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CFE Higher English 2016 Exam leaked

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What's the petition for?
Something to do with having grade boundaries lowered because of the stress caused by people due to the exam having been leaked 2 days before the exam


Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by CarolGray91
What's the petition for?


https://www.change.org/p/scottish-qualification-authority-sqa-explain-why-the-cfe-higher-english-exam-was-such-a-nuisance-and-tampered-with?recruiter=537347060&utm_source=share_for_starters&utm_medium=copyLink
Reply 43
Avatar for Jeff548
Jeff548
3
Original post by Mystery.


Bloody hell! 4500 and not even 24 hours!?!?!?!?

How did your geography exam go!!!?!??! :smile: :smile: :smile:
Original post by Mystery.


Ah! Thank you for that! I've signed it :smile: I literally took on higher English one day before Christmas holidays, got an A in my prelim but I'm expecting a C maybe a B from the final exam at a push. Got my higher human biology exam on Monday but I'm defo getting an A in that! Just such a shame that the SQA do this to students!
Original post by Jeff548
Bloody hell! 4500 and not even 24 hours!?!?!?!?

How did your geography exam go!!!?!??! :smile: :smile: :smile:

Geography was fine, way better than English. :smile:
Original post by CarolGray91
Ah! Thank you for that! I've signed it :smile: I literally took on higher English one day before Christmas holidays, got an A in my prelim but I'm expecting a C maybe a B from the final exam at a push. Got my higher human biology exam on Monday but I'm defo getting an A in that! Just such a shame that the SQA do this to students!


Exactly! I was in the highest achieving class with people getting A1 and I have been predicted A for the whole year. Also, did really well in the prelim but the exam yesterday just bashed my confidence. I really hope they lower the grade boundaries.
Original post by Mystery.
Exactly! I was in the highest achieving class with people getting A1 and I have been predicted A for the whole year. Also, did really well in the prelim but the exam yesterday just bashed my confidence. I really hope they lower the grade boundaries.


If they don't I'll be really annoyed! I'm estimating that I've got maybe 60-65%, and it's 70 for an A so if they lower it to 65 I'll be happy! At least in England they have different exam boards so they can compete for the best paper with schools and colleges, the SQA are just a joke that need to be abolished!
Original post by CarolGray91
If they don't I'll be really annoyed! I'm estimating that I've got maybe 60-65%, and it's 70 for an A so if they lower it to 65 I'll be happy! At least in England they have different exam boards so they can compete for the best paper with schools and colleges, the SQA are just a joke that need to be abolished!


Exactly! They can't manage themselves. Also they can put it up to 71% because last year was 74%!!
I heard they used the same passage for AS level English too?
Reply 49
Avatar for Jeff548
Jeff548
3
Original post by Mystery.
Geography was fine, way better than English. :smile:


Great to hear!!! I am sure you will do fine in English.

Just spread the petition on facebook and twitter because it already has 5700 people in ONE DAY. This can be bigger than higher maths! Bear in mind that petition went on for months until results day!
Original post by Mystery.
Exactly! They can't manage themselves. Also they can put it up to 71% because last year was 74%!!
I heard they used the same passage for AS level English too?


You're kidding? 😱 I heard they used the film Frozen for the close reading for the Nat5 exam! What a joke! It's too bad we live in a country where they don't care about our voices and opinions to do anything about our concerns and complaints :frown:
Reply 51
Avatar for Jeff548
Jeff548
3
Original post by CarolGray91
If they don't I'll be really annoyed! I'm estimating that I've got maybe 60-65%, and it's 70 for an A so if they lower it to 65 I'll be happy! At least in England they have different exam boards so they can compete for the best paper with schools and colleges, the SQA are just a joke that need to be abolished!


Grade boundary is normally 74% for English these days.

First year of nat 5 for an A = 74%
Second year of nat 5 for an A = 74%
First ear of new higher for an A = 74%

I don't see any reason why they will alter it. That's what the petition is for, to show the sqa that people did find it hard and not to simply go by their usual grade boundaries. What they're doing is going "people seem to have found that ok, so we will move the boundary up 4 marks, one for each aspect of the course"
Reply 52
Avatar for Jeff548
Jeff548
3
Original post by carolgray91
you're kidding? 😱 i heard they used the film frozen for the close reading for the nat5 exam! What a joke! It's too bad we live in a country where they don't care about our voices and opinions to do anything about our concerns and complaints :frown:


frozen!?!?!? Are you mad!?!?!? For nat 5??? It will have been a baby passage!!!!!!!
The grade boundaries aren't picked, it's set so there is a certain percentage in each grade bracket so that for example every year the top 30% always get an A. So if your not getting an A it means you are not the best and others were better than you . . .

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by Jeff548
Grade boundary is normally 74% for English these days.

First year of nat 5 for an A = 74%
Second year of nat 5 for an A = 74%
First ear of new higher for an A = 74%

I don't see any reason why they will alter it. That's what the petition is for, to show the sqa that people did find it hard and not to simply go by their usual grade boundaries. What they're doing is going "people seem to have found that ok, so we will move the boundary up 4 marks, one for each aspect of the course"


I'm possibly going by my prelim results then as I got 74% which was an A and another girl got 70% which was an A as well. Don't get me wrong I knew I was never going to get full marks (although I was three off full marks in the close reading prelim!) but 74% seems a bit OTT especially for such a difficult subject anyway which ironically enough has very little to do with English! 😂
Original post by Jeff548
frozen!?!?!? Are you mad!?!?!? For nat 5??? It will have been a baby passage!!!!!!!


Yeah I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I was told!! Could have scored full marks for that passage with my eyes closed as my wee boy LOVES Frozen and I've practically memorised it!
Reply 56
Avatar for Jeff548
Jeff548
3
Original post by CarolGray91
Yeah I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I was told!! Could have scored full marks for that passage with my eyes closed as my wee boy LOVES Frozen and I've practically memorised it!


Hahahahaha :smile:

In my school they followed the 2015 grade boundaries and used them for the prelim. So our A cut-off was 74%. Unfortunately, I only got 71% :frown:

Was your prelim the one with the close reading on shopping?

I do think the exam boundaries will be 74% again if they don't consider our petition because it's been like that for a while now for English.
Original post by Jeff548
Hahahahaha :smile:

In my school they followed the 2015 grade boundaries and used them for the prelim. So our A cut-off was 74%. Unfortunately, I only got 71% :frown:

Was your prelim the one with the close reading on shopping?

I do think the exam boundaries will be 74% again if they don't consider our petition because it's been like that for a while now for English.


Yeah we had the shopping one! I thought it was insanely easy!! I missed 3 marks because I ran out of time and didn't finish the end question properly otherwise I would have had full marks! And that gave me a boost as I only scored 12 marks for my Romeo and Juliet essay (I hadn't read it by this point) and 12 marks for my poetry analysis (couldn't properly answer the 10 mark question as I hadn't familiarised myself with any of Duffy's poems!) but in all fairness I joined really late and could only attend 50% of the classes as it clashed with biology. I got my head down and was really confident with my poetry but the questions for drama were just crap tbh! And I must have spent 15 mins on the first close reading question!! 😭😭
Reply 58
Avatar for Jeff548
Jeff548
3
Original post by CarolGray91
Yeah we had the shopping one! I thought it was insanely easy!! I missed 3 marks because I ran out of time and didn't finish the end question properly otherwise I would have had full marks! And that gave me a boost as I only scored 12 marks for my Romeo and Juliet essay (I hadn't read it by this point) and 12 marks for my poetry analysis (couldn't properly answer the 10 mark question as I hadn't familiarised myself with any of Duffy's poems!) but in all fairness I joined really late and could only attend 50% of the classes as it clashed with biology. I got my head down and was really confident with my poetry but the questions for drama were just crap tbh! And I must have spent 15 mins on the first close reading question!! 😭😭


We studied Romeo and Juliet too!!! I wrote my essay on a poem in the exam though because my teacher wrote an essay so I memorised it and thankgod it came up!!!!

For the prelim I only got 18 in my close reading because we never got told you're supposed to put 1 point for a mark. We all thought it was the same as nat 5 because no one told us and even in our practice class tests our teacher gave us the marks for going nat 5 style. Then in the prelims, they swap papers and we realised oh ****.

Same happened in my textual analysis. Only got 1 mark for each point so I got 16/20. Could've gone better otherwise. Not too bothered though because I learnt it in time for the exam and I would rather do well in the exam than have done well in the prelim! :smile:

You sound good at close reading! How did you find the tone and contrast question then???
Original post by Jeff548
We studied Romeo and Juliet too!!! I wrote my essay on a poem in the exam though because my teacher wrote an essay so I memorised it and thankgod it came up!!!!

For the prelim I only got 18 in my close reading because we never got told you're supposed to put 1 point for a mark. We all thought it was the same as nat 5 because no one told us and even in our practice class tests our teacher gave us the marks for going nat 5 style. Then in the prelims, they swap papers and we realised oh ****.

Same happened in my textual analysis. Only got 1 mark for each point so I got 16/20. Could've gone better otherwise. Not too bothered though because I learnt it in time for the exam and I would rather do well in the exam than have done well in the prelim! :smile:

You sound good at close reading! How did you find the tone and contrast question then???


Yeah I've always been good at close reading as it's just a case of taking answers from the text and rewording it. I've not done nat5 so I'm not sure about their marking scheme (I did standard grade back in the day and got a credit 2, and then an int 2 C)
You memorised an entire essay?? Kudos!!! I swear I have early onset dementia 😂 I'm 25 next month and my memory is awful!

I vaguely remember the tone question and I wrote how it was an almost sarcastic and very condescending tone, the contrast question I can't remember what it asked? (Blame my crap memory lol)
How did you find the last question?? I REALLY struggled to find the points they disagreed on and those for me are my best questions 😪

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