Unexpected Edexcel History results

Could anybody who has received EDEXCEL A2 or AS History results today or previously help me with any of the following.


After going through the previous year getting high A grades (some as high as 27/30) or B at very worst in all of the practice essays marked apparently harshly by my teachers, I have today got an E and a U in my AS exams. My exams seemed to go well, I produced relatively well argued and structured essays according to the generally advised exam technique, and while the topics weren't ideal I'd revised enough to use sufficient factual evidence to back up my points. I have absolutely no idea where things have gone so wrong.

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I'm considering getting a re-mark of the two papers if the photocopied scripts suggest there is good reason to, but what I'd like to know is what peoples' experiences are of similar situations in the past. Have you received any extremely peculiar and unexpected EDEXCEL History results in the past? Also, how much joy have people had when having their papers re-marked?


Thanks in advance for any helpful contributions.

My brother got a U in his history AS a few years back although it was his best subject and he got A's in his other subjects. He ended up with 3 A's and B at A2, with the B in History. History seems to be a weird one, he performed the best at history throughout the 2 years out of his 4 subjects but yet performed the worst in actual exams. :s

Could anybody who has received EDEXCEL A2 or AS History results today or previously help me with any of the following.


After going through the previous year getting high A grades (some as high as 27/30) or B at very worst in all of the practice essays marked apparently harshly by my teachers, I have today got an E and a U in my AS exams. My exams seemed to go well, I produced relatively well argued and structured essays according to the generally advised exam technique, and while the topics weren't ideal I'd revised enough to use sufficient factual evidence to back up my points. I have absolutely no idea where things have gone so wrong.


I'm considering getting a re-mark of the two papers if the photocopied scripts suggest there is good reason to, but what I'd like to know is what peoples' experiences are of similar situations in the past. Have you received any extremely peculiar and unexpected EDEXCEL History results in the past? Also, how much joy have people had when having their papers re-marked?


Thanks in advance for any helpful contributions.

What topics did you study?

I think a lot of it is writing in a way that pleases the examiner. I didn't have an enormous amount of factual knowledge but I used the precise terminology that my exam board liked and managed to get an A.

What do you mean by precise terminology? I write reasonably well, albeit in exams I make the odd spelling mistake. In terms of the language I use, it's typical essay style making points to come to a summary judgment to answer the original question.

Also Edexcell love to see dates and statistics throughout your work, could also be a possibility why you did not do so well.

I can't speak for other exam boards, but mine (OCR spec B) published a book specifically about exam technique, and they had absolutely loads of terms (e.g. 'modes of explanation', 'conditional and contingent factors') that they loved to see in answers, and all answers that used the big-ass fancy words they liked seemed to get good grades regardless of how good the actual history was

I must admit, I didn't use terminology like that. I don't think I'd even think to in an exam situation given the pressure to wrote quickly. I do think what I did use was enough to form a coherent answer to the question asked though.

Which of the Russia questions did you answer? Did you cross reference, not tell a story, counter argument and rebuke, answer the question consistently throughout all the paragraphs, have a substantial conclusion weighing up all points you have expressed (No new points made) and finally, answer the question in the fist line of your introduction?

If you know all the content, maybe you need to focus your revision more on perfecting the structure your answer and using all of the right historical terminology, because that counts for a lot of marks at A-Level.

Considering I will almost definitely need to re-sit, that is something I will definitely consider doing.

To at least some extent I did all of those things. Is cross referencing necessary when not answering a source based question?

i can't remember the questions exactly if I'm honest, they were along the lines of 'economic & political changes under Nicholas II, assess extent' and something like 'why were Stalins rivals unsuccessful in stopping him gaining power'.

Could anybody who has received EDEXCEL A2 or AS History results today or previously help me with any of the following.


After going through the previous year getting high A grades (some as high as 27/30) or B at very worst in all of the practice essays marked apparently harshly by my teachers, I have today got an E and a U in my AS exams. My exams seemed to go well, I produced relatively well argued and structured essays according to the generally advised exam technique, and while the topics weren't ideal I'd revised enough to use sufficient factual evidence to back up my points. I have absolutely no idea where things have gone so wrong.

I'm considering getting a re-mark of the two papers if the photocopied scripts suggest there is good reason to, but what I'd like to know is what peoples' experiences are of similar situations in the past. Have you received any extremely peculiar and unexpected EDEXCEL History results in the past? Also, how much joy have people had when having their papers re-marked?


Thanks in advance for any helpful contributions.