A level- chemistry and biology 2023

[Blubell46]

Morning,

How does the boundaries work? My ds friends did their Physics paper and it was a disaster. The OCR board changed the style of questions compared to previous years and a lot of his friends couldn't do the paper!

I think heard the same thing regarding GCSE computer science- another OCR board!

My ds is sitting his chemistry soon and he is already worrying about !

Also biology normally clicks for him but every time he does a biology paper he seems to get a low mark...he says the marking scheme is very specific! Loosing confidence!

Is this something you are finding as well?

Thank you

All marks schemes are specific and you need to
respond to the questions according to the spec - his school should have taught this to them over the last two years.

My dc is doing Biology and Chemistry. Your dc will be able to see from the mark scheme what the accepted answers are.

Re grade boundaries these are plotted using a bell curve type thing. They want certain percentages of students to get certain grades so if the paper ‘harder’ the boundaries are lower. All grade boundaries etc for previous years will be on the exam boards website.

good luck to your son!

In terms of grade boundaries, they are set nationally- this year, it has been decided the same proportion of students will get each grade as in 2019. So if everyone has struggled with a paper, the grade boundaries will be low.

For sciences, A-level grade boundaries are usually quite low. It depends on the exam board and the paper and so on, but usually you are looking at ~20% for an E, and then grade boundaries usually go up with jumps of slightly less than 10%. They could be even lower than that this year.

So, say 50% in biology could be looking at the C/B borderline- which may be why his marks are low. That said, it is very possible to "get" biology, but not have the exam technique to successfully answer questions. The mark scheme is very specific, but surely he has been practising past paper questions regularly for the past few years, and is aware of this?

In terms of OCR physics, I will be honest- I haven't heard that about the paper, and have actually heard/seen people say they thought it was a reasonably fair paper.

I think at this stage, all he can do is keep practising past papers, and try his best, but it does sound like he may not have been prepared especially well?

@Postapocalypticcowgirl thank you . He is normally strong in biology and gets the content. He has been practising the papers but somehow he is not always hitting the mark scheme and so that is demotivating himself!

We have tried to give him positivity and we truly believe he can do it . He is feeling a bit overwhelmed and now thinking he doesn't know his content. We have just said try your best in biology and just keep looking at the papers...he has two days ... we have said you know your content...trying to enforce the positivity but it is hard for him when he is not hitting the mark scheme - when he clearly knows the knowledge!

Thank you all.xx

DS2 is doing Biology, Chemistry and Maths. So he's yet to sit a paper.
Of the three, he's found Biology much the hardest. He's smart and has a great memory but yes, it seems that if you don't use exactly the correct wording you can lose marks. Even if you can understand and explain a concept. Maths has really helped him with the Chemistry which he hopes to continue at degree level.
Just hoping the first paper isn't too bad.

@cptartapp omg that is the same for my ds!

He used to love biology and now he is not keen...he too is doing chemistry and maths. Although he says the grade bounderies is high for chemistry he enjoys it and loves maths. I agree I really hope biology goes okay

My dd is only year 12 but is finding that with biology - she really likes biology and is good at it, but has said that it seems it’s all about what the mark scheme requires - which is very frustrating.

Past papers are the way to go. Look at the mark scheme once you've tried the question. If you are not hitting the marks, why not? Is there a particular word or phrase they want that you didn't include? Next time you do a question on that topic, make sure to include it. Look at the marks available for the question, to make sure you are including enough detail. Follow all instructions carefully e.g. if it says "use information from the graph to....." then make sure you do that. Finally don't forget to revise the practicals that you did for CPAC.

Also anyone doing AQA paper 1 Biology there is a juicy question at the end 15 marks (usually 3x 5 markers) that should be straightforward if you have revised carefully, go do this first, don't wait until the end when you might be running out of time.

Interesting. My dd does the same 3 subjects and finds biology by far and away the easiest! They're all different!

Especially in Higher papers, it’s much more about applying what you know - so the question might describe an unfamiliar, even bizarre situation - but good candidates shouldn’t be thrown by that and be able to use what they’ve learned to answer it.
And using correct subject vocabulary is hugely important in Biology, spelling not so much as long as it’s clear the candidate knows the correct word.