AQA maths a level

[Watto1]

Does anyone else have a dc who sat the aqa pure maths paper today? Dd has come home sobbing her heart out as she found it really difficult. I feel so bad for her as she really has studied hard for it. What did your dc think of it?

You might be better posting in Further education OP.
I did see some posts about Maths A level on Facebook WIWIKAU group today but unfortunately as my kids aren’t doing that subject i scrolled by and didn’t note what they said.

Mine sat Edexcel and same. Worked her socks off.
One down, two more to go.

My DS sat edexcel Maths this pm which he said was really hard and he is so down about it. He now has another exam tomorrow and another on Thur so a bit of a nightmare to have to get over this and move on. I really feel for them. Hate exams as the only method of testing, it's only testing who's good at exams and nothing else.

DS thought it was ok (better than his physics before half term anyway which he was very unsure about). He said there were a lot of 'show....' questions one of which he couldn't do at all but the others he liked as you can tell if the answer you get is the right answer or not. He hates integration but said the question on that wasn't too bad. He said he was completely stuck on two big questions and did them completely wrong, but then realised what he'd done wrong and redid them on the back pages. I'm hoping they're a bit kinder with the grade boundaries this year as they were such a shock last year, but probably not :-(

DD2 also did the Edxcel maths paper this afternoon and said so many of the students found it hard. She did too. A couple of her friends started crying when they got out. She has also got 2 more exams this week.

Most of them need A or B for what they want to do at uni so fingers crossed that the next two maths papers are a bit better.

Thanks for sharing your dc’s experiences everyone. Hopefully the next two will be better and they’ll be kind with the grade boundaries. Dd feels a bit better now she’s calmed down. She said it wasn’t just difficult, she was also very pushed for time and didn’t even get to attempt a couple of questions.

For maths, an exam is by far the fairest way of testing who is best at maths. Anything else (coursework, opinion of teachers) is subject to cheating, bias etc.

Not when you go into panic mode or have very high levels of anxiety.

Mizu. My son has 3 hrs of product design tomorrow and Physics paper 2 on Thur. What a nightmare. Lots of tears this evening. "There's no point revising, I just mess it up. I know I've done really badly and paper 1 is the easiest so if I messed that up, I can't rescue myself." etcetera. It's really heart breaking.

@PrincessOfPreschool yep we have product design here tomorrow too and then Economics Friday. She's taking it all in her stride, bless her but it's a full on week.

DD said this maths paper was pure maths and supposedly more difficult than the others?

Edexcel have Pure paper 1 and Pure paper 2. Paper 2 is harder. Then there's a stats and mechanics paper on 20th June which is really hard even though he does physics. But he hates the stats with a passion.

DD did it today and found it OK but said a couple of questions she would have zero on and there were very easy questions and very hard questions for someone who had just done maths A level. She said the people who also did Further Maths at her school (which gets loads of A stars) were saying paper was very easy which worried her a bit. She said its the hardest of the three papers. Sorry your DD was sad but she did her best and hopefully next 2 will be easier. I find nice food helps a lot.

Ideally people should be trained not to panic and have appropriate counselling for anxiety.

It is interesting that you have not suggested an alternative way of assessing maths.

Pure 2 is not harder than pure 1. They both cover the same content. I teach A-level maths.

Dd always thought that this pure only paper would be the hardest of the three (AQA do a pure paper, a pure/mechanics paper and a pure/statistics paper) so hopefully the other two will be better. She did loads of revision but says she just went blank in the exam and couldn’t remember how to do simple things. Very unlike her. She’s usually great at exams.

A. Ideally but perhaps you don't have much experience of children with anxiety or the level of counselling available for 'mild needs'. Even suicidal children are on waiting lists let alone those suffering with exam anxiety.

B. I am not that experienced but it would be the same with any subject. I don't see why maths would be so special compared to physics or economics. Even regular testing in a normal classroom would be better than a long exam in a huge hall. I believe the system is quite different in Germany and they're doing OK as a country. They have exams but also get graded for involvement in class, doing homework, behaviour ie. Showing dedication, consistency etc which are important to future employers and even universities.

That's reassuring.

I do teach kids with anxiety. I have been giving specific advice to a kid with anxiety over the last week. He will still do the exam, but not in the hall.

”Even regular testing in a normal classroom would be better than a long exam in a huge hall.”

lots of kids are happy in the hall, but kids who can’t cope don’t have to sit exams in the hall. Regular testing just means more exams.

Getting graded for behaviour, class involvement, homework is in my mind a really bad way of deciding who is good at maths. It is just a subjective teacher’s opinion and makes it inherently unfair and open to abuse. This kind of stuff was why teacher assessed grades during COVID were such a failure. It ended up increasing the gap between poor kids and rich kids. Exams are a great leveller because they are objective.

As for Germany, I couldn’t find an article that agreed with you that they assess maths for university entrance by things like behaviour. But if you have the article, I will read it.

Universities and employers are interested in things like dedication and consistency to some extent and those things they can assess in personal statements, teacher recommendations, interviews etc. But they also interested in how much maths you can do and that is why they care about maths exam results.

I don't have any articles, just a German friend who told me about his it elworks, or worked in the 90s!

I think more balance is definitely required - because there are chilsren who underperform in exams - of whatever subject - and those who overperform . This could be the difference between a B and a D, when they're both probably around a C. The TAGs went wrong because we have zero experience of implementing that plus there was zero exam element. I'm suggesting a more balanced system, that's all.