Y11 2023-24 thread 4

[Techno56]

New thread for GCSE survival 🙂

The a level result stress is a whole new thing. So much riding on them.

Today we have tried to revise physics but I think she's reached her limit. She's worked so hard but she just wants it to be over now.

Just caught up on the rest of the thread, I hope they confirm quickly what's happening with the IGCSE. It's so unfair on the pupils having this hanging over them. Whilst I understand the concerns, this is not the fault of the students and they should not feel as though they are being punished.

@DominoRules Would you mind helping me/DD little about the Chem Engg degree and jobs, please. I don’t know what to look for and DD had someone came into her school, and she was interested. But then found few videos that guys are all working in Asia/USA ( I think it was GE) and then she decided there is not enough “good” jobs in UK 😔
She is definitely doing Phy and M+ FM, but still can’t decide between Chemistry/Economics. It would be really good if she can read /find out a bit more about Chem side.
We are at a loss, so any help towards this would be much appreciated. Thank you!

What was the dodgy polygon question?

DS did Edexcel International GCSE in Maths (Specification A)

Is that the one affected?

We havent heard anything from his school. He did mention a something about confusion amongst his friends between a hexagon and something else?

If they do anything regarding paper similarity then that would be ludicrous - I have personally downloaded and scanned every paper available from the edexcel site and they are all similar! That's the whole point! And lik eall kids that do past papers, they tend to do all of them so they wouldn't remember what was on which paper. And as long as it teaches them the methods and they can reproduce it, job done. What a non-issue.

Yes Edexcel iGCSE Paper 1H Specification A
Q24 (usually a grade 9 decider) was a worded polygon question with n sides where n >5
The internal angles of the polygon follow an arithmetic sequence
The smallest angle is 84°
The common difference is 4°
Work out the sum of the interior angles and show clear algebraic workings

So technically the polygon had to have had an interior angle of 180° (!)
DS who sat the paper would not have blinked an eye at that 'insinuation' - would not have even noticed
DD would have been disgusted and outraged

The bods that picked it up are the lovely community of maths teachers on Twitter who enjoy looking over the content and checking all is fair. They are often involved in setting questions themselves in various other maths arenas or are marker in the UKMT etc

Also re-reading your post @AIstolemylunch, your son was on it! Bodes well 😉

Oh god was hexagon the wrong answer or not? I cant remember what he said he put. Surely a regular polygon with greater than 5 sides cant have an interior angle of 180?

Also wondering what was wrong with the bounds of pi question on Edexcel GCSE higher paper 3? My son thinks he solved it. Maybe he's over confident 🤣

Just asked DS about the IGCSE maths paper and he isn't aware of any problem. He said he's done so many past papers and they all have similar questions year after year as that's the way it is. He didn't think the polygon question was dodgy and thought it was fine. It's all above my maths knowledge so who knows!
He thought the AQA further maths yesterday was hard and thinks he got around 49/80 which he's disappointed with. At least he'll have 4 days of practice for paper 2 next week. Anyone else sit this one and what did your DC think?

AQA Further Maths Paper 1 was a shocker...really hard. DS only predicted a 7 in FM as not naturally fluent in normal maths (I just make him sit shed loads of past papers) but the grade 9 prediction kids were also traumatised by it.
The Student Room filled up with 'WTAF was that' type comments the minute it was over 😁

I didn't see the paper but the maths teacher on Twitter who was not happy with the question said 'it's not at all obvious that the circle circumference is bounded above by the larger hexagon perimeter. Why didn't they use area?'

Here's a link to the dodgy polygon answers (in the comments)
Like I said, most kids would have been focused on finding X and would not have noticed that the polygon could not mathematically make sense
https://x.com/Ridermeister/status/1791489312233599238

Surely they'd just take a dodgy question out of the mark scheme if it was reviewed and found to be unfair or wrong, rather than make every year 11 kid retake an international GCSE, done in loads of UK schools but also done in every international school across THE WHOLE WORLD. I means thats 100s of 1000s of kids surely? They cant expect them all to be free on the 26th June.

I think the post about possible use of the contingency day by ThatGreenNewt was based on the similarity of 2022's papers to this year's rather than the dodgy polygon question, which whilst not mathematically correct could still be answered correctly.
I don't think it will happen...iGCSE is set three times a year (June, Nov & Jan) in two time zones (papers 1H & 1HR etc) meaning there are 6 sets of papers in a year...there's bound to be some similarity to previous papers at some point.

The whole point of the contingency days, though, is that they're meant to be kept free.

Yeah and contingency days are for a fraction of the candidates who were ill, had subject clash, got caught in a flood on the way to the exam, or whatever. I dont see how they could rerun a whole exam again for the entire cohort on that day. Most of the invigilators needed would probably already have gone off on their holidays by then and big halls in use for the school play etc etc.

Contingency days are not for illnesses or clashes. And we've got the space and the invigilators booked because we have to have

Has it ever happened?

Not to my knowledge. But we're expected to prep for it in any case. Because if the roof fell in on exam day and we needed to do a whole cohort paper on contingency day, we'd have to do it.

Where has this been suggested???

Good grief. We’ve kept the contingency day free but I’ve never known them to be used.

Apparently there was a problem in a school that ds’s friend goes to today with the invigilators ending the maths exam 12 minutes early. I have no idea how that could happen or how it can be put right (can it?). Poor kids

Special consideration. Perfectly straightforward. Happens more often than you might think.

I keep hearing about a return this year to 2019 pre covid levels in terms of results.
Do they mean in terms of raw scores?

No. If it happens, it will be grade distribution.

Are the rates of particular grades very different now compared to 2019?

@Panic71 This is what the official bulletin said about 2023 results:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guide-to-gcse-results-for-england-summer-2023#:~:text=Overall%20GCSE%20results%20are%20similar,compared%20with%2067.0%25%20in%202019.