Tips for getting high UMS in A levels?

I note that says: "Uniform marks and grades are reported for each unit, as well as for the overall qualification."

Exactly - they haven't re-written it yet, you have to extrapolate to the new system but that's true for most documents at the moment and it isn't always possible.

There are an awful lot of grey areas at the moment. My most recent list of queries about all this to the Exams Officer support at an exam board resulted in a reply which started "Golly, that's a lot of information you're after. You'd be best off speaking to another team."
..and that's from the exam board I've found to be the most helpful on this.

If you are taking reformed A levels then UMS has been abolished. The current intention is that results issued directly to schools will contain only the overall grade.

The new A levels are linear qualifications. Just like other linear qualifications (e.g. GCSE Linear Math and IGCSEs) all that is automatically supplied to schools is a grade. Equally, just like other linear qualifications, there will no be UMS, just overall qualification grade boundaries which will vary with each exam season. This means that even if you do get the marks from your school, you probably won't be able to tell how well you did on individual papers compared to other people - getting 60 on both units could put you near the top on one paper and near the bottom on the other. (AQA issue indicative grade boundaries at a and c, but not all boards do.) (In case you think it will be different for these linear qualifications because, you want it to be, I have checked the results software and there is nowhere for a mark to be entered and I have asked AQA and Edexcel and they confirm it.)

Schools will be able to download marks from the secure sites but this comes in a different form from each exam board and trying to collate that and then produce an accurate mail merge to provide individual results sheets for all candidates as well as everything else that has to be done in the 24 hours before results day may not be feasible. I'm grappling to come up with a workable plan for my school and this year we only have to worry about AS results. If you want to know marks you will probably have to specifically ask your school -either your teacher or exams officer, depending how your school operates.

All this is more information that used to be available years ago, but for a generation brought up on knowing details of their marks I think it's going to be a nightmare. I have raised this in several places but I don't expect much is going to change before the summer.

Oh no.. what does this mean for Cambridge applicants? Will we not be assessed on UMS?

Uni applicants are assessed on Y12 performance not Y13 (unless post A-level applicant), so it makes no difference.

But Cambridge does still recommend Y12 to sit AS-levels (and therefore still have UMS) if at all possible.

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If there are no UMS marks how can you compare A-levels taken on different exam boards if the marks aren't standardised??? How would you know if an 82% on say OCR History was better or worse than an 82% on AQA History that year?

Sorry I don't fully understand. By A-levels, I thought it was inclusive of AS Levels? So UMS still exists for AS levels that have been reformed?

So UMS still exists for AS levels that have been reformed?

No.

If you are taking reformed A levels then UMS has been abolished. The current intention is that results issued directly to schools will contain only the overall grade.

There will be marks though. Surely?e

How would cambridge admissions work with no UMS?

Same as for the new A levels and other linear qualifications -all schools will get automatically is grades but they will be able to get unit marks from the exam board secure sites if they go looking. However there is no easy way of collating them all and issuing them to students so students will probably have to ask if they want to know.

If you are taking reformed A levels then UMS has been abolished. The current intention is that results issued directly to schools will contain only the overall grade.

How would cambridge admissions work with no UMS?

See the posts discussing this very point above...

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Some schools won't even bother with AS levels so the lack of UMS is a more minor issue. I suggest you look at what universities are saying about this - but it is only going back to how things were 20 years ago before AS levels were invented.