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why are grade boundaries high in FP1 and M4?

this is for OCR im talking about,i havent done M4 yet but i have seen the grade boundaries for it,im not necessarily asking this cause i got a low mark in FP1(i gott 95/100 ums and an A was 64/72),why are they so high? if its because everyone who does further maths is good at maths and gets a really high mark and so increasing the grade boundaries, then they shouldnt make it so high because only the people who are better than good will get A? it could also be because the module is too easy,but they can just make the exam questions a little bit harder?
do universities know about this?
also do i need a graphical calculator for A2?:laugh:
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by physics4ever
this is for OCR im talking about,i havent done M4 yet but i have seen the grade boundaries for it,im not necessarily asking this cause i got a low mark in FP1(i gott 95/100 ums and an A was 64/72),why are they so high? if its because everyone who does further maths is good at maths and gets a really high mark and so increasing the grade boundaries, then they shouldnt make it so high because only the people who are better than good will get A? it could also be because the module is too easy,but they can just make the exam questions a little bit harder?
do universities know about this?
also do i need a graphical calculator for A2?:laugh:


I don't think the grade boundaries for FP1 were particularly high but they vary from paper to paper depending on the difficulty.

No you certainly don't need a graphical calculator.
64 is the highest boundary I've seen for 80 Ums I've seen. But I have to say that this year, the fp1 exam was relatively easy compared to past papers. (I got 100)

I reckon mostly its because of the generally higher calibre of further maths students. Fp1 is a bit harder than c2, but the people taking it have greater aptitude.
I assume m4 has such high boundaries because very few people take it, and the people who do are generally very very good at it.
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physics4ever
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Original post by BankOfPigs
64 is the highest boundary I've seen for 80 Ums I've seen. But I have to say that this year, the fp1 exam was relatively easy compared to past papers. (I got 100)

I reckon mostly its because of the generally higher calibre of further maths students. Fp1 is a bit harder than c2, but the people taking it have greater aptitude.
I assume m4 has such high boundaries because very few people take it, and the people who do are generally very very good at it.

what about the people who are just good at it? they might get B's even though they are good at it,do universities take this into account? i think this is quite unfair
Grade boundaries in AQA FP1 were really low :biggrin:
Original post by physics4ever
what about the people who are just good at it? they might get B's even though they are good at it,do universities take this into account? i think this is quite unfair


I think the system is flawed and that easy exams greatly skew the results. I'd much rather have harder exams with lower boundaries.

Having boundaries like 64 makes it very hard to diffrentiate between the good and excellent candidates. It becomes an exam to minimise mistakes as opposed to test how good you are. Your 95 UMS is excellent and you probably only lost 2 raw marks or so, which I'm sure were silly mistakes as opposed to conceptual issues.
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physics4ever
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Original post by BankOfPigs
I think the system is flawed and that easy exams greatly skew the results. I'd much rather have harder exams with lower boundaries.

Having boundaries like 64 makes it very hard to diffrentiate between the good and excellent candidates. It becomes an exam to minimise mistakes as opposed to test how good you are. Your 95 UMS is excellent and you probably only lost 2 raw marks or so, which I'm sure were silly mistakes as opposed to conceptual issues.

i agree, definately need harder exams,even for M4 because they should know that the people doing are good at it,and universities need to know

i always make silly mistakes, i literally thought i got full ums

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