Low grade boundaries for AS new spec?

Hi,

Not sure if everyone else is finding it the same, but at my sixth form everyone is finding the new specs ridiculously hard - especially biology and chemistry (both OCR.) I know of only a handful of people achieving As. People are dropping off AS biology like flies, and a lot of people are getting U grades.
Is this a common trend across the country or is it just my sixth form which is struggling like this?
Hopefully if this is the case the grade boundaries will be really low this year. What percentage do you think will be the minimum for an A?

Reply 1

username1909405

9

Yeah, there's something going on with the conservative party to make the exams harder because apparently too many people are succeeding, and we are the first year to suffer from it sadly. In my school, about 70% got U's or E's in the recent mock exams for biology and chemistry from what I know.

Reply 2

thefatone

6

Original post by Leona-L

Hi,

Not sure if everyone else is finding it the same, but at my sixth form everyone is finding the new specs ridiculously hard - especially biology and chemistry (both OCR.) I know of only a handful of people achieving As. People are dropping off AS biology like flies, and a lot of people are getting U grades.
Is this a common trend across the country or is it just my sixth form which is struggling like this?
Hopefully if this is the case the grade boundaries will be really low this year. What percentage do you think will be the minimum for an A?

i think it's the board which sets ou t a difficult specification which is the problem

i mean i'm getting Cs in chem but i think we're doing AQA which seems much easier than OCR(just had a look now)

Reply 3

jamestg

21

Original post by Leona-L

Hi,

Not sure if everyone else is finding it the same, but at my sixth form everyone is finding the new specs ridiculously hard - especially biology and chemistry (both OCR.) I know of only a handful of people achieving As. People are dropping off AS biology like flies, and a lot of people are getting U grades.
Is this a common trend across the country or is it just my sixth form which is struggling like this?
Hopefully if this is the case the grade boundaries will be really low this year. What percentage do you think will be the minimum for an A?

People getting Us and dropping like flies was the same as before. It is NOT a symptom of the new spec.

The grade boundaries are usually quite low for biology anyway, sometimes it can be 50% for an A!

Reply 4

Kozmo

10

I think it's easy to jump to conclusions and blame the fact that it's new spec - I have done myself. But, the content is essentially the same, bar the assessed practicals (at least it is with AQA), so it can't have got much more difficult.
I do, however, think the grade boundaries will be lower this testing year because it's a new spec, with a whole new idea of 'assessed practicals' which everyone are new to, and thus nationally people are less likely to do as well as in previous years in which teachers have taught a spec for many years on end.
Although - it could completely go the other way, relatively easy papers could be released and grade boundaries may be higher than ever.

The joys of being one of the academic guinea pig generation, I suppose.

Reply 5

cleggj88

5

I am on the same spec as you for biology and am predicted a A, as a suggestion for biology if you are struggling is to make notes from the textbook, then add questions from the textbook to your notes

Low grade boundaries for AS new spec?

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