GCSE Supporting - first week nearly over

[overthehillswegoo]

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Us too

@powerrangers disaster for us, he felt nothing he’d learnt came up and that the paper was really odd indeed. He listed loads of significant topics that weren’t covered. Sorry to all those who’ve heard me catastrophise on this already. But he said he had no idea and he was disappointed as he’d worked for it

That's exactly what DD ( and most of TikTok apparently) said..

thanks! It’s reassuring to hear. Fingers crossed

I was hinting at her to drop down from around Christmas time in Y10 as I could see she was struggling. It took a full year of struggles and many, many tantrums before her teacher finally agreed (DD's tantrums not mine, although I was close It was absolutely the right thing for her, I just wish it had happened sooner. I am glad it worked out for your DD as well!

Biology? Yes. It seemed a strange exam. Limited to very small number of rather obscure topics. I think the thing to remember is it all is reflected in grade boundary shifts so if everyone found it hard then all is not lost.

DD said all her friends thought Biology (Edexcel IGCSE) was awful - even the ones who are really good at it and want to do it for A Level. So do not fear. I think everyone found it hard. Apparently people were crying afterwards.

My twins think the topics are which did not come up will come up next paper…

So finally heard from DS. Not sure if this is helpful for those who are waiting to hear and obvs. just his and his friendship group's opinion. Him and his friends found edexel Maths higher different to the previous past papers in that they found the 1st 10 questions were much harder than usual ( so feel they didn't have the usual time to "ease in and warm up" ) but they also felt the last 10 were less challenging than usual....

Anyone know if the grade boundaries the same across all exam boards for each subject?

Dd thinks edexcel compSci was really easy…

No they aren't.

They're allowed to do this, answer any question they know

DD also thought computing was "far better than I was expecting".

It will stress her out if I start quizzing her (and she would likely focus on what she did wrong), so I plan to make sit out in the fresh air with an ice cream.

@TeddybearBaby I went to a highly competitive school that taught specific exam technique approaches and what your ds is proposing is a variation on what I was taught to do, but you have to be capable and excellent at time management. First stage is to read through the exam. Then you start with the higher mark questions that require a bit of thinking but you are confident you know how to tackle. You've not got a looming deadline so less pressure. Then you do the lower mark questions you didn't do first time round to give yourself a boost. Higher mark ones that you aren't sure about are last, but you've come to them after a morale boosting bit of writing answers and your brain has been subconsciously working on them since you first read them so you might find things click better. If you are very confident with your higher mark questions then do all them first and skip through the easy ones when time pressure is highest. I've never done an exam from front to back. Might the hard, easy, really hard approach work as a compromise and break things up without running the risk that he misses easy marks? (Disclaimer, this was back in the stone age so don't know if there's something about modern scoring systems that would warn against this.)

Another DS who thought edexcel maths was weird and edexcel comp sci easy

They're allowed to do this, answer any question they know

This may be true but our school would go nuts if you swapped to an old text from a previous year. Plus you'd be doing well to remember quotations.

Not sure what board it was but the AQA Macbeth questions were quite kind so a risk to skip to R&J if you hadn't studied it for GCSE. But then again, teenagers are unpredictable!

We've had a thumbs up for computer science, DS said he finished with loads of time to spare....not sure if this is good or worrying?!

@BobBobBobbing this is how I was taught many eons ago! Read through the paper, tackle the longer questions first where confident, then shorter questions and then the ones you're not sure of. I never did a paper in order.

Yep DD bit down about Edexcel Higher maths found the first set Qs much harder than expected and second set bit easier but it dented her confidence as she would normally whizz the first section. Hoping she’s done enough for a 6/7 but normally much happier on the calculator papers. Apparently didn’t have clue on the cuboid angle question…

Only found this out today because DDs friend answered the R&J question from Yr 8 when they've been studying Macbeth for GCSE abs turns out this allowed

Thank you, wasn’t sure how it worked and had me wondering what happens on more difficult papers if it was set nationally.

DD now back after her AQA foundation maths. Very easy paper she said, though she knows she got one answer wrong after talking to friends. Answered all questions, finished with loads of time to spare, even after checking everything. Great confidence boost I suppose (especially as the higher was supposedly hard), but oh for that intermediate paper 🤨

@Neversaygoodbye any chance you were GDST? Our school was so obsessed with competitive advantage that they analysed all the past geography multiple choice papers and assessed which options were statistically used more often for the right answer. We'd then get told "if you dont know the answer at all, answer C, if you know it's not C, then put D, etc"

@Spring45Mermaid my son had no clue about the angle question either. It was the only one he couldn't answer.