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OCR Salters F331 23/05/13 discussion

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oh my goodness
how much is the coursework worth?
& what did you get if you don't mind me asking?

Its worth 90UMS, which is the same as f331, so 15% of the alevel.

I won't find out what I have gotten until results day. Its internally marked then sent off for moderation.

Reply 41

DomGunstone

Original post by 3raindrops

Lol I wish!

Basically you choose a topic, I chose kinetics of harcourt essen reaction.

You do research, with diagrams, what equations you need.

Then you devise the whole experiment yourself, including what concentrations you need, risk assessments, equipment.

You have to do a prelim and show how you changed your experiment based on that.

You carry out the experiment, its supposed to be something like 20hours of practical work, our college gave us 2 weeks of lesson time.

You draw up your results, and do a bunch of really difficult equations. Then draw graphs from the results, and explain your findings.

I honestly think I spent around 100hours on it, and thats no exaggeration. Every page needs thinking, its really intensive.

For my experiment, it was 3 parts, so I essentially had to do everything thrice (finding concentrations, method, equipment, graphs, manipulation of data etc) I changed the catalyst, changed the temperature and change the concentration of the reactants.

The one thing that was good about it:that feeling when you hand it in. More than 50 pages of hardwork :smile:

hope I ace it

How many words is that?

Reply 42

DomGunstone

Original post by Jooost

I think that should be worth some marks
what did you answer for the question on biofuels?

I can't remember what the question was...
Was it something about the advantages of using biofuels?

I think I put:

•

Alternative to fossil fuels

•

Can be made from plant extracts (eg. sugar cane)

I don't think that was the question, but I remember my answers being these... :biggrin:

Reply 43

Kreayshawn

Original post by 3raindrops

Its worth 90UMS, which is the same as f331, so 15% of the alevel.

I won't find out what I have gotten until results day. Its internally marked then sent off for moderation.

did your teachers give you a rough estimate as to what your grade is? mine told me what my current grade is but it got sent off for moderation so I'm not entirely sure what my final mark will be or how much it could go up or down by. do you know anything about how much marks go up/down by or have you heard anything about anyone's going down in the past? I'm at about 40 or 41 marks right now and relying on the high coursework mark to get a good grade since I'm quite bad at the exams so I'm getting a bit worried as to how much it might go down by, if at all. Hopefully my teachers did a good job of marking it - I did revise it several times

Reply 44

3raindrops

Original post by Kreayshawn

Thats a high mark! well done

My teacher did say mine was very good (and then joked that I must have copied it from someone..thanks sir!) but we aren't going to get the marks until results day, as far as I know.

As for going up or down, then my teacher was telling us about this. Only last yr (2012) did it go down by 2 marks...so EVERYONES goes down by two marks. Thats how it works apparently, as they take samples. Only certain peoples work will be sent off for moderation.

Every single year apart from that, in my college, the mark awarded by the teacher has remained the same after moderation. My teacher who is head of Science explained that it was one of the sections that had been overmarked and they have learnt from it so won't be repeating their mistake.

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Reply 45

3raindrops

Original post by DomGunstone

How many words is that?

no idea lol, I'll check it then let you know.
I must say though, some people hand in 30 pages, others 70. It really varies across the board, although I don't know how someone could meet all the mark scheme points in 30 pages. My research alone was 12 pages.

However, you do get marked down if any part of the coursework is irrelevant or unnecessary. It needs to be related to the topic that your experiment is on.

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Reply 46

Georgehigginson

Original post by 3raindrops

Its worth 90UMS, which is the same as f331, so 15% of the alevel.

I won't find out what I have gotten until results day. Its internally marked then sent off for moderation.

I thought the coursework was 20% and f331 30%?

Reply 47

SimonA95

For my coursework i did "the reaction of iodine and propanone in the presence of an acid acting as a catalyst"

Don't for one minute think that you can sit back and relax for most of the year, the coursework is a lot of work. Can practically guarantee that you will end up redoing at least some of the experimental work but include the bad stuff, it shows that you improved and retested. My coursework ended up just over 120 pages, and i can't say how many hours i have spent on it. Its still not going to get me full marks, probably about 40 which i am ok with really because some of my data isn't great!
My top tips really is that your research should relate to the project, don't just include research because you can find it. & ensure you relate your research to your experiments throughout the write-up! Get your graphs checked and double checked, any doubt, redraw to make sure! :smile:

For my experiments, i changed the acid catalyst, concentrations of all reactants and catalyst and temperatures. Did those all using the seeing/timing type method. And then i used colorimetry to test concentration variations again to prove my seeing/timing methods reliability and validity. Using colorimetry boosts your grade because its a method that most schools don't teach so it counts as totally new experimental procedures.

As long as you're interested in chemistry, the coursework isn't too bad because you will at some point get into just sitting and writing about it and when you prove your hypothesis right, its pretty good feeling!

Best of luck with your coursework, bear with it and you'll be fine!

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 48

Nerd12345

Does anyone have the paper for June 2013 f331 please please please, I really really need it!! I'll rate you highly on here and I'll do anything just give me the paper plssssss
thanks x