Y 11 2023-2024 thread 3

[Techno56]

For when the other thread fills up tomorrow as we all discuss English lit 2 😁

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn my DS is definitely not the best judge of how things have gone so don’t worry!

AQA physics higher - more maths than ds expected and him and his friends have all put different answers 🤦‍♀️.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn Sounds like your son had a similar experience to my DS. He is disappointed but at least they have paper 2 after half term.

I think the iGCSE and GCSE papers are different? But that’s just what I’ve been told by DS.

May I ask - do any of your DC use laptops for exams? DD2 (in Y8) has terrible handwriting and laptops keep being mentioned but she is reluctant. How would that work in an exam situation eg for maths when you need to show workings out?

You can choose to not use it in certain exams. You could even do half an exam on laptop and other half on paper. No one will force DC to use laptop,

My DS has word processing as an access arrangement. He doesn't use it for maths. He uses it solely for English and in subjects such as geography or science he uses it for some of the paper so long mark questions but not all the paper.

Hmm the ' more maths doesn't sound great. He's weirdly lower set maths but higher set science and doesn't find physics too difficult, but I'm worried the maths will have thrown him.

He said it was OK, pretty good. This is DS's standard response. I really do not know. Physics is not his strongest subject, but he is expected to get a 7.

@planestrainsautomobiles DS always finds physics hard, so you have to bear that in mind. Ok still means very hard. He only likes the maths bits, not the actual physics.

"It was worded as How does Priestly use Mr Birlings wife to present social class"

If it was worded like that then I'm not surprised so many kids wrote about Mr Birling! Lots of kids don't have good attention to detail but I was surprised how so many made the same error if the question asked about Mrs Birling.

I’m told it was definitely ‘how does Priestly use Mrs Birling to present social class’ .

DD said higher physics was ok, she could have a stab at all of the questions whereas in the mocks she often only answered about a third of the paper

Mine also said this - lots of conversion of insane numbers apparently. He is good at maths but it's not his strongest. He would have taken Physics for A level except that all of the sixth forms applied to require you to take maths and physics. Nobody seems to know why as the maths in A level physics isn't particularly demanding. He says this Physics paper was good for him.

Mandarin writing went well - which is good as this was a worry. Mandarin is the second subject totally done with now. Psychology will join it by COB tomorrow.

DS' tennis match is cancelled as it's raining so he's taking a break now and then English Language and Psychology revision this evening.

Both twins reported AQA Higher Physics went really well.

Physics was as bad as expected 😪

He says the AQA TIC question was definitely Mrs Birling not Mr Birling's wife.

DS did Edxcel too (not iGCSE) he said he thought it was the most balanced paper of the 3 sciences.

I am really hoping now that for English Lit he hasn't answered incorrectly on his AIC question as he said it was about Mr Birling but that was WJEC not AQA.

Ds surprisingly happy with AQA Higher Physics - yes to v Maths-heavy and lots of unit conversions that luckily he’d actually revised. He did say some of the answers did rely on a bit of common sense, one was about the weight of a gold ring and one of his mates put it as 5kg not 5g…

PE wasn’t too difficult either with one 4 mark question simply asking them to name the chambers of the heart… He’d done a group revision session with a couple of mates and what they’d covered came up 👍🏻

For English Language tomorrow he’s looking at exam technique- apparently there are very specific ways to answer the questions, he has plenty of ideas but often
finds it difficult to tie them down to what he’s been asked.

Halfway through now, phew!!!

Ds did edexcel foundation today. He said most of the paper focused on equations so lots of maths. He's feeling positive so hopefully did ok.

DS said( think AQA) higher physics had lots of conversation questions most he had ever seen on a paper. Just hoping he checked working as has a habit of silly mistakes or not writing numbers clearly. Just Eng lang tomorrow and break really needs it as slept in this morning so not like him x

WJEC / Eduqas Eng Lit paper AIC question was about Mr Birling!

Ds said physics was terrible as he was so tired he didn't understand anything, but I asked him about the maths and he said ' ohbthat was fine so 🤔
I'm just saying to him its 12% of the whole paper and he thought chemistry and biology went OK.

@MiniMidiMaxi phew thank you!

Another edexel higher parent here. She said there was a question about bank notes she didnt understand for four marks but the six marks were nice.

DD also Eduqas for Eng Lit and not home for me to discretely ask what the exact wording of the Mr Birling question was

Need to stop spiralling as convinced myself she read hers wrong!

@Pharos dd is just now spending an hour going over language technique too. She didn’t have an exam this pm so had a rare afternoon of relaxation!