Biology Breadth: highest mark in my class was 54%

I feel like I can't breathe - the OCR Breadth in Biology exam is in under two weeks and everyone has done terribly in the two specimen papers we have for breadth. I've done loads of old spec past papers and got 70-80% in all of them, but this is nothing like the old spec and I just don't know what to do.

Please please please tell me that the entire country is finding it this bad and it's not just my school.

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Reply 1

Medicineisgood

Yeah I am in the same boat, I normally get As and Bs in the old papers but in the breadth paper i got 52 percent.

I feel hopeless, how can I even get a B now :frown:

Reply 2

Leona-L

Original post by Medicineisgood

Yeah I am in the same boat, I normally get As and Bs in the old papers but in the breadth paper i got 52 percent.

I feel hopeless, how can I even get a B now :frown:

Glad it's not just me, let's hope for really really low grade boundaries!

Reply 3

lulucoco98

New specs are harder which means they'll have lower grade boundaries.

I'm in a2 - doing the old ones but the new specs are hell on earth!!!!!

Good Luck !!!!!

Reply 4

Medicineisgood

Original post by Leona-L

Glad it's not just me, let's hope for really really low grade boundaries!

Also I got the highest mark in the class... So if I got 52 percent I wonder what everyone else will get. Its just **** that OCR has changed the exams

Reply 5

mughushed

Same with my class! I got 51% which is a D (1 mark off a C) yet I've been getting As consistently all year :frown:

( the highest in my class was about 70% but that was the highest by a mile

Reply 6

aadil10

It's been the same with OCR Physics at our school too (and others I believe). Maybe OCR Science is just ridiculously hard on the new spec? Hopefully the grade boundaries will be low if we all flop.

Reply 7

Yusufff

Same but with AQA Bio (and chem tbh)

Reply 8

The Panic Queen

Original post by Yusufff

Same but with AQA Bio (and chem tbh)

Yeah it's all been made so hard😩

Reply 9

Rockyboy

Last year grade boundaries for an A (physics, bio, chem) was 50% (my teacher told me), hopefully the same this year...

Reply 10

Hogthoughts

Yep same thing at my school. Sucks how we have to know the entire content and the practicals for both papers. Don't think that's possible :frown:

. Plus my biology department really let us down, they forced the last 2 modules of the book so that we'd be done with the spec. On our last lesson we started a new topic, imagine. When we should've been doing revision for the last 2 weeks at least. What about anyone else? Did you guys finish the spec in time

Reply 11

A.S.J

Not only OCR, CIE too!
They changed syllabus and are going crazy!
Like my chemistry exam( paper 4 A2) was hell. I usually got around 70 out of 100. and A was 64.
This paper? Idk , even 40 would be wow!

Reply 12

htrowslec

They seem very hard compared to the old spec, does anyone have any information on the grade boundaries for the specimen papers?

Reply 13

Vanilla Poison

Original post by htrowslec

They seem very hard compared to the old spec, does anyone have any information on the grade boundaries for the specimen papers?

I'm not sure you understand how grade boundaries work...

Reply 14

htrowslec

Original post by Vanilla Poison

I'm not sure you understand how grade boundaries work...

I do, don't worry. I was simply asking, as in the past exam boards have given teachers ballpark grade boundaries for specimen papers.

Reply 15

cleggj88

I got 66% in the specimen paper and i got 70% on the other paper

Reply 16

Laurasaur

I just did this paper out of boredom (I'm in year 13 doing the OCR A2 old spec).
I got 40/70 (57%) and considering I got full ums in my AS biology exams last year, I wouldn't worry. The grade boundaries will be lowered if everyone gets a low raw mark. :smile: