Ultimate EPQ thread

Better to do something broader than have to waffle your way to 5000 words!!

I did my AQA EPQ this year and got 100%. So if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask. It was:
'The fundamental mathematical and physical principles of rollercoasters'

Subjects I study: maths fm physics Spanish.

Just do what the mark scheme says.

What are the fundamental mathematical and physical principles of rollercoasters? - so yes.

~6100 words.

Hello, I was wondering if the EPQ is typically done in your AS year or your A2 year?

Depends on your school I suppose. I started mine in year 12 (towards the Christmas holidays), did a mini project and then got it whipped into shape over the year 12-13 summer. I think using the summer holidays is a good opportunity, so any timeframe that allows that should be ok.

I'm still considering doing one but I think my school does it in y13, is there any way I could do it earlier? Yes, it sounds like a good idea to do it in the summer! Maybe I should have planned it this summer...

I'm doing the Edexcel EPQ, and I think my whole project will be over 8000 words (maybe like 9000 max), would I get marked down or something? On the specification it says 'It is estimated that the dissertation produced will be 5000-6000 words in length. Learners will not be penalised for producing work outside the suggested word count,but they should ensure their word count allows them to meet the assessment objectives.'

Ooh, ok. Well it's definitely still doable! I think it's only because we faffed around with a test run, I think I could have done mine in a year. Also, we were aiming for the January deadline, so if you aim for summer then you'll be fine! Are you going into year 13?

Don't worry. Mine was about 8,600 and I got an A*. One of the top band exemplars on the Edexcel website is near on 9,000!

I'm going to start AS in September. So the EPQ has to be handed in in September?

Okay cheers! Now I don't need to stress . So far all I need to do is the Literature Review and Introduction (which I've done) but I'm not very sure if my Literature Review is great. I want to aim for an A, and I looked at the online exemplars on Edexcel's website and an A* one had a Literature Review which is just so different to mine in terms of structure, so I'm not sure if I've done really well...

Any tips on the Lit review?

Aah, ok, you've got plenty of time then! Even if your school doesn't start it until year 13, you can be thinking about it.

As far as I know, I think there's still two hand in dates to the exam board - one submission in January (where you get results in around March) and one in June (where you'll get the results in August with all your other A-level results). Your school might have internal hand in dates though to check stuff.

God, my lit review was all over the shop, I still don't really know what it's supposed to be! Mine was about a side of A4 and I just basically had a few paragraphs on how reliable my sources were. I think I split it into books, magazines, websites etc. (so compared a specialist book with something more general, the OECD website with Wikipedia etc.)

Thank you for all of your help, I'll talk to the college about doing it earlier as I was going to do five subjects but couldn't find a fifth I liked, so would like the EPQ.

My one is so long its like 3700 words but I've structured it to show both sides of the argument for two areas an then at the end I show how I constructed my question. Would that be okay?