The Student Room Group

Resits information and questions

With A-Level results due out in the coming weeks, many of you may have questions and concerns about how how the resit procedure works. This thread is to allow you to ask any questions you might have and help you to find guidance during what may be an understandably stressful time.

Deciding whether or not to resit: It can be a difficult decision deciding whether or not to resit and there are lots of questions you should ask yourself when you start considering whether or not to do so.

Is one result significantly lower than the others and also holding your overall grade down?
Are you close to getting the grade you want but you are just off by a few UMS?
Did you work as hard as you could of the first time round?
Do you have the time to study for the resit alongside any other upcoming exams without jepodising your potential to achieve good grades in them?

These questions are just a few to ask yourself and people have lots of different reasons for resitting, if you think you can improve your grades by resitting then that's the most important thing. Some people choose to resit when they don't really need to, such as only scraping a grade and wanting to boost themselves further into that grade, is it really worth the extra stress that brings?


When to resit: If you have just finished AS and want to do resits then ideally you should do them either in January or subsequent June, but as you will have A2 exams I would do them in January when you are likely to have less of them. I also wouldn't do more than 2/3 at a time if you are resitting alongside studying for A2. 8 AS resits and 8 A2 exams would be enough to create a stress overload for anyone.

If you have just finished A2 then it's really up to you which exam session you decide to resit in, if you resit in January you will get another opportunity again in June but this all really comes down to your school and personal preference. This wiki article is a good resource to look for past experiences.


University views on resits: Most universities are fine with the odd resit however the higher end universities, particularly Oxbridge and other top 10 universities and applicants for Medicine courses don't tend to like them stating that if you need resits you are likely to struggle with the course. So please check this out before diving straight into resits that may be pointless.


Please keep all discussion of resits in this thread. If anyone has any information that the think should be added into this opening post, please let me know (quote me) and I'll take a look.

Good luck to everyone getting their results shortly! :biggrin:

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Hi can anyone help me out here.

1) I just want to know is it for certain we can resit our A2 papers again in January, June 2010? the last specification.

2) How do u apply for resits for those A2 exam papers when u are no longer in college anymore? is it through ringing up AQA Exam board?

3) Where do u resit the papers?

4) Can anybody resit their A2 papers again in 2010 January or June?
or do u need to have special reasons in order for you to resit it again?

5) When do u or allowed to apply for the resits for A2 exam in January/june?

I don't want to ask my teacher because they just going to go mad and get even more worried!
I messed up my A2 papers badly. helpppp!
:frown: :s-smilie: :confused:
Thanks and appreciation for replying. I will feel less panicked because now I feel as if my hopes are all gone!
I am taking a gap year to work full time, save up and do resits and reapply UCAS! :rolleyes:
1. You can only retake in Jan not Jun (except possibly OCR exams)
2. You can apply through your college, just ask them to enter you for whichever exams you need to retake.
3. In college
4. Anybody
5. I think around October time
Reply 3
can you re-sit AS exams old sylabus?!
Reply 4
You cant' resit the old spec in june 2010, the last date to resit them is in january 2010

normally if your not in school than you would need to find a college/ centre that allows 'external candidates' to sit A-level exams. And you obviously have to pay for each papers you sit, e.g. entry fee.

heres is a link from the AQA website, it a list all the centres for external candidates across the UK that run AQA exams.

http://store.aqa.org.uk/admin/library/AQA-PRIVCAND-CENTRES.PDF
Reply 5
As others as said you have to sort it out for yourself by contacting exams officers as local schools/colleges.

Do bear in mind that just because the exam board is producing the resit paper in Jan 2010 does not mean any particular school/college will decide to offer it to students. Unless they have full time students who also want it they may decide it's too much trouble to deal with the admin and invigilation. You made need to shop around for somewhere that will take you and therefore need to be quite proactive contacting exams officers when the new term starts. Your best hope is always your original school/college who may accept you as a private candidate as they have a relationship with you.

[G4GGYboss]
The last AS resit opportunity for the old spec was May/June 09 (i.e. now)
J4GGYBoss
can you re-sit AS exams old sylabus?!


NO you can't.
Reply 7
sel1234
You cant' resit the old spec in june 2010, the last date to resit them is in january 2010

normally if your not in school than you would need to find a college/ centre that allows 'external candidates' to sit A-level exams. And you obviously have to pay for each papers you sit, e.g. entry fee.

heres is a link from the AQA website, it a list all the centres for external candidates across the UK that run AQA exams.

http://store.aqa.org.uk/admin/library/AQA-PRIVCAND-CENTRES.PDF

thanks, very helpful =)). abit worried that it may not be that easy to apply resits =(
Reply 8
gdunne42
As others as said you have to sort it out for yourself by contacting exams officers as local schools/colleges.

Do bear in mind that just because the exam board is producing the resit paper in Jan 2010 does not mean any particular school/college will decide to offer it to students. Unless they have full time students who also want it they may decide it's too much trouble to deal with the admin and invigilation. You made need to shop around for somewhere that will take you and therefore need to be quite proactive contacting exams officers when the new term starts. Your best hope is always your original school/college who may accept you as a private candidate as they have a relationship with you.

[G4GGYboss]
The last AS resit opportunity for the old spec was May/June 09 (i.e. now)

thanks for warning me and the advice! helpful... atleast i can start to prepare and arrange it and do my best to hope i can resit the exams i want =))
Reply 9
Probably a little early to be thinking about this considering I haven't even received my results yet, but I know I ****** up big time (never leaving revision until the night before again!.) I was wondering, do AS resits have to be done in January or is it possible to do them in June? I know some people last year did them in June, but I think that because they messed up their Jan resits again, do we have to do them in January or can we just do them straight in June time? Will it change anything to do with my UCAS?
tillytots
Probably a little early to be thinking about this considering I haven't even received my results yet, but I know I ****** up big time (never leaving revision until the night before again!.) I was wondering, do AS resits have to be done in January or is it possible to do them in June? I know some people last year did them in June, but I think that because they messed up their Jan resits again, do we have to do them in January or can we just do them straight in June time? Will it change anything to do with my UCAS?


Hi
You should be able to resit in jan and june. I think it depends on your college and department becasue my psychology department would only allow jan resits if you got below a c but that was because there was a long piece of coursework planned for that time so unless it was really important to resit you had to wait until the summer. However, maths would allow you to reit in both without any problems.

I would suggest you talk to the subject teacher to see if you can retake in january. it is very unlikely that they will say no so you should be fine. If you have a lot to retake, i would suggest splitting them over jan and june.

And No, it shoudlnt affect your UCAS application. you get offers based on your interview and predicted grades. there interested in what you get at the end of the two years not on individual modules
My AS Math which i took on may/jun 2009 is A for both components but my overall math A level result this may jun 2010 is C.I guess the A2 papers pulled me down. Would it be possible to resit just the A2 papers? (use the previous AS result for the final overall?)
For some courses (I'm thinking medicine here) most unis only accept A levels taken "in one sitting". Does this mean they won't allow you to re-take modules, or they won't allow you to re-take the entire course?
cowleya
For some courses (I'm thinking medicine here) most unis only accept A levels taken "in one sitting". Does this mean they won't allow you to re-take modules, or they won't allow you to re-take the entire course?

that means you can retake as many times, however your must complete your a levels in 2 years only.
Reply 14
Im not really looking forward yo my results cause i know i either just scraped them or failed. If I was to resit in my 6th form there is an amount of exams you can resit, i was just wondering if, is there an exam center where you can enter yourself for the exam and you pay yourself, and how much would it cost per exam?
Cravez
that means you can retake as many times, however your must complete your a levels in 2 years only.


(Phew) Thanks Cravez for making it clear what the Medical schools mean. I was getting worried for a minute.
H.Maleki
Im not really looking forward yo my results cause i know i either just scraped them or failed. If I was to resit in my 6th form there is an amount of exams you can resit, i was just wondering if, is there an exam center where you can enter yourself for the exam and you pay yourself, and how much would it cost per exam?


Some 6th forms limit you, like mine says no more than 4 resits but you should have to pay regardless of where you do them. If there is another exam centre you ccan try and get yourself entered there but if you are sitting other exams at the same time you may want to be careful doing that incase you have a clash or something annoying :p:
Reply 17
letsdothetimewarpagain
Some 6th forms limit you, like mine says no more than 4 resits but you should have to pay regardless of where you do them. If there is another exam centre you ccan try and get yourself entered there but if you are sitting other exams at the same time you may want to be careful doing that incase you have a clash or something annoying :p:


In my 6th form exam retakes are £10 if you enter yourseflf early, after the date it becomes £30. How much will it cost to enter yourself in a different school?
Reply 18
Cravez
that means you can retake as many times, however your must complete your a levels in 2 years only.


My school completely screwed us over and made my whole year take both AS and A2 after 2 years, in one sitting. So we had no chance for retakes. Do you think this would be kind of an exception to what you said?... for medicine?
Vintage05
My school completely screwed us over and made my whole year take both AS and A2 after 2 years, in one sitting. So we had no chance for retakes. Do you think this would be kind of an exception to what you said?... for medicine?

your best bet would be to actually ask the admissons tutors of the uni's your are looking to apply to. sorry i cant be of much help - i dont want to give you false information though.

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