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Feedback on A2 English Lit. exam result (AQA LITB3)

Hey guys.

So I was just wondering what other people got for this english paper.
Because apparently, our year is having a problem with this. After we did the exam in January, all of us thought we did well and felt quite confident. But then the results came out today and NO ONE got above a D. And this is not the first time. The same thing happened last year for AS.
I was just wondering if it's a problem that only our college is facing, or if it's actually a nationwide thing?
I'm trying to figure out whether the marking is just very harsh, or that our teachers aren't doing a great job..... Because we work our *** off for this!
(And in case you're wondering: I'm a good student. I got B's for Maths, Human Biology and Business Studies. That's why I'm completely caught off guard by the E from English Literature!)

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Reply 1
Hi,
Very likely it is your college since the exam boards award grades to the highest 'raw' mark achievers. i.e. top 5% get a*, 10* get a* or a, top 20% get a*,a or b etc.
Perhaps its the teaching? :confused:
Reply 2
Original post by mazboy008
Hi,
Very likely it is your college since the exam boards award grades to the highest 'raw' mark achievers. i.e. top 5% get a*, 10* get a* or a, top 20% get a*,a or b etc.
Perhaps its the teaching? :confused:


What do you mean by highest raw marks?
It's just really shocking that the whole class only get D's and below. Including me! And I NEVER get grades below B's! :frown:
Reply 3
I was expecting at least a B as well but apparently most of my class did do well (I ended up with a med-high C) so maybe it's your college.
Reply 4
Original post by hanisb
What do you mean by highest raw marks?
It's just really shocking that the whole class only get D's and below. Including me! And I NEVER get grades below B's! :frown:


Sorry I should have been clearer. The exam board (after standardising the exams) get together and put all the results into a cumulative graph. They use this to find the top x% people and award them the 'y' mark. So the top 5% get a*, the next 5% get a, the next 10% get b (i dont know exactly, might be different precentages for different courses). This is called standardising the exam since exams are different difficulty each year.
Last year in CHEM5, the boundary for a* was 79, this jan it is 83 (since the exam was easier.
Hope this helps
Reply 5
Hmm... okay.
Do you guys know if there's a sample answer out there for english lit papers? you know, when the exam board pick a couple of good and bad essay answers from previous candidates and comment on them?
I'm gonna retake this exam in the summer, and I want to know what exactly an A grade essay look like.
I got a D too and I got an A in the AS! I have no idea where I went so wrong and I worked so hard for it too :frown: Thank goodness for retakes is all I can say :s-smilie:
Reply 7
Original post by hanisb
Hey guys.

So I was just wondering what other people got for this english paper.
Because apparently, our year is having a problem with this. After we did the exam in January, all of us thought we did well and felt quite confident. But then the results came out today and NO ONE got above a D. And this is not the first time. The same thing happened last year for AS.
I was just wondering if it's a problem that only our college is facing, or if it's actually a nationwide thing?
I'm trying to figure out whether the marking is just very harsh, or that our teachers aren't doing a great job..... Because we work our *** off for this!
(And in case you're wondering: I'm a good student. I got B's for Maths, Human Biology and Business Studies. That's why I'm completely caught off guard by the E from English Literature!)


I think it probably is Nationwide because in my year, No one got above a D too. Really bad. Plus, many other students have also expressed their dissatisfaction about English Lit B, so surely it can't be on teaching..?
Reply 8
Original post by Diamondzed
I think it probably is Nationwide because in my year, No one got above a D too. Really bad. Plus, many other students have also expressed their dissatisfaction about English Lit B, so surely it can't be on teaching..?


Science is so much better, either right or wrong :biggrin:
This may seem like a patronising question but were you writing the essays to the assessment objectives?

It seems that everyone who got a good (Im counting good as C+) grade this exam at my college really focused on the assessment objectives and those that got D and below didn't - I personally wrote each AO down at the top of my plan so i wouldn't forget!! And I got an A :smile:


I do hate this exam though - its so ambiguous i really had no idea i got a good grade i nearly cried in the exam i hated it so much, and the people that were really confident and stuff got lower grades, its odd :confused: I guess it really depends on the examiner as well - my friend last year got remarked from a D to an A!
personally, i am SO angry about the results of the English January exam. not for myself, i got a C, which is what i was expecting despite the fact i need a B, but it was a middle C which wasnt very good as i have been B/high C boarder line all year. HOWEVER it is not just your college as our school has some brilliant students, some with offers from Oxford who have never submitted anything lower than an A get E's in this exam. some others who were high B/ A achievers got a C and one girl in particular who always submits A grade/ B grade work on an off day ended up with a U. because of this i don't trust the marking. i know that i probably did get a C, however for the sake of these people there needs to be a whole group remark as MOST people in our year recieved really low marks like D's and E's despite never working any lower than a C. because of this i really don't trust the examiners and it makes me so worried for what i will actually get in my resit and my last chance before uni! another thing which i think is quite suspicious is the retakes? not just for english (although this did happen to me and other people in english) but many people got the same mark??? is this the same in other colleges?
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 11
I am a PRIME EXAMPLE to this... I got 90% in the AS exam (108/120UMS), but absolutely plummeted down to a D grade for the LITB3 exam this January (68/120UMS, which equates to 36% raw marks or 29/80).

I have requested my paper back and also getting a re-mark!

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with the same problem.

However, the rest of the marking for students at my school were bang on... so I must have completely misread the question and gone off on one!
Reply 12
First of all,
I am SO glad that it's not just my college. I really want to know what the **** is going on.
I am generally a good student and am a high achiever.
Even if I did bad in this LITB3 exam, the worst I could get was probably a C. Maybe I misread the question or whatever, but an E just suggest that I'm plain STUPID. And I assure you, I am anything BUT stupid. This E is very insulting.
Everyone in english class (including me) are beating ourselves up about this. And honestly, I don't think it's our fault AT ALL. Something MUST have gone wrong somewhere.
Our teacher is getting our marked papers back so we can look at what went wrong and actually try to UNDERSTAND how the examiners mark the essays so we can do better on our retakes.
We fully understand, even know by heart what the AO's are. When I was doing the exam, all I thought about were the AO's!! And they give me an E for it! :frown:
I'm going to find out what went wrong and try to fix it, because I am NOT leaving college with an E on my record!
Reply 13
I managed to get a C in this exam....quite pleased as I didn't even finish the book, in fact no where near. :eek: Our class (8 students) took the exam, with 3 getting A's, 2 getting B's, 1 C (me) , 1 D and a gentlemen's U.

Does anyone know the grade boundaries? It said on my results sheet I got 74, I'm guessing that's UMS? Anyone know the UMS Boundaries? Teacher seemed to think 86 was a B....
Reply 14
Well, thats very surprising because AQA is supposed to be not a tough borad. i did Edexcel English Lit and came out with a C, SO MAYBE u just didnt meet the AO'S is all u can think off. Examiners are strict and they want to be spoon fed, so you have to make the points clear in your work. Anyways if you want you should remark or simply just redo in June. your choice all the best!
Reply 15
I got a C. Been predicted an A*, not got anything lower than that in all of my essays this year. Got 47/60 in my ELAT which I didn't do any work for, got an oxford interview.

Out of the 100 students who took it in my year, we got 7As and 7Bs. Last year we got 10A*s, 24As and 16Bs just in this exam (most people got As overall).

Last year, the examiners f*cked over our AS results. I got a D. Got so incredibly depressed over it because I wanted to do english at uni. Teachers sent off the papers to be remarked because it was ridiculous and AQA refused to change them. I worked myself up over it so much I got incredibly ill but I took the exam again in summer and got full marks. This year the AS grades have been fine and the A2 has gone wrong, so once again it's my year suffering.

It's absolutely ridiculous. The amount of stress and the amount of money I've lost because of AQA is disgusting. Sorry to sound arrogant but there is NO WAY I got a C in that exam, nor did my friends.

I should also point out that the same thing has happened in the private school down the road. They got 3As in the whole year and my friend who is basically the same level as me, aiming for oxford etc, A* student, got a C too.
(edited 12 years ago)
Reply 16
This has happened to me too. I'd never had lower than a C in an English exam in my life, and then in last June's exam I got an E, which was pulled up to a C by my coursework. I decided to do a gap year and resit this exam in January along with some Maths modules, and expected it to go up because I felt like it had gone loads better.

It went down.

Roll on resits in June.
Reply 17
My school has been the same. I am predicted an A for English, and am aiming for good universities. My year's AS results last summer were terrible, with 90% below a D in the exam, and just one A in the entire year. Because of the bad AS results, our teachers decided not to risk putting us just in for the summer exam and so we took it in January so that we could have another go at it if necessary.
And it definitely is necessary. My entire year (120 English Lit students) all got BELOW a C. Not one person got above a C. How is that right?! People may say it's the teaching, but they've been teaching this course for years, why would suddenly they be teaching it wrong. There is definitely definitely something going on here. Exam boards have been talking about making it harder to achieve high grades so as to reduce the intake for universities, and I am starting to wonder whether this is what AQA have started already. How can it be that our top student, who is predicted an A* came out with an E?
I am most definitely recalling my paper to see what on earth went on here. My results say that I got '70' and apparently it is 72 to get a C so i'm hoping that if I get it remarked it will at least secure me a C grade. My whole year is retaking, which I think is absolutely shocking. Our university places are going to be hugely affected by this. If AQA have got harsher on their marking, then there is NO way they can continue to call it the same exam, because our C's against A's from previous years make us look incapable when it really is not the case at all.

These results affect our university places and will ultimately affect people's future lives. So so pi$sed off.
AQA need to sort it out.
It's very reassuring to know others are feeling the same way about the results. I revised so hard, therefore finding it difficult to get my head round my result which was an E. I knew the texts off by heart, the AO's and even added in necessary quotes. I'm clinging on to the hope that something went wrong in the marking as my exam result is not a true reflection of the amount of effort and serious hard work I put in to that exam, not to mention the amount of mock essays I did achieving good grades. It's disheartening to think that all your time and stress you put in just doesn't pay off, but after reading this thread and everybody opinions surely there must be something seriously wrong.
Reply 19
So glad it's not just us. Was predicted an A* and got an E and my entire class basically failed, in there was two C's and the rest D's and E's. I was expecting to do badly as I really messed on of the essay's up but not that badly and we all knew the texts inside out, were getting great marks in the mocks etc... The thing is, we all did so well last year. Loads of people (me included) got full marks or a couple off. Something has to have gone wrong somewhere. I get that sometimes they shift the grade boundries about, if loads do well but who actually did alright on it?

Actually, what texts did everyone study. There was one A in school, and he did totally different texts to us (night class v ours)
(edited 12 years ago)

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