Year 11 - 2024/2025 - In the thick of it!

[QueenMabby]

New thread. Sorry. Forgot to start it - I hope everyone finds this!

This week isn't as bad as last week here - 6 exams last week and only 4 this week - Chem, Comp Sci, Physics and Eng Lang. He's pleased that both Business Studies papers were over by Friday as he has hated that from start to finish! I think we hit the official halfway mark at the end of Comp Sci tomorrow afternoon.

He's been pretty self-sufficient and laidback with most subjects, except History - I have spent so long revising History with him that I could genuinely sit all the papers myself.

Good luck people with chemistry (and PE!) today.
I am on tenterhooks about chemistry and struggling to focus on anything else as dd really wants to do well in this. She got a 9 in the paper 1 mock and is desperate to get a 9 again so has been working insanely hard - I have told her it is not the end of the world if she doesn't get one (she has generally been getting 8s in science) but still really hoping she thinks it goes well at least.

5 exams this week, it is exhausting for everyone!

@Poisoningpigeons well done to your DC just dealing with the issue! Think I’d have received a very stressy phone call (understandably).

Hah, I did receive a stressy phone call but they were already booking the Uber while talking to me - pleased that they showed resourcefulness!

They confessed it took them several minutes to realise the bus hadn't turned up because they were busy playing Pokemon Go 🙄 then several more minutes to remember how to track the bus location and work out that it was going away from them, following the normal route to school but about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Then a few more minutes arguing with each other about what to do 🤦🏻‍♀️before they decided that one would book the Uber and the other would call me to let me know.

We got them Uber Teen only a few months ago, so glad we did now!

Uber Teen @Poisoningpigeons - I didn’t even know it existed! Off to Google. I think dd would be too nervous to call herself an Uber. She once took the bus all the way into the centre of our village (and past our house) because she didn’t want to bring attention to herself by standing up and pressing the red bell button!

Chemistry is DD’s favourite subject and an A Level choice so she was looking forward to today’s paper.

Daughter just messaged me - says it was a tough paper (NOT her favourite subject, but reckons she’s scraped a 6). She much prefers paper 2, so hopefully will be ok as not for almost 4 weeks.

Ds has messaged to say Chem was his worst exam so far, oh dear!

I got a call. DD2 (edexcel higher combined GCSE) says she thinks it was a 'tough paper'. Says she got one of the ions wrong on the six marker, and forgot the precipitate in something to do with limestone - if that means anything to anyone. Not sure if that is disastrous or just standard forgetting some stuff.

Yep I agree. So much pressure. They do need to find a way to relax and find a balance.

I have an AQA Chemistry (higher/separate) back

Not too bad
Long experiment question about separating out two zinc solutions
4 mark titration he might have dropped a mark he's not sure
Rest seems ok - nothing he could tackle

"fine on most of them"

Thanks @clary DS has chosen a couple of poems to study in depth as they have been instructed to at school, I just hope he has enough to write about them! Will go through the tips for the unseen poems this evening if he's not too tired from the 2 exams today!

DS also got Chemistry and PE today. He actually did to a fair amount on revision on both of these yesterday. He got anything from a 5-7 in Chemistry in past papers and he really should be nearer the 7 as his target is 8+ so DH was helping him plug the gaps. The grade boundaries from 6 upwards are very close together, so just getting an extra 3 marker right was getting him up to the next grade. So, hope he's learnt something yesterday.
DS seemed fine, not too stressed when he went in this morning.

Sounds good. DS took the same exam. Haven't heard from him yet. But he's in school still for PE next.
I'm sure he will be dissecting the questions with DH tonight but I don't want to know, I'd rather not know the details and get stressed about his answers!

DD2 back from aqa higher combined chemistry. She’s never passed a chemistry exam (her biology carries her), but she said this paper was okay.

DD said chemistry was a mixture of ok and horrific!
After the plant heavy Biology, she now needs to ace physics ( doing the double award so all marks collated).
Does anyone doing iGCSE Edexcel know of they get a formulae sheet in the physics exam and if so, whether it’s ALL the formulae?

DD seems happy with OCR Chemistry. Sounds like there was a six-marker on ionic bonds that was good for her. I’m relieved as chemistry was her weaker science.

Anyone's dc done aqa combined science F?

Edexcel IGCSE here. All good. Apparently there was quite a bit on one practical that dd missed (copper bowl?) but most of the questions related to generic things like variables etc so she seems pretty comfortable with her answers.

Well done to your resourceful DC @Poisoningpigeons, but not what you want just before an exam. In contrast, DD has told me the school bus (yet again) picked her up after the actual stop (our street is slightly after the stop). She was happy with the Chemistry paper (AQA Higher single subject) but no further details.

I am very impressed at your DCs resourcefulness. Fairly sure mine (alone at bus stop), would have just had a meltdown! I’ve booked some holiday and between DH and I we’ve juggled dropping him off as the public bus he takes isn’t very reliable and is often late.

Chemistry (AQA, triple science, H tier) went well apparently. He was lucky in that the things he wanted to come up, did. He said it was better than the mocks/past papers (altho tbh he hadn’t done very many!). He’s predicted a 6 but hoping for a 7+. I just hope he didn’t find it ok because the more difficult stuff went over his head!

Now scrambling for English lit 2- which he hasn’t looked at at all. I didn’t realise they have to know the second poem by heart for comparison (back in the late 90s we took the annotated anthology in with us!).

So it’s going to be a long afternoon learning 4/6 poems off by heart and then the analysis of each to boot.

We are back to cramming here!
Some poetry is truly dreadful (he did his poetry section last week so just unseen left - it doesn’t get better we have come to the conclusion the love poems are possibly the better ones - he was hoping that wasn’t true!)

Oh dear MissyB1, this is very bad news. My ds2 needs Chemistry and PE grades at least a 7 to take it as A'level.

Foundation combined science chemistry this morning, said it was an ok paper. Better than maths and biology apparently.

@queenofthesuburbs igcse edexcel physics has a formula sheet apparently as DD spent ages learning them and then annoyed that she didn’t need to (I still think it’s a good idea to know them. BUT I’m not sure if it includes all formulae plus they’ll need to be able to rearrange them.

Bit worried my DD came home to say she whipped through AQA Chemistry Foundation paper in 45 minutes! She did spend the remaining hour (!) diligently going through the paper three times to make sure she answered everything but it does sound too good to be true.

Thank you!
Yes it's odd because some of the questions are to "state the formula" so I'm slightly uneasy...