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Predicted A*, Got a C | Just don't understand...

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Original post by Marykatej
Your situation is very similar to mine. I hope your A-levels work out alright.:smile: I'm really angry and upset. I blame it all on my drama teacher. :frown:


My A-levels did work out alright. :smile: I completed my GCSEs in 2013 and recently finished my A-levels having achieved A*AAB grades in the sciences and maths. Just preparing to apply to uni in my gap year now.

While I don't know anything about your situation, I also blame(d) my teacher since he didn't really teach anything properly and kept me under the impression that I was on track for an A or A*. Although I do understand the difficulty they had because Engineering was sort of the oddball course of the DT department. It was a different exam board from all the usual DT subjects like Systems & Control, Resistant Materials, Textiles etc. which they knew how to teach.

Not to mention that it was done by very very few schools. I'm not entirely sure why my school even offered it. It was definitely a very stupid moment in my academic career when I decided that Business Studies was boring and switched to Engineering two weeks in. xD Hope it works out for you. Are you sending it for a remark?
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 21
Original post by Muttley79
So you cheated in your coursework ... it's meant to be your own work.


The initial three pieces of coursework I completed were all my own hard work.
Our teacher rather selfishly decided to change the exam board Decemeber-ish giving us a space of less then a few months to study the new syllabus and produce three pieces of exceptional coursework . I am being completely honest when i tell you she hardly helped and couldn't care less. I was on my own , and when the rest of the class were prepared to fail I was not.

Whilst suffering trying to get the rest of my other subjects coursework at a good level i managed (somehow) to fully complete the new three pieces of drama coursework, but considering the circumstances I was not 100% happy with it, my sisters best friend is a drama teacher and she was just as concerned at my situation then me. She was the one who offered to help and she tweaked it but its still all my own work.
I feel like this with my OCR commuting and Edexcel RE. Was predicted and worked at A*. But got C's in them.
Original post by Marykatej

Whilst suffering trying to get the rest of my other subjects coursework at a good level i managed (somehow) to fully complete the new three pieces of drama coursework, but considering the circumstances I was not 100% happy with it, my sisters best friend is a drama teacher and she was just as concerned at my situation then me. She was the one who offered to help and she tweaked it but its still all my own work.


I'm a teacher - what you describe is cheating ...
Reply 24
Original post by Hydeman
My A-levels did work out alright. :smile: I completed my GCSEs in 2013 and recently finished my A-levels having achieved A*AAB grades in the sciences and maths. Just preparing to apply to uni in my gap year now.

While I don't know anything about your situation, I also blame(d) my teacher since he didn't really teach anything properly and kept me under the impression that I was on track for an A or A*. Although I do understand the difficulty they had because Engineering was sort of the oddball course of the DT department. It was a different exam board from all the usual DT subjects like Systems & Control, Resistant Materials, Textiles etc. which they knew how to teach.

Not to mention that it was done by very very few schools. I'm not entirely sure why my school even offered it. It was definitely a very stupid moment in my academic career when I decided that Business Studies was boring and switched to Engineering two weeks in. xD Hope it works out for you. Are you sending it for a remark?


I'm actually really happy to here that :h:
Those grades are actually fantastic! congrats :smile:
Yeah I too was under the impression i was on track of an A/A*. I'm not sure its worth a remark but I might still go for it :s-smilie:

I should also mention my school was a very tight nit private school, so we had 20 people in the whole year.
Original post by Marykatej
Oh my god I totally feel your pain and confusion. I too was very theatrically involved in local theatre companies and at school. Since primary school my teachers have been saying that they would sponsor me to attend an acting school.

I sat with my sisters friend (who also is a drama teacher) and perfected my coursework to A* standard for christ sake, we spent three whole days! Our drama teacher was really strange.. She just took in all the coursework in ,arch and 'marked them' and said i did really well but refused to tell me my actual grades...

The actual performance went really well as far as I know. I really don't know what went wrong!


Can you look at your breakdown of each unit, so you know what the problem was specifically. I think I'm going to go in and say something to someone because my coursework for IT was also downmarked from an A to a C and like drama its 60%. On the bright side, I am pretty glad my two B's were in non-academic subjects that don't really affect my A Levels I'm doing.
My Statistics Coursework was moderated down to an A from an A* which sucks. It seems like they've been pretty strict this year on coursework!
Original post by Marykatej
I'm actually really happy to here that :h:
Those grades are actually fantastic! congrats :smile:
Yeah I too was under the impression i was on track of an A/A*. I'm not sure its worth a remark but I might still go for it :s-smilie:

I should also mention my school was a very tight nit private school, so we had 20 people in the whole year.


Oh wow. 20 people in the whole year... That could either be the best thing ever or the worst thing ever. xD

And thank you. :smile: While I definitely wanted at least A*A*AA, these are good enough for most medical schools so can't complain really.

You should discuss with your teacher whether it's worth a remark. The deadline for regular remarks is between the 10th and 20th of September for most exam boards, I think, so you have some time to mull it over. Good luck. :smile:
Reply 28
Original post by Hydeman
Oh wow. 20 people in the whole year... That could either be the best thing ever or the worst thing ever. xD

And thank you. :smile: While I definitely wanted at least A*A*AA, these are good enough for most medical schools so can't complain really.

You should discuss with your teacher whether it's worth a remark. The deadline for regular remarks is between the 10th and 20th of September for most exam boards, I think, so you have some time to mull it over. Good luck. :smile:


Trust me having 20 students was both the best and the worst thing. Your closest friends are you worst enemies 😂
Seeing as our drama teacher has literally fled from the school , I think discussing a remark is not very possible , but I'll still speak to my head of year about it :smile:)

Thank you for helping to ease my frustration and confusion, your assistance was much appreciated
P.s hope you do fabulously in med school 😉
Reply 29
Original post by Edosawr
My Statistics Coursework was moderated down to an A from an A* which sucks. It seems like they've been pretty strict this year on coursework!


I'm sorry to here that. At least the drop wasn't too severe , one of my coursework went from 'supposedly' an A* to an E...
Reply 30
Original post by The_Philosopher
Can you look at your breakdown of each unit, so you know what the problem was specifically. I think I'm going to go in and say something to someone because my coursework for IT was also downmarked from an A to a C and like drama its 60%. On the bright side, I am pretty glad my two B's were in non-academic subjects that don't really affect my A Levels I'm doing.


My problem was definitely in unit 1 as I supposedly got an a/a* in that piece of coursework but was marked down to an E.. I am sure something went terribly wrong whilst they were marking that because I really cannot believe it

Yeah on the bright side I passed it atleast and it doesn't effect the subjects I want to take in college too 😊

Although it still really bothers me 😕
Original post by Muttley79
I'm a teacher - what you describe is cheating ...


What would you have suggested she do in that situation instead?
Original post by BestWingmanEver
What would you have suggested she do in that situation instead?


Write the coursework herself! I'm not sure why they were allowed to take the work home anyway ... it all sounds very dodgy.

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