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Edexcel C3,C4 June 2013 Thread

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Reply 3280
Original post by Mikiejay
Is it possible to revise c4 fully in 3 days???


definitely! 4 papers a day and your good to go!!
Original post by justinawe
I was thinking of doing STEP I this year... probably a good thing I decided against it :mmm:

I would have definitely sat for AEA Maths this year though, but it appears that there aren't any centres in my country that offer that exam :redface:


That's rather unfortunate :-/ I'll be sitting them both which will just be pointless as I doubt I'll get anything good in either one :-/
Reply 3282
Is it likely that the C4 paper will be similarly difficult? After speaking to my maths teacher, she said that both C1 and C2 were pathetically easy papers - so the harder C3 paper doesn't seem to be in keeping with the rest of Edexcel's thinking!
Original post by MathsNerd1
That's rather unfortunate :-/ I'll be sitting them both which will just be pointless as I doubt I'll get anything good in either one :-/


Would you say a distinction in AEA is really as hard to get as a 2 in STEP I? Though I've heard that 4 full solutions are normally enough for a 1 in STEP, apparently...
Hows c4 revision going guys? Starting my second past paper having not touched this unit in 2 weeks.

:smile:
The people who are saying "the paper was probably just a little bit harder than usual" or "you shouldn't just memorise information" are really irritating me. It is not just a question of it being a tricky paper. It's style was drastically different to previous papers, and as well as this, having seen the old "leaked paper" that some pupils sat is making me angry, as it was at the same level as past papers. It was a drastically different paper - 6 out of the 8 questions could easily have been the last questions on a normal exam.

And yes, I have got confirmation from teachers, who admit whilst it is technically on the specification, it's style was similar to that of an AEA paper. If I had another hour, I may have been able to do the paper, but in those timed conditions, I find it difficult to see how people completed the paper without having done similar questions before. I think that saying the exam should be a test of understanding and knowledge is valid, but in maths exams surely it is all understanding and knowledge? Sure, you can memorise technique, but you always have to apply it, you will not do well in maths exams without understanding, and this is where your argument is invalid. I think that if you had sat this exam, you would understand, and if you have sat this exam, there's no way you can say that it was to the same standard as other papers.

It is completely unfair that students of the same exam board have sat different papers. UMS conversions will take into account the more difficult marks but not the marks people like myself, who have the tendency to get flustered, have lost in easier questions, that we would normally have got, because we were rushing to do the 4 and 5 mark ones. As well as this, obviously the security breach was concerning enough for them to issue replacement papers... now that people have sat the papers and they can't be bothered, they are saying that "there is no evidence that the papers have been leaked".. surely the fact that there is a possibilty that they had been is concerning enough?! It's outrageous that they're not doing something about this! It's completetely unfair, and probably what is most wrong in this whole mess.

The other thing that is annoying me is that, in their statement they are saying that their examiners wrote it to the same standard as the other papers. I find it no coincidence that this is they year where the papers have been replaced, and this is the year that people are comnig out of these exams in tears.

Their attitude is disgusting me, and I find them really patronising in their statement. So many people have worked really hard for this exam, and the revision was just not worth it.
Original post by justinawe
Would you say a distinction in AEA is really as hard to get as a 2 in STEP I? Though I've heard that 4 full solutions are normally enough for a 1 in STEP, apparently...


It's just the fact that you have to be good at the majority of all the syllabus really and be quite strong in it, although in STEP if my topics arise I'll be able to do it but if not ill be doomed :-/
get over c3 guys,

make up for it in c4!

:biggrin:
Guesses on grade boundaries? Kinda desperate here
Original post by BooAlphie
The people who are saying "the paper was probably just a little bit harder than usual" or "you shouldn't just memorise information" are really irritating me. It is not just a question of it being a tricky paper. It's style was drastically different to previous papers, and as well as this, having seen the old "leaked paper" that some pupils sat is making me angry, as it was at the same level as past papers. It was a drastically different paper - 6 out of the 8 questions could easily have been the last questions on a normal exam.


It wasn't "drastically different" at all, that's a huge overreaction tbh.

And yes, I have got confirmation from teachers, who admit whilst it is technically on the specification, it's style was similar to that of an AEA paper. If I had another hour, I may have been able to do the paper, but in those timed conditions, I find it difficult to see how people completed the paper without having done similar questions before. I think that saying the exam should be a test of understanding and knowledge is valid, but in maths exams surely it is all understanding and knowledge? Sure, you can memorise technique, but you always have to apply it, you will not do well in maths exams without understanding, and this is where your argument is invalid. I think that if you had sat this exam, you would understand, and if you have sat this exam, there's no way you can say that it was to the same standard as other papers.


The bolded part is complete and utter bull****, this paper was nowhere near the level of AEA.

No, it's not necessarily a test of understanding. A lot of the easier papers have repeated the same old sort of questions, you don't really need to understand it at all to do well. Applying a memorised technique is easy, and you'll find that it works for quite a few past papers.

It is people who actually sat the exam who wouldn't understand. Doing a real exam with stuff like stress, nerves and exam pressure effecting you is a whole different kettle of fish to just doing past papers at home. You need people to view the paper without all of this to get an objective view on it.

It is completely unfair that students of the same exam board have sat different papers. UMS conversions will take into account the more difficult marks but not the marks people like myself, who have the tendency to get flustered, have lost in easier questions, that we would normally have got, because we were rushing to do the 4 and 5 mark ones. As well as this, obviously the security breach was concerning enough for them to issue replacement papers... now that people have sat the papers and they can't be bothered, they are saying that "there is no evidence that the papers have been leaked".. surely the fact that there is a possibilty that they had been is concerning enough?! It's outrageous that they're not doing something about this! It's completetely unfair, and probably what is most wrong in this whole mess.


Some could say that it's unfair you guys got to sit a harder paper. People tend to panic even with a slight difference in difficulty, so the difference in grade boundaries is likely to be higher than the actual difference in difficulty.

There were two schools who sat for the original papers. This isn't going to affect grade boundaries at all, I have no idea why people are getting so worked up about it. It's not really Edexcel's fault anyway, they gave more than enough notice about the replacement papers. The exam officers of those schools are the ones at fault for this.

The other thing that is annoying me is that, in their statement they are saying that their examiners wrote it to the same standard as the other papers. I find it no coincidence that this is they year where the papers have been replaced, and this is the year that people are comnig out of these exams in tears.

Their attitude is disgusting me, and I find them really patronising in their statement. So many people have worked really hard for this exam, and the revision was just not worth it.


They have been trying to make it harder for a while now, this is hardly news. The papers from 2005-2012 have been ridiculously easy for the most part tbh, and they do definitely need to do something about it. If you take a look at old past papers, you'll find that some of them are probably more difficult than what you sat today.
Guys, just focus on C4 now. Talking about the C3 exam now, won't boost your marks.

Just focus on the job in hand.
Original post by James A
Guys, just focus on C4 now. Talking about the C3 exam now, won't boost your marks.

Just focus on the job in hand.


Exactly, I guess we are all in the same boat, and examiners will try and give marks wherever possible. Kicking myself over two little silly mistakes, as I guess those 2 marks could make the difference. Better to focus on c4 :smile: woo! Lets ace this thing!
Reply 3292
I didn't sit the C3 paper,but having looked at the paper this morning, i don;t think it was as bad as being made out. Yes the style was different but the majority of the papers have been different this year. With the last question, yes the context is mechanics but surely you can beyond that and the questions really isn;t that much different from usual.
Original post by BooAlphie
The people who are saying "the paper was probably just a little bit harder than usual" or "you shouldn't just memorise information" are really irritating me. It is not just a question of it being a tricky paper. It's style was drastically different to previous papers, and as well as this, having seen the old "leaked paper" that some pupils sat is making me angry, as it was at the same level as past papers. It was a drastically different paper - 6 out of the 8 questions could easily have been the last questions on a normal exam.

And yes, I have got confirmation from teachers, who admit whilst it is technically on the specification, it's style was similar to that of an AEA paper. If I had another hour, I may have been able to do the paper, but in those timed conditions, I find it difficult to see how people completed the paper without having done similar questions before. I think that saying the exam should be a test of understanding and knowledge is valid, but in maths exams surely it is all understanding and knowledge? Sure, you can memorise technique, but you always have to apply it, you will not do well in maths exams without understanding, and this is where your argument is invalid. I think that if you had sat this exam, you would understand, and if you have sat this exam, there's no way you can say that it was to the same standard as other papers.

It is completely unfair that students of the same exam board have sat different papers. UMS conversions will take into account the more difficult marks but not the marks people like myself, who have the tendency to get flustered, have lost in easier questions, that we would normally have got, because we were rushing to do the 4 and 5 mark ones. As well as this, obviously the security breach was concerning enough for them to issue replacement papers... now that people have sat the papers and they can't be bothered, they are saying that "there is no evidence that the papers have been leaked".. surely the fact that there is a possibilty that they had been is concerning enough?! It's outrageous that they're not doing something about this! It's completetely unfair, and probably what is most wrong in this whole mess.

The other thing that is annoying me is that, in their statement they are saying that their examiners wrote it to the same standard as the other papers. I find it no coincidence that this is they year where the papers have been replaced, and this is the year that people are comnig out of these exams in tears.

Their attitude is disgusting me, and I find them really patronising in their statement. So many people have worked really hard for this exam, and the revision was just not worth it.


I don't understand how it can be claimed that the whole paper was of a different style to normal. Do people have trouble extracting information from questions these days, or were they expecting to be able to half-ass through it without any thought, as with the past papers that they had trained themselves on?
Granted the final question did have some weird context which somehow lead people to believe that it was a Mechanics question, but in reality it is their own fault for failing to realise that it was a simple Rcos(x+a) type question.
Supposing that 6/8 of the questions could have been the last question on a normal paper -- so what? That will only affect the people who wouldn't normally be able to answer those questions, whom I have no sympathy for.

I agree that this exam was the hardest C3 paper that I have ever done. However, it was completely doable and the top students will be rewarded appropriately.

Is it unfair that other students mistakenly sat the old paper? No, it isn't. The grade boundaries will be appropriately set for each exam paper, so I fail to see how their paper would affect the results from ours.
Regarding getting flustered under the pressure: contact your university and Edexcel to try and get the extraneous circumstances taken into consideration. Really though, how do you get to 17/18/19 years old without proper exam technique? Spending more time on low value questions is a rookie mistake.

The press release in May stated that the replacement papers are just a precaution; nowhere have they stated (afaik) that the papers were actually leaked.

To be honest, I'm more insulted by the people that have been complaining and calling for resits. I worked just as hard on C3 and I feel that I did reasonably well -- why should other people get a second chance due to their poor performance?
Heck, marking hasn't even begun and people are already moaning about losing their place at university; failing to realise how UMS works.
But the issue with C4 now is that I use the past papers to revise h/w now I'm not so confident in them any more, mind you I do think there's more variety in C4 questions than the C3 ones but still & I find C4 much more difficult :s-smilie:
Reply 3295
Original post by BooAlphie
The people who are saying "the paper was probably just a little bit harder than usual" or "you shouldn't just memorise information" are really irritating me. It is not just a question of it being a tricky paper. It's style was drastically different to previous papers, and as well as this, having seen the old "leaked paper" that some pupils sat is making me angry, as it was at the same level as past papers. It was a drastically different paper - 6 out of the 8 questions could easily have been the last questions on a normal exam.

And yes, I have got confirmation from teachers, who admit whilst it is technically on the specification, it's style was similar to that of an AEA paper. If I had another hour, I may have been able to do the paper, but in those timed conditions, I find it difficult to see how people completed the paper without having done similar questions before. I think that saying the exam should be a test of understanding and knowledge is valid, but in maths exams surely it is all understanding and knowledge? Sure, you can memorise technique, but you always have to apply it, you will not do well in maths exams without understanding, and this is where your argument is invalid. I think that if you had sat this exam, you would understand, and if you have sat this exam, there's no way you can say that it was to the same standard as other papers.

It is completely unfair that students of the same exam board have sat different papers. UMS conversions will take into account the more difficult marks but not the marks people like myself, who have the tendency to get flustered, have lost in easier questions, that we would normally have got, because we were rushing to do the 4 and 5 mark ones. As well as this, obviously the security breach was concerning enough for them to issue replacement papers... now that people have sat the papers and they can't be bothered, they are saying that "there is no evidence that the papers have been leaked".. surely the fact that there is a possibilty that they had been is concerning enough?! It's outrageous that they're not doing something about this! It's completetely unfair, and probably what is most wrong in this whole mess.

The other thing that is annoying me is that, in their statement they are saying that their examiners wrote it to the same standard as the other papers. I find it no coincidence that this is they year where the papers have been replaced, and this is the year that people are comnig out of these exams in tears.

Their attitude is disgusting me, and I find them really patronising in their statement. So many people have worked really hard for this exam, and the revision was just not worth it.



It was certainly unfamiliar and difficult but I think exams are pointless if it's just a memory exercise where you see the exact same question with different numbers. You're likely to get the grade you were gonna get anyway unless you let the harder questons get your head and mess up your performance.
Reply 3296
The problem with the C3 exam for me wasn't that the material was not actually do able, but more on the fact that the questions that I was seeing did not look similar to things I had done before. I had been told that I can revise maths by doing all the old past papers, which is exactly what I did and eventually I was getting like 85%+ in each one of them.

Basically I found myself skipping questions to go back to them because I thought it would be best to leave the harder ones till last. However as I was doing this it was having a constant knock on effect of demoralisation for me and left me feeling more and more stressed which screwed with my mind making it even worse than it should of been. Personally I think that a lot of people will be in the same boat as this.

I am not trying to make excuses but the layout and difficulty of the paper did not really match past papers which really led to the downfall of most people. In the end I got so stressed out that I just couldn't continue anymore and just stopped with about 30 minutes to go.

Left me worrying all day which then affected my Physics paper in the afternoon which I then completely screwed up.

A resit would be very nice, but I know it very unlikely. I am hoping that universities look at this sympathetically and maybe just ignore it, as I definitely got a U/E.

Rant over
Reply 3297
Why are vectors so hard.
Is the paper allowed to be discussed? If so, does anyone have a link to this ridiculously hard one?
Reply 3299
Original post by Fortitude
But the issue with C4 now is that I use the past papers to revise h/w now I'm not so confident in them any more, mind you I do think there's more variety in C4 questions than the C3 ones but still & I find C4 much more difficult :s-smilie:

try questions from other exam boards e.g. OCR MEI?
(edited 10 years ago)

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