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Edexcel GCSE P3 exam 24th May 2012

I haven't seen any threads about this exam so i thought i might start one.. The exam, i thought, was absolutely horrid. Pathetic questions, I'm sure i lost some stupid marks. How did you guys think it went?
Reply 1
I agree, and I think most people in my year group found the exam annoying as well. Things like ultra sound that aren't even in the revision guide were included and this seemed to confuse everyone. I pannicked on the ECG question and lost some really easy marks :frown: Lets hope the grade boundaries are low...


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Reply 2
I found the exam Hard , There was alot of hard questions such as the ultra sound ,proton therapy used to treat cancer ?wtf What did you guys think of the Exam . Does anyone know how edexel calculate the grades ,.
omg that was the hardest ever physics paper that existed. I just really hope that the grade boundaries were low because people in my year also found that paper hard. I think I might have gotten that question about proving why 400 ballons were made or something like that correct. But I think I got the question about which radiation do pulse oximeters use wrong. Because I put infrared light and visible light but my friends said that it was infrared light and light light. What did u guys put?? yeah the ultra sound question was especiallly difficult!!
For finding the kinetic energy of the electron i got a minus answer. Is that correct?
(edited 11 years ago)
Reply 4
Original post by lorobolorolo
omg that was the hardest ever physics paper that existed. I just really hope that the grade boundaries were low because people in my year also found that paper hard. I think I might have gotten that question about proving why 400 ballons were made or something like that correct. But I think I got the question about which radiation do pulse oximeters use wrong. Because I put infrared light and visible light but my friends said that it was infrared light and light light. What did u guys put?? yeah the ultra sound question was especiallly difficult!!
For finding the kinetic energy of the electron i got a minus answer. Is that correct?


You're okay for the pulse oximeter question.. It WAS visible light and infrared light. As for the electron charge question, i got a minus answer too, however, apparently, that was wrong. Judging by the sounds of things, the grade boundaries should be VERY low indeed. I know for a fact i dropped minimum 5 marks and probably more.. :/
Reply 5
gl guys if everyone found it hard i am sure u'll be fine :smile: just be confident :wink::smile:
Reply 6
Original post by lebron_23
You're okay for the pulse oximeter question.. It WAS visible light and infrared light. As for the electron charge question, i got a minus answer too, however, apparently, that was wrong. Judging by the sounds of things, the grade boundaries should be VERY low indeed. I know for a fact i dropped minimum 5 marks and probably more.. :/


I put down infrared and red light as those were the 2 lights used in 1 of the past exams.

As for the KE and number of electrons questions, I got both minus answers. What we had to do was not use the minus that was given to us (-1.6*10^-19 I think it was and we had to use 1.6*10^-19). However due to crappy CGP revision guide and the lack of past paper questions simmilar, I only find out after the exam. -.- The annoying thing was my instincts was telling me you can't have minus number of electrons flowing but I didn't listen to it.

I also know for sure I lost the mark in the drawing xray beams. I scan read the question and though each arrow was a beam, so I only drew 2 arrows, Then got told after the exam you had to draw 4 >.<.

The ultrasound question I put hit the boundary of a less dense material and angle of incidence > critical angle. Don't know if I'm correct but I got totally confused.

The hearbeat question, I did the correct working out but rounded to 3 S.F. I then got told you can't have 0.7 of a hearbeat. I hope the mark scheme is kind and accepts 66.7 :s-smilie:

The graph question at the end and proton treatmeant was totally random too. I think I wrote reasonable answers but considering they were the "A* questions" end questions I guess they might have wanted more specific answers.

Compared to chemistry which followed the exact format of past papers, the physics one did not. I'm hoping thats enough to push the grade boundaries right down.
Reply 7
That was soo hard!
Reply 8
Original post by dada55
I put down infrared and red light as those were the 2 lights used in 1 of the past exams.

As for the KE and number of electrons questions, I got both minus answers. What we had to do was not use the minus that was given to us (-1.6*10^-19 I think it was and we had to use 1.6*10^-19). However due to crappy CGP revision guide and the lack of past paper questions simmilar, I only find out after the exam. -.- The annoying thing was my instincts was telling me you can't have minus number of electrons flowing but I didn't listen to it.

I also know for sure I lost the mark in the drawing xray beams. I scan read the question and though each arrow was a beam, so I only drew 2 arrows, Then got told after the exam you had to draw 4 >.<.

The ultrasound question I put hit the boundary of a less dense material and angle of incidence > critical angle. Don't know if I'm correct but I got totally confused.

The hearbeat question, I did the correct working out but rounded to 3 S.F. I then got told you can't have 0.7 of a hearbeat. I hope the mark scheme is kind and accepts 66.7 :s-smilie:

The graph question at the end and proton treatmeant was totally random too. I think I wrote reasonable answers but considering they were the "A* questions" end questions I guess they might have wanted more specific answers.

Compared to chemistry which followed the exact format of past papers, the physics one did not. I'm hoping thats enough to push the grade boundaries right down.


Yeah you had to use the 1.6 one not minus and I thought it was hard too also 66.7 is the answer I got with 0.9 then I just rounded to get 67


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it was horrendous, i know i've down really badly! i expect the boundaries are gonna be low too because everyone i've spoken to found it hard. :s-smilie:
Reply 10
All of you are talking about grade boundaries being low.. Firstly that's very silly as you shouldn't depend on the rest of the country flopping, and secondly, for edexcel triple science, the grade boundaries do not change.. It is always 360/400 for an A*... I guess hence why they call it 360Science :/
Reply 11
Original post by lebron_23
All of you are talking about grade boundaries being low.. Firstly that's very silly as you shouldn't depend on the rest of the country flopping, and secondly, for edexcel triple science, the grade boundaries do not change.. It is always 360/400 for an A*... I guess hence why they call it 360Science :/


The mark boundaries do change. When you say 360/400, that is the UMS score, not the raw mark. In the multichoice exams for example, you might have got 40/40, but that does not mean you got 100%. The papers are out of 24, but when this is converted so it accounts for 10% of your mark. It is the same in this exam. Yes, when you get your results back, an a* will be 108/120 for this paper (90%), but what you need to achieve that is what changes year on year. In this case, you should not have to achieve a very high mark in order to gain lots of UMS points, so you might only need say 80% to get 90% UMS etc. That's the hope, anyway :smile:


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Reply 12
Original post by bee43
The mark boundaries do change. When you say 360/400, that is the UMS score, not the raw mark. In the multichoice exams for example, you might have got 40/40, but that does not mean you got 100%. The papers are out of 24, but when this is converted so it accounts for 10% of your mark. It is the same in this exam. Yes, when you get your results back, an a* will be 108/120 for this paper (90%), but what you need to achieve that is what changes year on year. In this case, you should not have to achieve a very high mark in order to gain lots of UMS points, so you might only need say 80% to get 90% UMS etc. That's the hope, anyway :smile:


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Haha thanks for correcting me then.. And let's just hope you're right *fingers crossed* but i would love to know how you know this procedure thing or whatever about the marking system. Perhaps you could share with us some more information? :smile: or if there's a website or a link you could give...

Perhaps that will stop me from worrying so much :smile: thanks :smile:
Reply 13
Original post by lebron_23
Haha thanks for correcting me then.. And let's just hope you're right *fingers crossed* but i would love to know how you know this procedure thing or whatever about the marking system. Perhaps you could share with us some more information? :smile: or if there's a website or a link you could give...

Perhaps that will stop me from worrying so much :smile: thanks :smile:


Knowing about the marking system simply comes from what my teachers told me, so I can't give you much more information I'm afraid. If its any help, here's the link for the raw boundaries for last summer's GCSE exams, so the actual mark that you needed for each grade, not the UMS:

http://www.edexcel.com/iwantto/I%20want%20to%20%20Tasks/1106%20GCSE%20Units%20Grade%20Boundaries.pdf

Bear in mind that this won't be the same for this year. With any luck, the boundaries will be lower :smile:


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Reply 14
Original post by lebron_23
All of you are talking about grade boundaries being low.. Firstly that's very silly as you shouldn't depend on the rest of the country flopping, and secondly, for edexcel triple science, the grade boundaries do not change.. It is always 360/400 for an A*... I guess hence why they call it 360Science :/


Exam boards do grade boundaries depending on how everyone who toke the paper did in it. The way they do it is by making sure the number of people that get each grade is simmilar each year. So if only 1% of the people taking the exam get 54-60 marks /60, they will reduce the marks needed to get A* so that around 10% can achieve that grade.

On the other hand, if the paper is really easy and many would get A*, they can increase the grade boundaries.

This is also the reason P1 and P2 tend to have lower grade boundaries then P3. Because almost all students atleast do double science and take those exams, so there is a higher number of people that can "flop" and force exam boards to lower grade boundaries to make their "numbers right". While in P3, it is usually people that can get atleast a C in all sciences that do it, so it is less likely the grade boundaries will be really low.

So yes, the more people that flop this paper, the better for you. Harsh but true.
...every man for himself...
Reply 16
does anyone have an unofficial mark scheme for the P3 exam?
Bit late... But in my school there were only two of is that took the exam and we found it really hard as well- the ultrasound question especially -.- but it seemed in line with the other past papers because they were really hard as well :/ hmmmm....


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