GCSE Physics AQA - Today

[Glitterbiscuits]

Did anyone else's DC come home and say topics such as nuclear were on the exam today even they were on the official AQA 'not assessed' list?

It’s listed as a focus is the trilogy. Was your child taking triple or double science?

I invgilated AQA physics today and whilst I have no idea what the syllabus or advanced information is/was, it was blindingly obvious very quickly that the children were thrown by the questions. There were some very stressed and upset faces and I've never had so many students ask for a toilet break. It's really obvious when they struggle compared to when they're confident... it's quite upsetting to watch, the PE exam was similar. They've been through enough.

The question was on 4.4.3, risks and dangers of radiation. 4.4.3 is on the 'not to be assessed' list.

Am I the only one thinking that it’s insanity if people know in advance of the exam what the topics will be?! Seems pointless learning anything if you’re only going to be tested on a few areas…

Yes DD was also upset and cross. Did triple Science Higher and said that things that came up they had previously been told wouldn't be examined.

My daughter sat that one. Sixth form have raised an official complaint and they have all been emailed the link to complain individually too.

Well that’s just stupid then.

mind, ocr got Avogadro’s number wrong on their chemistry gcse paper two weeks ago, so I suppose anything is possible

My son is taking triple higher (so not trilogy or double). So seperate GSCE's for each science.

Advanced information here filestore.aqa.org.uk/content/summer-2022/AQA-8463-AI-22.PDF

It's only post covid. As full content in all areas couldn't be taught.

It’s a one off for this year, due to students missing so much in lockdown that it became impossible to complete the whole syllabus

@CaptainBeakyandhisband - this cohort had the whole of their GCSE courses taught during the last two years - perhaps multiple lockdowns, rife Covid amongst pupils and staff, and the death of some of their relatives just might have meant that they should be cut a little slack?

You need to bear in mind that this cohort lost most of year 9 and a lot of year 10 - they haven't had time to be taught it all in many subjects.

It's not that generous, for A levels at least. Some subjects easier to carve out content than others - my son reckons that it was hard to cut down content for Economics as the topics are quite interrelated....

That's interesting, I'll mention that to ds, I can imagine his teacher putting in a complaint. It wouldn't be so harsh if it hadn't been a 20 marker.

With the nuclear question ds said that it was more an irradiation question which was on the AI although there does seem to be a screw up with the AI and questions

I just asked my daughter who just took this A-Level and she said the teacher advised to revise everything not just the advanced because any questions could still arise?

DD is chuntering about a topic that came up which they weren’t expecting, she sat the foundation paper

DC says some topics that are not supposed to be in the paper were there. The school science department checked the Advance Information really thoroughly to ensure the students know which topics are major focus, minor focus, not assessed. Based upon comments here, I asked DC to check Advanced Information for Foundation, and DC says ah quite possible, it makes sense.

It's happened to lots of subjects, GCSE and a level, and different exam boards. So it can't just be a few students or one bad teacher misinterpreting the information. It is yet another shambolic covid exams mess up by the exam boards.

It wasn't just so much it didn't appear on the AI, it was the fact the question was so badly written actual sociology teachers had no clue how to answer it, never mind the students. Your dd may have answered different sections of this paper as students don't fill in the whole paper, only the sections they've specifically learnt?

That's what I've heard too.

my dd is worried she will have to resit it….

I think the problem is likely to be people misunderstanding the advance info and not reading it alongside the syllabus, and students misunderstanding which part of the syllabus an exam question came from.
The same thing happened with one of the biology papers, but when teachers had the opportunity to go through it afterwards they found that the paper did properly match the advance info.

As others have said, it's an attempt to make up for missed time due to covid. It's also not only a few areas- for DS's exam (a different board) they are being tested on 90% of the full curriculum over 2 papers, so not really much difference.

The advanced info seems to have done more harm than good for a lot of kids, even without the board screwing up.

Maybe. But like I said. OCR managed to get avodagro’s number wrong in their GCSE paper last week….