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Best Chemistry A level exam board?

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Annaconda

i do OCR Salters which is terrible, although apparantly the actual content is mroe interesting, the layout of it is SOO annoying

i think any exams which include the words "salters" or "nuffield" are crap,
which is why SNAB biology is so bad!

whats so bad about edexcel nuffield?

Yeah 'Salters Nuffield' sounds horrific!

I moved out of my old school because they did OCR Salters and my sister who did OCR Salters Chemistry advised me to look for another sixth form doing the course with a different board. I got slumped at a school doing Edexcel Nuffield and thought things would be better. There's a lot of bad things about Edexcel Nuffield Chemistry - but the significant area is the markschemes which ironically revolves around the whole grade at the end. They're very specific and will not credit you for answers outside the markscheme. There's very limited resources. The WHOLE course is based on applications of practical procedures with about 5% content worth of theory. The practical component is marked very harshly too. I ended up getting 53/60 in the coursework component losing 5 of those marks in ONE out of the four practicals. The grade boundary for an A is 50/60 too - so in fact you need to get higher than 80% RAW marks to get 72/90 (80% UMS). Yeah, the grade boundaries are quite high too. I personally blame that on literally being the only school in the UK to do the course. Well, slight exaggeration but seriously, out of 100 members who do A-Level Chemistry, you'll only find like 2 doing Edexcel Nuffield with most doing AQA and a small percentage doing OCR Salters.

Reply 21

Lukins

OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it OCR salters is terrible don't do it thats pretty much all there is to say

Die Die Nuffield.

I'm doing the normal edexcel chemistry and I dont think its too bad.

For some reason, we have OCR salters textbooks and from the look of it, its terrible.

Reply 24

Lulu*et*Moi

Wow so many people hate Salters..

AQA! Not.

Reply 25

soul02

i think aqa is not too bad

Reply 26

Caliowin

AQA is pretty good. Not too difficult and mainly exam based. Little or no cw (depends if you take the practical exam- in my school we do the cw, but its not hard)

Reply 27

SuicidalLemming

AQA isn't too terrible :smile:

Reply 28

Pigeon Explosion

Why all the hate for Edexcel Nuffield? :confused:

I don't find it too bad. Yet again, I've never seen what other exam boards require, so I don't have anything to compare it to. Also, my teacher makes flash cards, revision notes and revision disks e.t.c that we can buy cheap, which makes things a lot easier.

Reply 29

Ahmato

OCR salters...

...Aspects of Agriculture/Farming anyone? Without a doubt THE worst exam board ever.

Reply 30

JonnoE

WJEC is probably easiest, and AQA the hardest. As for the best, WJEC I would say as it tests what you know - simple factual recall and the occasional application of knowledge. AQA however, at times make you guess what the hell they mean and there is far more emphasis on exam technique rather than the exam content. Thumbs down for AQA, and up for WJEC.

Reply 31

andysmith25

I do OCR Salters, and don't think it's too bad, though I haven't seen anything from any other exam boards, so I can't really say.
How does it compare to others in terms of difficulty?

Reply 32

dark<>horizon

i would say AQA is the best, but not because it is "the easiest", but because it is so well resourced - past papers are available on the website, wity mark schemes and examiners reports, and there are LOADS of textbooks and revision guides/material to help you do reallly well.
It appears to me that this is not the case with other Chemistry specifications, e.g. OCR Salters.

Reply 33

P_Ben21

I'm self teaching next year, this is helping soooo much..Thanks all. I'll prob either go for edexcel or AQA :biggrin:

And burn anything that mentions salters or nuffield

Reply 34

hcblingbling

WJEC the little books they publish with the specs in are actually rubbish. its like they have just translated it from welsh cos half the time it doesnt make sense!!

WJEC is a doss

P_Ben21

I'm self teaching next year, this is helping soooo much..Thanks all. I'll prob either go for edexcel or AQA :biggrin:

And burn anything that mentions salters or nuffield

tbh you need to read specifications from all of the exam boards and find which one suits you best, not just go off opinions from here. but yeah dont do nuffield or ocr salters. but do look at ocr, edexcel and aqa and look at their specifications.