Edexcel GCSE History A: Unit 3, Sources. June 7th 2011, Post Exam Discussion

Original post by blaquebeau

hii im doing the medicine through time paper on the 14th :s-smilie:

not really prepared though :colondollar:

just wondering how you find it ?
any tips.....??!
thank you!!

This is the one i struggled with, purely because i had never done a history paper before, it was my first and i didn't know how much to write for each.

So because of that i found it hard. Just try and make sure that you know how much to write for each part and then make sure you know all the key dates and key people in medicine. Good Luck, i'm sure you will do well :smile:

Reply 21

Virtue23

Thank God.. Hopefully my other grades will push it up if I get a low grade on this. Thanks you two.

Reply 22

OP

Does anyone want me to write an email (or if anyone else is willing to that would be even better :smile:

) on behalf of us to Edexcel regarding the difficulty of the exam and possibly lowering grade boundaries? I just thought it might clear everything up :smile:

Sorry to hear everyone else did badly. My school doesn't approve of resits, so unless we all fail disastrously or I resit and another centre (unlikely), I'm a bit stuffed. :s-smilie:

EDIT: For anyone who did the USA 1945-1970 paper, what was with Question 3? How far do that sources agree with what? It gave the name of a movement, nothing in particular to agree with :s-smilie:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 23

blaquebeau

Original post by shaminn

This is the one i struggled with, purely because i had never done a history paper before, it was my first and i didn't know how much to write for each.

So because of that i found it hard. Just try and make sure that you know how much to write for each part and then make sure you know all the key dates and key people in medicine. Good Luck, i'm sure you will do well :smile:

aww thanx
this is my last paper though so im kinda worried really wanna get that A*
i have an A IN Germany and the c/w
but i really need to get the highest in my class .......
( coz im retaking it'll )
i don't know how i'll survive the whole summer without knowing all my final grades
NIGHTMARE
soz for goin on :biggrin:

GOODLUCK TO YA!!

Reply 24

shaminn

Original post by Virtue23

I think we did different exams then, because mine was just about Churchill and his role in the war. I think I wrote something like 3 pages for the 16 marker.

Does anyone know what percentage this exam is worth?

Oh i forgot to say, did you run out of time or did you manage to finish accordingly? I think if i remember correctly i wrote 2 pages for 16 marker cos i began to run out of time :/

Im getting worried now!

Reply 25

x Invictus

Anyone else fall foul to not seeing the last source (F) on the last page. The source booklet was rather deceiving as sources D and E occupied half the page and on the other side a minuscule source F took up maybe an 1/8 of the page. I managed to see it within the last couple of means and managed to get a couple of sentences in at the end. Many of my friends didn't see it. A rather stupid move on the exam boards part... :-/

Reply 26

shaminn

Original post by blaquebeau

aww thanx
this is my last paper though so im kinda worried really wanna get that A*
i have an A IN Germany and the c/w
but i really need to get the highest in my class .......
( coz im retaking it'll )
i don't know how i'll survive the whole summer without knowing all my final grades
NIGHTMARE
soz for goin on :biggrin:

GOODLUCK TO YA!!

Haha! Ahh im sure you will do really well, so don't stress too much. And you're right about the whole 'waiting game' for results! I really don't know how i am going to manage it, i'm gonna have to find a distraction.

Reply 27

OP

Original post by x Invictus

Anyone else fall foul to not seeing the last source (F) on the last page. The source booklet was rather deceiving as sources D and E occupied half the page and on the other side a minuscule source F took up maybe an 1/8 of the page. I managed to see it within the last couple of means and managed to get a couple of sentences in at the end. Many of my friends didn't see it. A rather stupid move on the exam boards part... :-/

Which paper was this? The USA? I agree, I only saw when I turned my paper over in fristration at the end after I failed to even complete a page on the 16 marker :mad:

Reply 28

x Invictus

Original post by Pandora.

Which paper was this? The USA? I agree, I only saw when I turned my paper over in fristration at the end after I failed to even complete a page on the 16 marker :mad:

Yeah it was the 16-marker on the USA paper.

Reply 29

Lily Academia

Original post by Virtue23

It was horrible. Completely horrible. All the people who take History and who are in my class agreed it was difficult.

The inference question was easy. From there on, it was just disastrous. It was difficult to use the sources to answer the questions. It was bad enough having to dissect the source while the clock was ticking. I don't think I'll be doing History at A level if it's all about analyzing sources.

I really hope the grade boundaries will be lowered. I got A for Germany 1919-39, A* for International Relations, but estimated a B for the Vietnam war controlled assessment.

Maybe this is horrible for me to say.. but I'm glad you guys found it fairly difficult too. Makes me feel less alone.

Edit: I'm kind of confused - did you do the General Election 1945 one?

I took this one. Worst topic that could have EVER come up.

So hard to incorperate own knowledge - I think the only decent thing I included in the essay was Churchill's hyperbolic comparison of Atlee to Gestapo which significantly lowered the Conservatives' popularity - although mention of this was omitted in the sources. Horrid exam though - so many people in my year missed source F!

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 30

Virtue23

Original post by shaminn

Oh i forgot to say, did you run out of time or did you manage to finish accordingly? I think if i remember correctly i wrote 2 pages for 16 marker cos i began to run out of time :/

Im getting worried now!

I kind of rushed the 10 markers because I knew I needed to spend extra time on the 16 marker because obviously it was worth more. I could have done with a little more time on the 16 marker but I'm 90% satisfied with it. I ran out of time for the minor questions.

And there was a source F? This is worrying me... I didn't see a source F, only sources A - E. Was it on the back page?

Reply 31

OP

I've heard the horror story of that recent maths exam with the impossible question, which everyone says was absolute hell. I didn't for one minute think I'd suffer with one myself :mad:

At least we didn't have an impossible question :biggrin:

Reply 32

x Invictus

Original post by Virtue23

I kind of rushed the 10 markers because I knew I needed to spend extra time on the 16 marker because obviously it was worth more. I could have done with a little more time on the 16 marker but I'm 90% satisfied with it. I ran out of time for the minor questions.

And there was a source F? This is worrying me... I didn't see a source F, only sources A - E. Was it on the back page?

Yeah. :-(

Reply 33

Virtue23

Why are exam boards so sneaky? I really hope we don't lose too many marks over it..

Reply 34

Hdizzle

9

I come bearing good news.
regardless of the fact that the student movement came up i wouldn't had been prepared XP

our head of dep spoke to everyone at the end.
-told us not to panic. FSM wasn't part of the syllabus and it was a very difficult paper. he's going to write a letter of complaint which is all good. obviously the grade boundaries will be low- being a history teacher for a while i'm sure his judgement of the difficulty of the paper would be pretty sound.

don't let it discourage you, from what i've seen everyone got excellent grades in the cw and exams.

Reply 35

OP

Original post by Hdizzle

I come bearing good news.
regardless of the fact that the student movement came up i wouldn't had been prepared XP

our head of dep spoke to everyone at the end.
-told us not to panic. FSM wasn't part of the syllabus and it was a very difficult paper. he's going to write a letter of complaint which is all good. obviously the grade boundaries will be low- being a history teacher for a while i'm sure his judgement of the difficulty of the paper would be pretty sound.

don't let it discourage you, from what i've seen everyone got excellent grades in the cw and exams.

LIFE SAVER!! Tell your Head of Dep thanks for the complaint :biggrin:

Although I haven't done any more exams yet, but I'm looking forward to doing coursework (Jack the Ripper :teeth:

) ,so hopefully I'll be able to get those A/A* grades if I try my hardest :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 36

Lily Academia

Original post by Virtue23

I kind of rushed the 10 markers because I knew I needed to spend extra time on the 16 marker because obviously it was worth more. I could have done with a little more time on the 16 marker but I'm 90% satisfied with it. I ran out of time for the minor questions.

And there was a source F? This is worrying me... I didn't see a source F, only sources A - E. Was it on the back page?

Same - I wrote around 4 pages for the 16 marker but really didn't write enough for the utility question 4. I only wrote about a page and a half for those two 10 mark questions...

And yes. Source F was on the back. It was so sneaky of them. I know so many people who missed it entirely AND didn't finish the essay. Horrid, horrid exam. Why couldn't it have been about WAR? Or propoganda? Why the election? :grumble:

Reply 37

Hdizzle

9

Original post by Pandora.

LIFE SAVER!! Tell your Head of Dep thanks for the complaint :biggrin:

LOL
he loves doing those "strongly worded letters"
will pass on the message :smile:

Reply 38

OP