Should I appeal? Was given wrong information when doing GCSE French

Ok so when I was in year 10 back in 2013 I took AQA GCSE French and ended up getting an A. Now i'm not saying im not grateful for my A I am but I was given wrong information from my teacher about the writing tasks which led my grade to go down. In my speaking, reading and listening I got overall A* however in my writing I got an A and a B I got this because my teacher said to me I could only write a maximum of 600 words between two tasks which I thought is crazy because thats hardly nothing as it would be roughly 300 words each! Especially when the success criteria says detail is needed for an A*. So of course I didn't question it because teacher knows best right? But it wasnt until this year when a new french teacher came and said that there was no limit on the words you could write and my previous french teacher was wrong.

Of course I was angered by this because I really deserved an A* especially as every single task I did came to an overall A* and I worked SO SO SO hard! Plus so much time was wasted actually counting the words in the hour I was meant to write in. Should I tell AQA and appeal? What would happen if I did? Do you think it would go in my favor, or is it over with now??

Reply 1

gdunne42

You have no basis for an appeal (it is not the job of the examiners to compensate for you not knowing the requirements of an exam even if it wasn't entirely your fault) but you could not submit one anyway for results that were certified in 2013.

Posted from TSR Mobile

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

suzywithaZY

Actually, your teacher was pretty much correct. I was told that there was no limit, but the recommendation was around 300 words per task of excellent french. More than that and it would turn into babble. I did this and got an A* in my french writing. So you can't really blame your grades on misinformation, sorry :/ Nothing will come of your appeal I'm afraid.
Spending an hour counting is ridiculous, it takes at most 5 minutes.

Reply 3

sarah385

Original post by thechemistress

But I was told a maximum...and I didnt spend an hour lol read again!

Reply 4

suzywithaZY

Original post by sarah385

But I was told a maximum...and I didnt spend an hour lol read again!

Sorry to come across as rude but I'm just being frank. Yes, you were given incorrect information but in this day and age where a lot of information is available online, you could easily have searched this up. I don't think you're going to get much out of the appeal but go for it if you really want to.
Even so, spending a lot of time counting is ridiculous. As I said, it takes 5 minutes.

Reply 5

sarah385

Original post by thechemistress

To be "frank" with you I was adding that for effect any idiot knows u memorise the bloody thing.

Reply 6

suzywithaZY

Original post by sarah385

To be "frank" with you I was adding that for effect any idiot knows u memorise the bloody thing.

Then what's your point? I said you can try and appeal if you want to, but I don't think you will gain anything from it. I could be wrong though. 300 words is enough to get an A* - I think you're trying to find ways to blame somebody else for your writing grades.
Good luck with the appeal.

Reply 7

Petulia

Ask your current French teacher if they think it's worth appealing. I don't think that writing more than 300 words would have helped your grade though, since there usually is an advised limit on how much you should write, even if it's not fixed. Even at AS Level French, writing more than 200-250 words in the essay question can lose you marks. An A in GCSE French is still good, and even if you appeal you'll probably have to retake the exam if you want to move your grade up.

Reply 8

sarah385

Original post by thechemistress

Well you can "think" what you want. I dont need your luck tanx

Reply 9

sarah385

Original post by Petulia

Yh suppose you're right tanx

Reply 10

suzywithaZY

Original post by sarah385

Well you can "think" what you want. I dont need your luck tanx

No need to be aggressive simply because I didn't think you should appeal. If you are so convinced that you must appeal, what's the point of making a thread about it on here?

Reply 11

samba

Sure you can appeal. It won't get you anywhere though.

Amusing that you're 'angered' when you didn't bother researching things properly too.

Reply 12

samba

Original post by thechemistress

No need to be aggressive simply because I didn't think you should appeal. If you are so convinced that you must appeal, what's the point of making a thread about it on here?

The OP was aggressive in itself. What did you expect? She feels entitled to the A*, and is convinced that it must be somebody elses fault when things didn't go her way.

Reply 13

Carnationlilyrose

The question is pointless. The window of opportunity for a remark of a GCSE taken in 2013 closed in 2013.

Reply 14

Musie Suzie

Surely if there had been an actual word limit it would have been printed on the question paper? So if no word count was stated on the paper you shouldn't have adhered to one.

You also wrote above about having memorised what you were going to write beforehand, in which case you had loads of time to come up with 600 words of amazing French, but what you had was of a standard below A*. It is very difficult to be equally strong across all disciplines of a language without being a native speaker - you did well and just need to move on.

Reply 15

sarah385

Original post by thechemistress

No need to be aggressive simply because I didn't think you should appeal. If you are so convinced that you must appeal, what's the point of making a thread about it on here?