AQA Physics PHYA4 - Thursday 11th June 2015 [Exam Discussion Thread]

I notice that general trend with both AQA Physics and AQA Maths. There's a lot of pressure on exam boards to make exams harder, which is counter-intuitive given that it only lowers boundaries, meaning the same proportion of people get the same grade they otherwise would have on an easier paper.


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Yeah this was my general feeling too. I've just looked at grade boundaries over time though and they've gone up by an 6ish marks a grade since 2010 (ie if it was 48 for an A then it would be 52 now). It seems to me that the exams are harder and grade boundaries have increased. I guess candidates are more familiar with the exam now but still it would seem a large jump.

This is especially apparent if you compare it to Edexcel which seems consistent (in my subjects anyway).

Yeah, I don't understand how they can judge the "correct" range?

Yeah it's a lot of content astro!
What's your hardest unit overall? For me it's mag fields, then astro I just find it hard remembering everything!


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Hmmm I don't mind the start of magnetic fields just don't like Lenz's law and flux linkage stuff. Also not a fan of Potential in electric and gravitational fields.

I think Astro is pretty simple it's just really difficult to remember everything, especially when I don't even find it that interesting

But yeah I don't really mind unit 4, as long as nothing abstract comes up on the paper it should be alright. Unit 5 seems a bit less complicated but much more learning to do so I'd say unit 5 will be more work but unit 4 has actual harder content.

They are getting harder for sure. They are making these papers assuming we have done the past papers (Rightfully so IMO.)

Im pretty sure we are the last year to do this specification because they will be moving onto a new one this year for the soon to be year 12's this year. In other words I suspect they will go out with a 'bang' so to speak :P

That's the part I don't like!

Yeah true! We did the life cycle of stars today - do you know how much detail we need to know about it?

I agree!


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I'm not sure, I can tell you I don't know enough though. There's loads in the book about different supernovae etc.

Had the other EMPA task today. Went alright I think, was actually out of 15, so section be must be out of 24.

Oh right! There's too much content imo. I can't learn all that about stars for it not to come up - I'll be distraught.

Ah right! I didn't know that. Mine's 2 weeks today! eek

Yeah there's no way it can all come up in 55 mins worth of exam (or 50 I can't remember).

True! What's your least favourite astro topic?


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Don't have a particular topic I hate most, I would probably just say the spectral class table and all the characteristics of different stars purely because you just have to learn it like a parrot and that's not my style. How about you?

Ah me too :/ I'm struggling with memorising the properties of stellar classes and the life cycle of a star for different masses :/


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Don't worry. I don't know anything about different stars. I have just started to revise the astrophysics today, I've done 1.1 and 1.2 and hoping tomorrow I can get through the rest of chapter 1. Then it'll be onto chapter 2 which is pretty killer

Hey guys! I'm so worried about my physics exam right now. Honestly speaking, my practical test sucks. I don't know whether I can still pass the overall physics test if I get U in practical test. I'm also bad at written test.😭😭😩😞😑


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I was doing the PHYA4 June 2014 paper today and got stuck on a handful of the Section A questions and was hoping that some of you might be able to help me out with the ones I haven't been able to figure out?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/308v2mbp1dl3tiu/IMG_20150421_221718.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tcu9b76utzc75ax/IMG_20150421_221749.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ltnp00c0y6wicnr/IMG_20150421_221814.jpg?dl=0
I'm stuck on Questions 6, 7, 15, 24; the answers are B, C, C and A respectively.
Apologies in advance for the upside down photo, but this is from the 'top secret' June 2014 paper.
Thanks

Chapter one is lenses right? That stuff seems okay as there's less memory work and more equations! Although I never seem to pick up many marks on practice questions in class...


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