Year 11 - 2024/2025: Heading down the home straight towards that finish line!

[QueenMabby]

Next thread. 10 days of exams to go. Looks like we’re all heading into a busy week this week - good luck!

Assuming separate sciences?

Last year's grade boundary for higher AQA was 112 marks from a max of 200 for a 7 (56%).

Take off the 10 marks she hasn't attempted - so you're working with a max of 190 marks. 112 from 190 is about 59%. So, if she's got 60% of what she did answer correct then she'd hopefully still be on the right track for a 7.

Obviously grade boundaries change year on year, but seems like a reasonable indicator.

What sensible people you are - off to Google edexcel grade boundaries

All I’ve got from DD is ‘it was fine, not as nice as Paper 1 though’.

Oh god, a fire alarm is not what they need. Glad he didn't feel like it impacted him too much.

Still waiting to hear about Biology here.

If it’s single/tripple and not combined then I have the % for grade boundaries for previous years. Obviously they are not guaranteed (!) but last year 75% was a 9. 66% was an 8, 57% for a 7.

There are 100 marks per paper. So she could easily drop 10 marks/10% on a paper and still have a good margin for error and come out with a 7/8 or even 9, if every other question went really well.

I’ve found, when going over past papers with DC, that he didn’t often get one completely wrong but did regularly drop marks here and there for missing the odd bit out, so 4/6 on the longer ones etc, or missing the point of what they were asking for. eg on the 22 paper there was something about raising cows in sheds and you had to list the pros and cons. He put something about the cons being you had to spend money/time and have the space to construct barns and it cost manpower and time mucking them out… all reasonable points to my mind! Nil points! Correct answer was increased risk of disease spreading. He still did well overall on the paper, it seems the mark scheme isn’t expecting you to get every single point available.

Try to encourage her not to stress- easier said than done! But the grade boundaries are low enough that she can hopefully make it up elsewhere and still do very well.

Ratty back from AQA separate higher biology - easy - apparently - which feels like a double edged sword, was there a practical question? Yes and I answered it. Finished with 35 minutes to spare “did you check you did all the questions?” Yes about 8 times. Classmate asked for more paper, then more paper, which made him stress a bit, check his again, decide it was still ok. He then proceeded to rewrite the last Star Wars trilogy in his mind and has spent 45 minutes explaining his new and improved version, “you got all this sorted out during your biology GCSE?” “Yep”

So make of that what you will!

Re Biology……Well, I got a response to my text “ Yup, I’ll pick you up at co-op if you pop for a cheeky Costa…. How did it go?!”….. “ So far, so good”……

Wha’?! So, not a scooby, here, sadly! Will find out more in a bit! Only skimmed thru, so about to play catch up, fire 🚨!! The urban myth we must have ALL had threatened at school! Came true 🙀Oh, Dear Lord…. That IS a shocker.. yes, that would absolutely throw a lot of students, whether ND like my DS or NT….what a bloody nightmare. I hope they find the “perp”…….

@Sunnyafternooning what a nightmare but it surely will be reported.

The school are on the ball.

Just noticed an email. Just explaining what happened, commending them all for their behaviour and ‘exemplary conduct’. It said the clocks were stopped so they didn’t lose any time but they have notified the exam board and have requested special consideration.

I hope that none of the students were too put off by the disruption, and that the consideration helps out any that were.

Just heard back about biology (AQA higher triple) and it was ‘fine’. She said it was different to what she was expecting and she could have gone in knowing a lot less than she did. 🤷‍♀️

Dd said the paper was good. AQA higher. Lots of questions very similar to the 2019 paper which she helpfully did yesterday as practice. 6 marker on peat bigs which wasn’t a fave. Otherwise fine.

dd’s teacher had told them they should be aiming for 150/200 to get a 9. Dd seems pretty sure she will have achieved that.

I got a “good” 2-1 home win on aqa combined higher biology.
Is in PE now-he prefers this paper vs the first one as he says is more common sense-which we all laughed at as he demonstrates varying degrees of that at home.

I got a one-word text in response to "how was it?"

"Mid".

Which is not great. Despite the diabetes question :(

Does anyone have feedback / know what was on aqa foundation biology at all? I won’t see him u til later as he’s now in pe exam!

Dd says aqa F was good - fossil questions which she loved

I’m scribing and I thought today’s foundation paper was ok, though you do sit there mentally going “nooooooo, that’s not right!” though. My candidate had a blip and couldn’t remember that the bits sticking out of the plesiosaur were flippers, she was going “arms, no, fins, no, legs? Nooo.” Just as were were going down the corridor after the exam she suddenly went “flippers!”

Thank you. Not sure fossil questions would have gone down well here. Trying to find some info on tik tok but nothing yet. I don’t like these double exam days - by tonight he’ll have forgotten what was in the paper!

Genes-rabbits, punnet square. Contraception, benefits of barrier methods, effects of hormones. Dinosaur/fossil q. Quadrat questions. Diabetes q. Can’t remember what else.

AQA Higher Biology here 'wasn't great but everyone thought that so I probably still did OK'.

Thank you!!

Oh that’s such a shame. She bloody knew it!

Biology DONE! Not amazing here, nothing on menstrual cycle that was revised on the bus on the way to school. Ok otherwise, apparently.
Minidark is more stressed about language and history coming up, and mega stressed about chemistry!

AQA Higher biology here. It went really badly ☹️, more 6 markers than expected, nothing DD had revised came up and the questions were badly worded. She missed out on 2 x 6 markers when she ran out of time at the end. Lots of people were struggling though so we’ll see how it goes.

DS reasonably happy with AQA higher biology, he thinks 8 rather than 9 on that paper though which he was hoping for and got in the mock. It’s his least favourite of the sciences and the one he isn’t carrying on with. He mentioned the peat bog question.

He’s not looking forward to geography paper 3 later in the week.

Really sorry to hear those who didn’t feel it went well, hope they can put it behind them. It’s so hard having to constantly refocus and move on when there are exams almost every day