyone had dc out of English lit yet?

[g1c2d3]

DS happy with how it went. He did Lord of the Flies and J&H.

[MagicTurtle]

DS reasonably happy (this is his worst subject).

[DFOD]

Yes DD did To Kill a Mocking Bird - said it was v unexpected. Character analysis option on v minor character that has never come up before - she chose the essay on “Lies” which has not been covered directly in that word but has in around themes of hypocrisy, gossip and hysteria which she dug into.

She thinks she did OK. Glad it’s over.

[CornishGem1975]

My DD was happy, it covered what she studied last night. She said it went well.

[whenwillthemadnessend]

Dd seemed to think it went ok. Got quotes in and said questions were ok
AQA. LofTF and CC

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

My dd and her friends thought the English paper was horrible (AQA)

[whenwillthemadnessend]

What books did you do @ArseInTheCoOpWindow

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

An Inspector Calls and War poems.

[whenwillthemadnessend]

So much variety between schools.

Dd was happy with her AQA paper
CC and LofTF

[Imsittinginthekitchensink]

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

My dd and her friends thought the English paper was horrible (AQA)

My dd also struggled today, Inspector Calls and Christmas Carol. There are lots of tears tonight.

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

Yes same here. Apparently Inspector Calls was really difficult.

[PugInTheHouse]

DS quoted one word wrong in one of his quotes for IC and wrote about that word, so that's 1/6 of that question he will have got no marks on. He reckons he revised it but just made a mistake. He said CC was OK.

I don't get much out of him though so not really sure if he's happy or not with it in general. He doesn't talk much then now and then he'll offload everything.

Feels like such a long week this week!

[Girliefriendlikespuppies]

My dd didn't find the Christmas Carol paper too bad, they had poetry as the other paper which she thinks was okay.

It is so hard to know.

[ArseInTheCoOpWindow]

Very long week and more weeks of it after 1/2 term😞

[DrDreReturns]

@Bovrilly do you know the answer to that question? I think I've worked it out but it would be nice to have it confirmed.
It took me ages to figure out how to do it!

[Bovrilly]

@DrDreReturns

@Bovrilly do you know the answer to that question? I think I've worked it out but it would be nice to have it confirmed.
It took me ages to figure out how to do it!

Yes , it's (16 x root3) - (16pi/3)

Hope that makes sense, hard on a phone keyboard!

[DrDreReturns]

@Bovrilly I got 10.91, which is approximately similar to your answer. I didn't use surds 😀
I think that's a really hard question for a GCSE. I'm out of practice (I last did maths in an OU course 15 years ago) but even so I found it really challenging.

[TeenPlusCat]

@DrDreReturns

@Bovrilly I got 10.91, which is approximately similar to your answer. I didn't use surds 😀
I think that's a really hard question for a GCSE. I'm out of practice (I last did maths in an OU course 15 years ago) but even so I found it really challenging.

It was the non calculator paper which is why it was left with pi and surds.
I agree it was a hard question for GCSE, but as the last question on the paper you'd expect it to be. It needs to separate the 9s from the 8s so would be pointless if all the top set students could do it, it needs to be the top few in a top set only. (Or get rid of 9s altogether.)

[Bovrilly]

Nice one DrDre. It was a non-calculator question, hence the surds, I agree it was very difficult! Both DH (Imperial physics grad) and DS (about to take A level maths) would have been fine with the maths involved, but neither of them could spot the method, so 0 marks.

That's why I felt it was a slightly ineffective question really. My mum aged 83 with no maths qualification would have scored the same as them, so it's not really doing its job of identifying and separating people based on their maths skills.

[BotCrossHuns]

I like it as a question. I think one part of maths skills is figuring out what methods to use - what ways in to the answer do you have, how can you get what you need from the information you have, etc. It's challenging to see the triangles perhaps, but questions about finding areas of segments have come up before, so students should be aware of that. I don't think not being able to do it stops people going on in maths, or means they aren't good enough - but at the same time, it does test a specific sort of mathematical thinking, and fair enough.