AQA Physics PHYA5 - Thursday 18th June 2015 [Exam Discussion Thread]

I almost did the same. What saved me was that I have a habit of making sure that I haven't missed the last page of an exam paper. I missed it once in a GCSE paper and I'm glad I did it then.

But I'm sure you weren't the only one to do that. I guess another reason why you can expect the grade boundaries to be low.

Are you serious? Of Which section?


Posted from TSR Mobile

That moment when the invigilator picks up your paper and you see the last page left empty. lol I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Praying we get the same boundaries as June 2014 but unlikely



Applied bro, and yeah pm me so I know you've posted them here

Has anyone got a picture of the astro paper? I've bombed this exam. So many stupid mistakes.

Posted from TSR Mobile

That's crazy man, serious. But don't worry about it. You know that you would know the answer to the questions and if you missed them it wasn't the case that you didn't know the answer to them


Posted from TSR Mobile

Lol Unis won't know or care about that

Does anyone know which option usually has the lowest grade boundaries?

AstroGuys, do y'all think this was easier or harder or a similar standard to June 2014?
Here are the June 2014 Grade Boundaries for reference
CAP 58
A* 52
A 46
B 41
C 36
D 32
E 28

Personally this year (especially the six marker) for both sections was harder.

Astro had more sneaky questions and probably the more peculiar six marker I've seen for that option.


Posted from TSR Mobile

Dude, the last page of the part A? (thermal and nuc physics)
If so, I also missed it, so it might've been somet with the paper lol

I felt this years was easier.There was alot of ''Show that'' questions and its possible to get them right without any knowledge.
Also the 6 Marker wasn't hard if you actually looked at it. Clearly showed the stars getting dimmer and the change in wavelength obviously had to be red-shift.

But obviously im not the general population. But noone in my class ( even the weaker students ) came out and went ''That exam was hard''.

ok, I am not the only person.

I'm not saying it was a hard exam in general, I'm saying relative to last year which had ridiculously low boundaries for its fairly low difficulty, this year was slightly harder as so many people made slip ups in areas they didn't expect to, which makes me unsure of how the boundaries will be as they can't possibly be lower than last year.

There were vague more questions this year like the maximum range of types of radiation and odd questions like the presence of calculations in the six marker.


Posted from TSR Mobile

What did you get?
It did state that the distances were in AU.
But if you got 2.92 AU, you should get 1 mark.

The mass given on the Schwartzchild radius question was 1x10^10, therefore a radius of ~3x10^13 m is to be calculated.

Pretty sure most people bombed. It wasn't a straightforward test imo. Looking back on it I'm sure people could answer most questions, but it's under exam conditions and there was a lot that could catch people out.

That, coupled with the fact that last year was arguably the easiest of all unit 5 papers (at least for Astro certainly), makes it seem as though boundaries are unpredictable


Posted from TSR Mobile

I put balmer because wavelength in the visible range... Will this get the marks??

I felt this years was easier.There was alot of ''Show that'' questions and its possible to get them right without any knowledge.
Also the 6 Marker wasn't hard if you actually looked at it. Clearly showed the stars getting dimmer and the change in wavelength obviously had to be red-shift.

But obviously im not the general population. But noone in my class ( even the weaker students ) came out and went ''That exam was hard''.

It may be possible, but the question was multiple marks and that to me seems as though it makes a one mark point. I would say one mark if they award it but the question did hint at the surface temperature of the star so it may have to be included in some capacity. In my description I stated that the Balmer lines would be most intense and deepest in the absorption spectra of the star as they are the most prominent lines of a star with that surface temperature.

Oh I remember that question now. That's exactly what I said, it was in spectral class A and that is where the balmer lines are most prominent.