ATTENTION YEAR 11: What does this mean for us?!

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I worked and revised for my exams so much that I got headaches every day and couldn't sleep- don't you dare try to imply that we don't try hard, If I was being awarded on effort I would get an A* in everything!

Reply 21

wolf-pack

Original post by JHP1996

Yeah you tell them!! Hahaha x

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I bloody well will!! :wink:

Reply 22

wolf-pack

Original post by Cephalus

How old are you? Do you work in a school or are you a student?

Reply 23

Cephalus

Original post by wolf-pack

How old are you? Do you work in a school or are you a student?

I'm 18 on Wednesday :u:

Reply 24

JHP1996

Original post by wolf-pack

I bloody well will!! :wink:

Hahaha well they don't realise that we study extremely hard and sometimes it has a horrible effect on us... Stoopid people x

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Reply 25

wolf-pack

Original post by Cephalus

I'm 18 on Wednesday :u:

Don't you think your peers work hard? (happy birthday for wednesday :wink:

)

Reply 26

Cephalus

Original post by wolf-pack

Don't you think your peers work hard? (happy birthday for wednesday :wink:

)

Ah thank you.

And I don't know how my peers worked to be honest.

It depends on how you do it.

For me, I did well by brute memorisation of everything.

That doesn't indicate a good exam system does it?

Reply 27

Timmy12321

So will this effect is year 11 this year that are getting the results at the end of the month ?

Reply 28

Astronomical

Original post by ArtisticFlair

I don't get it either... how can they fix the number of students getting certain grades, and still have grade boundaries?

So, if you need 33/55 to get an A* in Chemistry, what if someone gets a mark of 47/55, but they're not able to achieve an A* because loads of other people got 48/55?

I may phone up tomorrow... it just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It's particularly unfair to spring it on us two weeks before results day; if they had told us in September, it would make sense as it allows us to work harder.

That isn't how UMS works. The whole point of having UMS is that the relative difficulty of the exam is roughly constant. This is done by comparing the distribution of scores with the previous distributions, and adjusting the grade boundaries so that about the grade distributions are roughly the same.

If the daily mail article suggests anything else, just ignore it; it's wrong.

Reply 29

Whostolemycookie

This is just great, Im officially screwed for my A-levels

Reply 30

Herbadacious

Original post by Timmy12321

So will this effect is year 11 this year that are getting the results at the end of the month ?

I assume so - from what I've seen, they want to match the results to last year, so they must be putting this scheme into effect this year. :frown:

I've decided I'm going to take this news calmly, and I won't get worked up towards results day, because I know exactly how hard I tried and what results I'm aiming for. I'm going to stay calm, and when I don't get the grades I worked for, I will blame this scheme. And possibly rampage down the street in my underwear.

Reply 31

Magenta96

ugh when I read all the news articles stating how Gov plans to toughen this and toughen that and bring back O levels and now this... It really puts me off doing A levels and makes them look so daunting! In my opinion it makes it really hard to think positive and still think you're capable of getting a top grade at A level when they plan on making them really hard...

Reply 32

lbsf1

What all of the people suggesting this don't realise is that exam papers vary in difficult hugely year on year. Thus pupils of equal ability in different years would get different grades is boundaries were fixed.

Stupid idea, exams may be getting easier however hardly anyone is getting 100% (apart from me in gcse physics :wink:

) so therefore the exams arn't too easy as people are still getting questions wrong. All that is happening now is any good mark acheived now is not seen as equal to someone who sat them 20 years ago, this is wrong and untrue however it is the idea the media is giving.

Reply 33

RoryS

Original post by ArtisticFlair

Nevertheless, I've emailed Ofqual who I hope will explain in plain English!

Have you had a reply yet?

They've probably read it, but decided not to reply knowing big organisations.

Reply 34

TheLightBulb

Original post by jhadjkura

Edexcel is midnight the day of results day!

Yes... And you can check your results from 6am on Thursday 23rd august if you have the code that edexcel sent you via your school :smile:

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Reply 35

TheLightBulb

Each year they base their pass rates on how many people actually did 'pass'

They want a good proportion of people at each grade - this means if too many people passed they normally say the paper that year was too easy so they change the pass marks - if it was harder then vice versa

Like in January 2012 edexcel English increased their grade boundaries so it was really high. I first did te CA in June 2011 with an A at 31/40 raw marks with 53ums- my whole year resat in Jan 2012 - I got 39/40 raw then got 48 ums this was because a lot more people got higher marks :/ annoying is an understatement

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Reply 36

metaltron

Just re-posting here to let you know what I think it will mean!

From what I could gather, these will be the consequences:

1. Most grade boundaries (for 2009 specifications) will increase to make up for the teething process into the new syllabus for last year. For example the A* boundary in geography might go from 49/75 to 56/75 despite a seemingly harder paper. This is because last year people were still getting used to the syllabus.

2. Science grade boundaries (old spec) will stay relatively 'low'. New spec grade boundaries will be significantly higher to make up for hardening of the syllabus.

3. English grade boundaries will be set so that roughly the same proportion of people will get A*, A, B, C etc. as in the previous specification. In the last specification grade boundaries were stupendously high, but because the specification is new I'd expect grade boundaries to stay roughly the same. For example English Literature Unit 1 might stay at 45/60 or possibly decrease a little due to more people taking (I assume) and a harder paper. Then, I'd expect them to increase the grade boundaries slowly over the next few years to roughly 50/60 for an A*.

4. The SATs results will be used in the future to suggest how well a particular year group should do compared to the previous year group. For example, if Year 12 did better than us in their SATs as a whole year group in the country, then the exam board would expect us to get lower marks for the same grade boundaries. Therefore, grade boundaries would be likely to increase. If it was the other way round, we would get lower grade boundaries. However, I do not know whether this is a player this year.