Anyone else think Music Edexcel GCSE Perform.+Comp. Grade Boundaries so high in 2011?

According to Edexcel's website, the Grade Boundaries for the Music GCSE Performance (out of 60) was 56 for an A* and in the Composition, it was 54 for an A*! I just cannot seem to fathom how getting such a high mark is that possible. Meh, I guess it's the exam which should help me, but honestly, 56 and 54 in my opinion is seriously so high. I hope it's not as high this year, or I'll seriously have mucked up my GCSEs. :frown:

If this sounds extremely pompous, I'm sorry - I don't want to come across that way!

Reply 1

username884681

Really?! That is high! I don't want to be annoying but I got 60/60 on performance and 59/60 on composition so that's 119/120 which represents 60% of the GCSE. Therefore I have 59.5% on my music GCSE which is fortunate because I suck at the actual exam! How percentage overall do you think is required to get an a* because if it were 80%, I'd need just over 50% in the exam for an a* which is really reassuring! I presume it will be around 85% though.

How are you revising by the way? I've done all the past/specimen papers but really need to do more!

Reply 2

iCiaran

11

I sat this in 2011, and got 60/60 for performance and 59 for composition, for the performance especially getting the marks is easier than you think, my group performance in my opinion was pretty bad, but I still ended with 30/30, just make sure you choose a piece of a decent difficulty and practice it a lot, don't be one of the people trying to learn the piece on the day...

As for the exam, I doubt the Chopin or Grace essays will come up, since they are the ones we got last year, and you are pretty much guaranteed some questions on Rag Desh since we didn't get any last year. The rumour with the essays last year was that they both have to be from different areas of study so, if this is true, and I don't suggest this but it is an option, it means you can completely neglect learning essays for one area of study, although if one of these 3 essays comes up then you wont have a choice about which essay question you answer...

As for revising I'd really suggest flash cards, for each of the 12 pieces, with a card about melody, rhythm, key changes etc...

Any questions about last years exam, ask me :smile:

Reply 3

Tirrany

OP

Original post by iCiaran

I sat this in 2011, and got 60/60 for performance and 59 for composition, for the performance especially getting the marks is easier than you think, my group performance in my opinion was pretty bad, but I still ended with 30/30, just make sure you choose a piece of a decent difficulty and practice it a lot, don't be one of the people trying to learn the piece on the day...

As for the exam, I doubt the Chopin or Grace essays will come up, since they are the ones we got last year, and you are pretty much guaranteed some questions on Rag Desh since we didn't get any last year. The rumour with the essays last year was that they both have to be from different areas of study so, if this is true, and I don't suggest this but it is an option, it means you can completely neglect learning essays for one area of study, although if one of these 3 essays comes up then you wont have a choice about which essay question you answer...

As for revising I'd really suggest flash cards, for each of the 12 pieces, with a card about melody, rhythm, key changes etc...

Any questions about last years exam, ask me :smile:

:O Woah! You guys are literally music genii! I doubt I'll ever get 119/120 ever! That must be so reassuring!

Thanks for the advice iCiaran! I'm just going to try and remember everything however it doesn't bode well for me at the moment, all I've done is written out the notes, I haven't actually memorised them! And it's a week away! Damn! I'll do the flash card thing though, that sounds quite helpful. :P I like the way you think about the essay question neglecting however!

I did your exam paper as a mock and got 65/80 which wasn't too bad I think.

Reply 4

Tirrany

OP

Original post by iCiaran

I sat this in 2011, and got 60/60 for performance and 59 for composition, for the performance especially getting the marks is easier than you think, my group performance in my opinion was pretty bad, but I still ended with 30/30, just make sure you choose a piece of a decent difficulty and practice it a lot, don't be one of the people trying to learn the piece on the day...

As for the exam, I doubt the Chopin or Grace essays will come up, since they are the ones we got last year, and you are pretty much guaranteed some questions on Rag Desh since we didn't get any last year. The rumour with the essays last year was that they both have to be from different areas of study so, if this is true, and I don't suggest this but it is an option, it means you can completely neglect learning essays for one area of study, although if one of these 3 essays comes up then you wont have a choice about which essay question you answer...

As for revising I'd really suggest flash cards, for each of the 12 pieces, with a card about melody, rhythm, key changes etc...

Any questions about last years exam, ask me :smile:

I've uploaded my performances online, so if I pm'd you the link would you be able to give me a rough estimate of my marks out of 30?

Reply 5

iCiaran

11

Original post by Tirrany

:O Woah! You guys are literally music genii! I doubt I'll ever get 119/120 ever! That must be so reassuring!

Thanks for the advice iCiaran! I'm just going to try and remember everything however it doesn't bode well for me at the moment, all I've done is written out the notes, I haven't actually memorised them! And it's a week away! Damn! I'll do the flash card thing though, that sounds quite helpful. :P I like the way you think about the essay question neglecting however!

I did your exam paper as a mock and got 65/80 which wasn't too bad I think.

68/50's pretty good aim for that in the real thing and you should do decent, although I'm expecting this years paper to be a bit harder, i think we just got lucky last year with it being the first year of the new syllabus.

I can listen to your performance but I'm not sure how much help I'll be, haven't your teachers given you marks yet? Either way it's behind you now, if it were me i'd try and just forget it from now on and focus on the exam (and all the other exams you have coming up :tongue:

).

Has your teacher made you write any practice essays? If not I'd try and write a couple of the ones you think are harder under exam conditions and give yourself maybe half an hour then ask your teacher to mark it.

As for learning it quickly, you still have time if you put the effort in, our class basically only learnt And the Glory of the Lord in the first year and the other 11 pieces in the second year xD

Also with it being a listening paper essentially, at least you know not all of the questions will be based around memorising everything, good luck ! :smile:

Reply 6

09hlurcott

Original post by iCiaran

I sat this in 2011, and got 60/60 for performance and 59 for composition, for the performance especially getting the marks is easier than you think, my group performance in my opinion was pretty bad, but I still ended with 30/30, just make sure you choose a piece of a decent difficulty and practice it a lot, don't be one of the people trying to learn the piece on the day...

As for the exam, I doubt the Chopin or Grace essays will come up, since they are the ones we got last year, and you are pretty much guaranteed some questions on Rag Desh since we didn't get any last year. The rumour with the essays last year was that they both have to be from different areas of study so, if this is true, and I don't suggest this but it is an option, it means you can completely neglect learning essays for one area of study, although if one of these 3 essays comes up then you wont have a choice about which essay question you answer...

As for revising I'd really suggest flash cards, for each of the 12 pieces, with a card about melody, rhythm, key changes etc...

Any questions about last years exam, ask me :smile:

sounds impressive, i got 30/30 on composition but our school uses logic and our teacher is a massive help, so we all performed well on that, however we aren't being given back performance marks, so i was wondering what pieces you performed, the standard of piece (around what grade) and basically give me a rough idea of what kind of level is required for close to full marks?

cheers

Reply 7

iCiaran

11

Original post by 09hlurcott

sounds impressive, i got 30/30 on composition but our school uses logic and our teacher is a massive help, so we all performed well on that, however we aren't being given back performance marks, so i was wondering what pieces you performed, the standard of piece (around what grade) and basically give me a rough idea of what kind of level is required for close to full marks?

cheers

What instrument did you play for the performances?

Played guitar for both my pieces, Solo was a grade 6 piece straight from the book, and my group piece was pretty much seize the day by Avenged Sevenfold up to the end of the solo.

If your piece comes under the higher category which is roughly grade 5, and you played through without making any massive mistakes you should have no problems with the performance...

Reply 8

09hlurcott

i played violin for both, one was a vivaldi movement, the other a grade 4 piece :s-smilie:

..i think it'll be alright..love that you played A7X for GCSE though ahaa

Reply 9

iCiaran

11

Original post by 09hlurcott

i played violin for both, one was a vivaldi movement, the other a grade 4 piece :s-smilie:

..i think it'll be alright..love that you played A7X for GCSE though ahaa

You'll be fine, and it wasn't really a case of playing it, more like a day or 2 before we realised that we had the performance very very soon, so just throw anything together quick :L still it didn't sound bad to the teachers by the looks of it xD

Reply 10

username919394

17

I did that exam and got full marks for the performance. I absolutely hated the exam but I managed an A overall. One of my friends only got about 7 marks in the exam because she did no revision, so just revise as much as you can.
You'll be fine :smile:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 11

Lorem Ipsum

1

I did this last year and got full marks in all my coursework and the performance, then a C in my theory exam :colone:

. Still scraped the A* though :biggrin:

. If you need any tips just ask.

Be grateful you are not on AQA, that is one mean exam board, especially for music. It's quite easy to 'blag' Edexcel music, as long as you know how.

Anyone else think Music Edexcel GCSE Perform.+Comp. Grade Boundaries so high in 2011?

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