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Will no January exams have negative or positive effects?

Basit2010

I've thought about this for a while now, personally I hate that they got rid of January exams as I've never done all of my exams in one sitting (June) I've always been entered early for the first units and in January which just meant I had a lot less exams and more time to concentrate on each.

I've seen that not many people have started revision and that they've underestimated the amount of information they have to revise for as this is their first time doing all the exams at once..

As a result of that I have a feeling that the overall performance on the exams this summer will be very low and that will lead to lower grade boundaries - does anybody agree? Or do you think that they will do better as they've had 'more time'

- regarding A2 Sciences and Maths only

(edited 10 years ago)

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Reply 1

Okkefac

I thought the point of making the exams later was to make it harder, which really doesn't seem fair if I'll get lower grades than the year before me. Results (at least for GCSE, I don't remember the A level ones since I'm in year 12 so kinda new to this) dropped the last two years for the first time ever, so I suspect in general they're trying to make them harder or something.

I was quite bad at January exams in GCSE though (like, an exam only after like 3 months of learning the content, it seemed ridiculous) and had to resit one of the sciences, then when it came to the June exams at the end of year 11 for sciences I did really well, I guess because I had more practice and everything. So, in a way, I'm happy with the January exams being scrapped, however I do fear that people will do badly here because it's their first try, and then have to resit in June next year with all the A2 exams D:

Reply 2

atiyaaloveszaynx

I think negative. Luckily in GCSE I was the last year to have the exams in January before it went linear. I found it quite satisfying, because I did my science exam in January year 10, and was able to retake it in year 11 January. Then in Year 11, I did 1 Ethic exam and 2 Science, however I did maths in November, so I found that better as it meant I only had 12 exams. I don't think it'll have positive effects as without January exams students won't know when to revise or what to do to improve in May/June, and with all the exams at the end of the year, it can create a heavy burden on work and stress, and could result in low grades, so I'm lucky to have been the year without that chance. However it's not good in A levels, because now I have 10 exams in May!

Reply 3

Jkizer

Overall negative i think. Especially for subjects which heavily rely on memorising content. Some students just wont be able to handle it.

I think some subjects like Maths wont really have any changes in boundaries but memory subjects may have very slightly changes in boundaries.

Reply 4

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.

Reply 5

Abby_W31

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?

Reply 6

William Turtle

For maths it is certainly the case that the exams get easier with more time. C1 will be easier when you've done C2, and so on. With science, aside from the final modules which include more synoptic elements, there's not much overlap. Still, I think there could be a slight improvement in people's performance in their first sittings.

So, I suppose, AS results will improve and A2 results (because people can't resit) will get worse.

Reply 7

Hoosierette

NEGATIVE BRING THEM BACK PLEASE.

It's making exams into more of a memory test -_-

Reply 8

Abby_W31

Original post by Hoosierette

NEGATIVE BRING THEM BACK PLEASE.

It's making exams into more of a memory test -_-

I agree, they should make exams more about ability to understand the subject than ability to memorise facts!

Reply 9

_Ddraig_

I think a cap on resits would have been more beneficial than ruling out January exams.

At A-level especially it is going to increase the pressure on students when it comes to meeting university requirements. I think that if upcoming students underperform in June AS, then they won't feel confident to apply for more competitive universities.

If anything, they should have allowed for re-sits during January just to relieve stress from students.

Reply 10

lilovethebio

Do you guys ultimately think AS grade boundaries for Sociology,Biology,Chemistry and History will most likely go down from previous years since its all at the end of the year (No jan exams) or do you think only the A2 exam boundaries go down? My teacher said shes expecting the exams to be really nice this year as the boards will have been told to make them nice so it gives everyone a good impression of the new linear system ,so people dont complain and stuff, but shes expecting them to go much harsher again next year onw ards? :/ Dont know if shes just going bonkers though hahaha :smile:

Reply 11

alow

Positive. It will make getting high grades in exams harder, which is always a good thing.

Reply 12

lilovethebio

Original post by alow

Positive. It will make getting high grades in exams harder, which is always a good thing.

So in some respects this year is probably a really good year to sit your AS exams if you dont let the workload get on top of you and do alot of revision

Reply 13

alow

Original post by lilovethebio

So in some respects this year is probably a really good year to sit your AS exams if you dont let the workload get on top of you and do alot of revision

Yeah. If you're very well prepared (and vaguely intelligent) then you will probably do better as there will be more people who are less prepared than there were before.

Reply 14

Goods

Original post by alow

Positive. It will make getting high grades in exams harder, which is always a good thing.

I envisage the ums will be more favourable as people will most likely not perform so well, but i dont think it will really change the proportions of people getting grades only the grade boundaries.

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Reply 15

alow

Original post by Goods

Yeah that's probably what will happen.

It'll be easier to get full UMS though :colone:

Reply 16

lilovethebio

But then if you also think about it they could just keep the boundaries the same even though people generally will perform worse, and just have less people getting top grades, as Gove and what have you are constantly going on about how too many people are getting top grades.

Reply 17

Sayonara

Neutral. The grade boundaries will naturally be lower (probably), therefore I do not see much problem.

Less people abusing "resitting" the same exam too many times.
Less work for examiners and exam boards.

However, people can be sick on certain days and a resit may be required.

Reply 18

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:

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 19

Basit2010

Original post by lilovethebio

Grade boundaries are determined based on everyone's performance.

I just have this strange gut feeling that grade boundaries for Biology Chem A2 will drop massively. The amount of content you need to know for Biology F214 and F215 and then apply it in a sitting is absolutely shocking and to be honest the majority of people I know have said they wont be able to cope. But then again this will be good for some people with good memories and who have started revision since January/Feb..