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AQA AS Chemistry UNIT 1: ISA Revision

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Reply 40

sach21sk

i got 46/50 which my teacher said was a b :frown:

(
maybe with a bit of luck after moderation an a
goddammit

Reply 41

r88ney

Original post by sach21sk

i got 46/50 which my teacher said was a b :frown:

(
maybe with a bit of luck after moderation an a
goddammit

Hmmm, teachers have NOT gotten the grade boundaries yet, so your school just made a PREDICTED grade boundary (usually 1 raw mark higher to get the grade it was on last year). Most probably (if you did get 46/50) that's an A. Lowest possible outcome it's 47 (B)/ 60UMS, which is awesome!

Remember, AS will not affect your chances of getting A* in A2.

Reply 42

PakStar28

How is the overall grade mark given, like 30 marks is for the paper, how many marks are available for the table? Is that all we get assessed on?

Reply 43

r88ney

Original post by PakStar28

How is the overall grade mark given, like 30 marks is for the paper, how many marks are available for the table? Is that all we get assessed on?

The table, average titre reading and PSA mark.
Average titre reading has to be within 1% of your teachers average titre reading- which will get: 4/4 marks.
Table + Average= 4/4 marks (remember, use concordant results only to get the average).
PSA (how well your teacher thinks you did the experiment)= 12/12 Marks. (In GCSE it was 6/6 marks- usually all teachers give full marks).
Actual paper= 30 Marks (Section A + B).
Total= 50/50 Marks.

EDIT: Look at the marking guidlines on whichever paper series you are doing. (Example Paper: CHM3T-P10-MG)

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 44

Imlovingmyradio

Original post by r88ney

That's not a stupid question AT ALL.
You would need to know the exact UMS score to be 100% sure.
Nonetheless, we can still get a good approximate:
Unit 1: 80/100 UMS = A
Unit 2: 110/140 UMS= A
Unit 3: 36/60 UMS= C - 40/50 RAW Marks. (Basing it on last year's Raw marks to UMS conversion)
Total (80+110+36)= 226/300 = B -> You would need to get a superb UMS score in Unit 2 (about 124-134), taking that into consideration, you most likely have gotten a B)
= 240/300 UMS= A
Many students from my school have who gotten an A/B in unit 1 seem to have done worser in unit 2 with B/C's (last year's students anyway), so If your dead certain that you smacked the unit 2 test then you might have gotten an A, but B is a good approximate to make.

ISA's always lower people's grades, stupid grade boundaries!

For unit 2 last year I got 111/140 ums and that was a B and 112 was an A :s-smilie:

I don't understand how I dropped that mark

Reply 45

r88ney

Original post by Imlovingmyradio

For unit 2 last year I got 111/140 ums and that was a B and 112 was an A :s-smilie:

I don't understand how I dropped that mark

My bad, yeah in Unit 2: 112/140 UMS = A
Unit 3 (ISA): 48/60 UMS = A

Ouch! 1 mark away from an A.
Getting a scrape A does not mean you got full raw marks (neither does getting 100% UMS). In your case you got 78/100 Raw marks (111/200 UMS) - still needing 21 marks (99/100) to get 100% UMS, and only 1 more mark (79/100 Raw Marks- 112/200 UMS) to get an A.

How can you not understand how you got lost that mark, you dropped 22 marks in the paper overall. So, it was either due to not understanding the question or just making mistakes. The markscheme (and question paper) is surely out now- so if you remember your answers, you can asses over them to find out where you made the mistakes. You should have asked your teacher last year to get the electronic script of the paper you did, therefore you and your teacher could go over your mistakes- and would have considered if it was worth getting it remarked.

http://web.aqa.org.uk/UMS/index.php
Use it to help you understand the grade boundaires.
Qualification: AS
Series: June2011
Unit: CHEM2 - GCE CHEMISTRY UNIT 2
Click the "Convert one mark" - and then the field will be highlighted, and below it will say "Enter you raw mark" (for you, it will be: '78').
Note: Each time you select a field, the page will refresh for every stage.

Reply 46

coolstorybrother

Hi Guys,

Was wondering if anyone knew any good resources to use for revision for the Section B - general knowledge part of the paper, as there is nothing in the textbook, and i dont know any web resources for written papers examinations, bar the past papers... or is that the best revision for Section B also?

Reply 47

r88ney

Original post by coolstorybrother

I actually was wondering the very same thing, where do you get the information to answer general knowledge questions (any help would be greatly appreciated).

All my teacher told me was answer all the questions in the specification, and one book won't tell you all the information- I'm sure everybody here has that AQA endorsed 'Ted Lister' & 'Janet Renshaw' AS Chemistry book- which doesn't tell you anything on how to answer those 'general knowledge' questions. The best resource I can offer/ know about is using the ISA past papers, just to get the general idea.

This is precisely why the ISA papers tend to be so hard in getting almost maximum marks/ maximum marks- which you must get if you want an A, as you can only lose 4 marks at MAX to SCRAPE getting an A ¬_¬.

Reply 48

username890104

Original post by r88ney

Your raw mark is moderated first though, so you didn't actually need to get 46/50 raw marks before moderation to get 46/50 after moderation, and so an A.

Reply 49

coolstorybrother

Original post by r88ney

The ambiguity of preparing for the Isa really pisses me off - especially for Section B, how on earth is it fair for student who want to do well when there even is a lack of revision material (nothing in the textbook). Surely this makes the whole thing pointless? I dont understand the notion of not putting anything in the book for Sect. B as you could still test a student's knowledge in context with some "base material" if there was something in the book.... I don't understand what they achieve by leaving it resourceless combining this with astronomically high grade boundaries is ridiculous.

Reply 50

r88ney

Original post by Tullia

Your raw mark is moderated first though, so you didn't actually need to get 46/50 raw marks before moderation to get 46/50 after moderation, and so an A.

Moderation hardly ever changes anybody's marks. Usually the teachers are dead strict the first time around, and nobody ever wants to moderate the marks to increase.

Original post by coolstorybrother

I strongly agree with you on this :smile:

In the AS Physics book (exclusively endorsed by AQA), there is a UNIT 3 sub topic for revision. There are a couple of pages dedicated to helping you with your ISA. So what I don't understand is, why on earth isn't there for AQA AS Biology or Chemistry?

Reply 51

coolstorybrother

Original post by r88ney

Moderation hardly ever changes anybody's marks. Usually the teachers are dead strict the first time around, and nobody ever wants to moderate the marks to increase.

I strongly agree with you on this :smile: