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Which A-level exam board do you hate and why?

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Original post by Instincts_2012
OCR is a son of a bitch when it comes to Sciences.

The exam is meant to consist of 3 modules, as evenly as possible. No, 80% of the Biology exam focused on ****ing evolution. Suck my nuts OCR.


The other 20% is biodiversity.....
Original post by JulietheCat
Yeah like the f(|x|) that I've seen in aqa C3. The only place where I saw it before is Edexcel papers. They also took a Solomon paper question and put it in C4, though a slightly different equation but the amount of marks and wording was exactly the same. I was lucky to have done such a similar question - my classmates couldn't handle it though. :frown:

Aqa are complete copycats...


That was on the this years june one wasn't it? I was like the only person in my class to get it right :biggrin:
Reply 62
Original post by Off_My_Planet
OCR - because of their habit of putting completely pointless questions in their psychology core papers, that in no way determines a person's intelligence e.g. "What were the names of the TWO pygmy chimpanzees studied?" Very helpful... :facepalm:


Wasn't it Kanzi and Mulika in Savage Rambaughs study? haha i did that for psychology AS last year, stupidest study ever
AQA - The textbooks for Further Maths units textbooks are useless and so is the Geography textbook.
OCR- The Biology Coursework is ludicrously specific, i lost two marks for writing "slightly cloudy" for an observation of a reaction when the correct answer was "less clear". I also lost two marks for describing the "rate of change" of the reaction to be increasing when interpreting a graph rather than the gradient.....
Edexcel because they don't have examiners who actually do the subjects they mark!

For Physics my friend got a U (and she is good at physics), my teacher took it to the head examiner, she looked at it and said she should have got AT LEAST a C.
Reply 65
how can you expect any exam board to be good when the education system is run by a load of pricks? *cough* Michael Gove *cough*
Original post by criminal
Wasn't it Kanzi and Mulika in Savage Rambaughs study? haha i did that for psychology AS last year, stupidest study ever


Well done for remembering lol but does it really deserve marks at AS level? :s-smilie:
WJEC due to the ridiculously strict mark scheme in Computing.
Original post by blacklistmember
the person who set the questions was the chimpanzee :tongue:


haha lol you might have something there!
Reply 69
AQA can't mark English exams
OCR for the D1 paper they gave us last June. It had a question you couldn't answer (the answer you had to prove was wrong), a linear programming question with two rotations, which took ages, and didn't test anything new the second time around, questions that required you to draw diagrams, with no space to draw the diagram in... Bit of a disaster. :P
Reply 71
Sign this e-petition to merge the exam boards into one please! Only takes a minute.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/35132
Reply 72
Original post by Off_My_Planet
Well done for remembering lol but does it really deserve marks at AS level? :s-smilie:


It definitely shouldn't do, but I wouldn't say psychology is easy. The first year is but the A2 exam was hard. Much much harder than the first year. I had to learn around 60ish case studies
Original post by Rainingshame
That was on the this years june one wasn't it? I was like the only person in my class to get it right :biggrin:


You mean the parametric stationary points? If so, same. :smile:
Original post by criminal
It definitely shouldn't do, but I wouldn't say psychology is easy. The first year is but the A2 exam was hard. Much much harder than the first year. I had to learn around 60ish case studies


Oh yeah I definitely agree with that - I don't mind never having to sit the the options paper again!
Reply 75
OCR MEI for Maths, the way they word things is annoying.
Reply 76
Original post by moorbre
What's been wrong with the boundaries? I haven't noticed anything :s-smilie:


For Jan 2012, you needed 69/75 for 80 UMS - so 92% for an A
68/75 for 80 UMS on M2 - 91%
Jan 2011, C4: 69/75 for 80 UMS

The way they set the boundaries means you don't need to get 75/75 to get 100 UMS, but you do need ridiculously high marks to get an A. (Not all the time, but for the exams I've sat unluckily)

The actual course is good, I just think instead of having papers that make it really hard for people to get A*, who understand what they're doing but make stupid mistakes like postive/negative signs when cubing etc, the papers should be harder in general, and with more standard grade boundaries.

My friend does AQA Maths, he's resitting AS year and gone from a U or E to an A, which doesn't seem right to me. Looking at what people have written about it, seems to be a much easier exam AND with lower grade boundaries.

Do Universities take exam boards into consideration with offers/grades? (in A2 and already got offers and stuff, but just curious)
Reply 77
The OCR moderators for art & design are completely AAGGHHH. And so inconsistent, last years second year for one course at my college got moderated down a total of 24 marks - two grades! :angry:

Having had a nice history paper I quite like AQA right now.
aqa, and in particular for biology. they put too many 'how science works questions'.

I think edexcel are good for maths, they are pretty consistent and don't make mistakes with the questions.
Reply 79
AQA.. Only because their Econ3 paper has annihilated my chances of getting into uni

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