Will no January exams have negative or positive effects?

Scroll to see replies

A teacher told me they did it to stop people from resitting the exams so many times, but why not just cap the number of exams students can resit?
They're making it extremely stressful for people, especially those who are taking 3 sciences and maths or similar.
They government want us to get better grades but that's not going to happen by making us sit all our exams at once, in my case 8 in 5 consecutive days.

A better solution would surely just to say that students can resit 1 module per subject or something?

Does it really matter though? The same number of people are going to get A's, B's and so on.

I can't fathom why they bother changing around the system. It is still going to result in the same people getting the highest results.

Reply 41

Frank the Tankk

During GCSEs I performed a lot worse in my Jan modules as I didn't revise with all the distractions over the xmas period so in science for example in Yr 11 (Yr 10 in England) I got a B in science and then an A* in June and the next year I went from a low A to full UMS. People may complain exams will become a "memory test", however, doing maths and physics means I essentially get to study mechanics twice and gives me more time to really get a solid base of knowledge down as I struggled at the start of the year and up to when I started covering M1 in maths. I'm cool with it as I get the full year to polish up on stuff I didn't do well in initially instead of ****ting myself if it got to december and was scraping through.

Reply 42

Substitution

so much to learn so little time

Reply 43

username1345959

I think I would've benefited from January exams. I'd rather have been put under immense pressure for the first few months rather than double the amount of pressure now. /:

Reply 44

AndrewGrace

For Year 12- positive- mocks give many students the 'kick up the arse' they need for the summer without having wider ramifications

For Year 13- negative- January exams take a lot of pressure off for summer, allow for re-sits if necessary and give the year 13s some idea of where they are in the lead up to summer exams

Reply 45

Moronic-Acid

Definitely negative. I can feel my hair receding already with the stress :frown:

I don't think many people will be prepared for the amount of revision that's coming up. I mean I have huge amounts to remember for chemistry and also with biology. I'm just glad I started revising relatively early.

Reply 46

TSR561

I'm seriously starting to feel the stress of revising the stuff I learned in September/October. 10 exams is no joke.

Reply 47

GeogBerry

Original post by AndrewGrace

So true.

My year (in second year of college) got the worst of both

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 48

Ndella

My school never did January exams and the statistics for A* - C grades are relatively high. Most people got As in my year (for STEM subjects), so I'm sure the scrapping of January exams could be pulled off and show a true reflection of the individual's intelligence. Also, in my opinion, I would be pretty intimidated by having to sit exams in Janurary, having in mind the school year started only a few months before - that's too much to learn for so little time.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 49

H0PEL3SS

Original post by Fortitude

What do you mean by changing your revision strategy?
Do you mean starting earlier?

Reply 50

RSmith1007

Original post by flyyoufools

Definitely negative but I feel like students should be allowed to choose (with input from teachers) whether or not they want to split them up or do them in one go. At AS, I only did C1 (maths) in January, out of choice, and I came out with 100%. We did mocks for CH1 and PH1 and I'm glad I didn't do them in January because I wouldn't have done well at all. This year (I'm in Wales) for A2, I did C3, PH4 and PH2(resit) in January. I got an A in C3 and PH2 but a C in PH4. If I'd had the choice, I don't think I would have done PH4 because I knew I wasn't ready for it.

Scrapping January exams completely is ridiculous because it puts far too much pressure on the summer exams. I have a friend who didn't do any Jan exams and she now has 6 exams in one week. I have another friend in a similar position with 9 exams over 2 weeks.

I agree it is bad but only because we are not used to it, things shouldn't have been changed in the first place because we changed to different exam methods and now were a going back more and more towards how it used to be. Thankfully though we don't have it as hard as people did 40 odd years ago, for A Levels they had to sit exams at the end of 2 years (no exams in the first year) and only have one shot at it. I think people of today have become to reliant on second chances and don't try hard enough the first time round, don't get me wrong I was pissed off when they got rid of January exams but what can we do :/

Reply 51

Basit2010

Original post by x__justmyluck

I did bio and chem A2 last year and did all my exams in the summer and got A*s in both. It's not that hard tbh.

I'm fortunate enough to have a very good memory so its no problem for me. And the purpose of the thread was just to see what the effects on the grade boundaries would be really as I feel they will be much lower as performance on the exams will drop.

Reply 52

ennahaspatience

I am in GCSE, but personally i glad they scraped the Jan exams for GCSEs, even though that means i have tonnes to revise. There are too many distraction throughout the years, and taking end of year exams allows me to progress properly, learn (ermm memorise?) better and more time for practice. Revising for exams throughout the year does not sit well with me, I would probably do worse that way. I can only assume the same for A-level

Reply 53

Minhdosing

For people who only have few exams (only A2 or AS) it will be positive because they don't have to revise much while other people who do 1 year a level will be under pressure!, so it's negative for them

about the boudaries I think it will be lower since many exams will be closer to each other. I have 10 exams in this summer C3,C4,D1,S1 and 3 in media and 4 in business studies. I have start revised and done past papers since february, so pretty confident about its, although sometimes i got silly mistakes but I think I can solve it out from now to the summer.

The chance of getting higher boudaries is not high because many people will get 2 exams in one day and may be 6 7 in a week :-ss. Unless you start revise early or have extremely good memory, you will not see this exam got so much opportunities to get high grade. Hard working is the key!!! Personally! I dont think many english student will think it is positive effect! I'm Asian

Reply 54

Fortitude

Original post by H0PEL3SS

What do you mean by changing your revision strategy?
Do you mean starting earlier?

Hi,

Yes it includes starting earlier but also changing the way that we revised from GCSE for example before our first A-Level exams, a lot of people (myself included) focused a lot on learning the material and ensuring that we would remember it (which was completely fine at GCSE) but did not put as much emphasis on past papers or practising questions. And it obviously varies from person to person but an another eg is that from GCSEs, drawing colourful mind maps was my main way of revising however, when it came to A-levels there was no way I was going to be able to draw mind maps for every topic, there was too much info and mind maps were too time consuming (I did try and I failed) so in the end, I decided to type up my notes and even though I wasn't too keen on black and white typed up notes (in stark contrast to the colourful mind maps I was used to drawing) I couldn't really think of any other way so that's what I went with. But surprisingly this method worked and fast forward to Jan results, the exam I used the typed notes for, I actually did well in.

Also the Jan exams taught me I really needed to practise my exam technique because even though I could've answered the questions, I would've missed out key words/phrases or not state the obvious but again during my Christmas revision, I hardly gave any thought to exam technique and instead focused more on knowing everything thinking that exam technique doesn't really make much difference.

So after my Jan exams, I knew exactly how to best revise and study and you can probably say that Jan exams were like an experiment to see which revision techniques work, which don't and what you need to work on and if you did well in the Jan AS exams, then that was great but if you didn't, you knew exactly how to improve which would be vital when it came to June and the results you achieved were of greater importance.

That was just me personally but I think the underestimation of exam technique was true for a lot of people but overall, the main point I was making was that the Year 12 Jan exams were kind of like experimenting however, by getting rid of them, there is no experimenting and I don't think mocks achieve the same effect.

Hope that clarified what I meant. :smile:

Reply 55

H0PEL3SS

Original post by Fortitude

Hi,

x

Thanks for clarifying, although I found my mocks helped me, but I guess everyone's different.
Out of curiosity, what subjects do you do?

Reply 56

Fortitude

Original post by H0PEL3SS

Thanks for clarifying, although I found my mocks helped me, but I guess everyone's different.
Out of curiosity, what subjects do you do?

Biology, Maths and Chemistry :smile:

Reply 57

username1002982

Original post by Fortitude

Negative. I was in the last year to have done A-Levels modular style and from my experience:

- We sat our first A level exams in Jan of year 12 and it was a massive shock, most people underperformed despite lots of studying but this taught us that we needed to change our revision strategy from GCSE and prepare differently for the exams so when it came to June, most people ended up doing much better which was obviously important as these results are what your predicted grades are based on and hence affect Uni decisions etc. However, if we hadn't had the opportunity to sit exams in Jan, we would never had known that the way we were studying/revising needed changing until after AS results (which is too late really) and even though we may have had mocks etc it's never the same.

- After Jan exams in year 13, we were able to calculate how close we were to our offers and how many marks we needed in final exams to achieve the grades we needed eg someone had worked really hard for Physics and achieved a high UMS, they only needed a D grade in their final exam to get a B overall hence they were able to focus more on their other exams.

- There was less pressure (still a lot though) as by the time you got to your final exams in A2, you'd have already sat through 3 exam seasons so by that time, I guess everyone was at their optimum best.

Anyway, that was just my personal experience and of course plenty of people have managed just fine by doing their A-Levels linear style so I reckon it varies depending on the individual hence why I think students should just be given a choice on what they prefer and the number of resits should be capped. (Plus if everyone doesn't do as well, then grade boundaries will be lower) Good Luck though for your exams! :smile:

Do you think schools having January mocks could help people change their revision strategies?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 58

Fortitude

Original post by Sheldor

Do you think schools having January mocks could help people change their revision strategies?

Posted from TSR Mobile

Yes, but depends largely on the individual as personally, mocks never meant much to me however, I've seen others who used to revise for mocks as if they were the real thing and stress over them. So the only issue I can see so far with Jan mocks is that if there's any coursework due in around that time, mock revision may be compromised plus having mocks months before the actual exam may not be such a great idea. I personally think that's too much of a gap because in terms of revision, you may have realised that your knowledge/exam preparation is in the form of a curve and when you've done enough revision and studying you'll feel like as if you can't do any more and feel bored, now this is when you've reached your peak and ideally, this should be as close as possible to the actual exam however, if people revise for these Jan mocks as if they're the real thing, there's a risk that they might reach this peak too soon and feel bored/unmotivated when it comes to the actual exam. So it's quite a weird situation because in order to change/improve revision strategies, the Jan mocks would have to be taken seriously but at the same not too seriously (which is unlikely to happen anyway) so again it depends on the individual because if someone decides to use the Jan mocks as an opportunity to try out different revision techniques and see which they prefer/is best for them, I don't see why the Jan mocks won't help.

But again, the mocks will never achieve the same effect as actual exams but the effect they achieve totally depends on the individual and there's no right or wrong as everyone has their own preferences when in comes to revision. Mocks for me, a lot of the time, used to get in the way of my own revision :tongue:

as I'd be taking my time (bearing in mind that I did actually have enough time before the actual exams) studying one unit at a time so I made sure I knew one unit properly before moving on to the next one however, then the mocks came along and you needed to know the whole module but I was still revising only one unit and I didn't want to rush and cram just for the mocks, so yeah, I never used to bother much about mocks.

I hope that kind of makes some sense but that's just my personal opinion of it and people should just use whatever method suits them or keep on trying different revision/studying methods until they find one that they benefit/like the most.

(I don't know why I always end up writing so much on this thread! :eek:

)

Reply 59

Flauta

Negative for me at least. I was aiming to do 8 of my exams in January to take the pressure off, now I'll have to do all 11 plus my 2 music controlled assessments in May/June :s-smilie: