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My complaint email to OCR about Biology F215 June 2012

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Reply 300
Original post by tiny hobbit
How many different questions do you think they can make up about the same material?

I realise that this question was from the previous specification and so is no longer on the OCR website. However, does your school not use questions from old papers and encourage you to look at old mark schemes?

You have demonstrated that papers this old are freely available online.


Regardless of the question being a repetition the honest truth is that if you've had learnt the content and revised the syllabus then you would have been able to answer the question with ease .. complaining will not get you a better grade in my opinion unless the complaint was on a large scale
Reply 301
Tbh you are wasting your time, OCR will never change anything just because a few people complain, I am sure they get complaints every year.

I can understand how a copy and paste of the exact question gives a student that did the past paper and saw the mark scheme an advantage, but then again revising anything for the exam that comes up gives you an advantage, at the end of the day the repetition of the question does not give an UNFAIR advantage to ANYONE, the paper was online for ANYONE to access, and if your teachers did not give you the paper like other schools do, then you should blame your teachers and the way the Biology dept in your college gives out students resources, and not deflect the blame onto the exam board. Rules are rules, and OCR did not break any rules whatsoever in the repetition of the question. And yes, it has happened before, I had a question in my Physics Unit 5 exam where the question was laid out exactly in the same format, with the calculations requiring different numbers but there was one 4 marker in that question that was worded the exact same, with the exact same mark scheme.

Plus, it technically wont be the exact same question unless the mark scheme is EXACTLY the same, which of course, you don't know is true yet.
So.. how did people do? Was the complaint letter warranted? :teehee:
Original post by dudeathon
Plus, it technically wont be the exact same question unless the mark scheme is EXACTLY the same, which of course, you don't know is true yet.


I would be more worried if the question was the same and the mark scheme was different.
Reply 304
Original post by tiny hobbit
I would be more worried if the question was the same and the mark scheme was different.

Well, it is a biology paper, if you check past papers sometimes on 3 markers that are the same on some bio papers may have slightly different answers, on some years the answers may ask for a specific mark point whereas on others it may not.
Original post by TattyBoJangles
So.. how did people do? Was the complaint letter warranted? :teehee:


Somehow managed to get 143/150, ended up with an A*
You?
Reply 306
Lol so what do you expect?

OCR to say 'Oh I am so very sorry. As compensation you will be rewarded an A* for A-Level Biology, and a complimentary full UMS points!'
No.

It is annoying, but it is what happens. They re-use questions. They are well within their rights to do that.
They do it in English literature sometimes. It's so the teachers don't make the presumption that just because a question has been up before, it won't come up again. Nothing anyone can do about a question coming up twice. Kind of gutted I'm on AQA as I know all of the past papers back to front before I sit an exam.
Original post by tomtom415
Somehow managed to get 143/150, ended up with an A*
You?


Well done! :smile:
I got 150/150, and an A* too.
Original post by TattyBoJangles
Well done! :smile:
I got 150/150, and an A* too.


Congrats! I know of a few who got A* and high 140s in F215 despite finding it a horrendous exam!

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