Is A2 going to be harder this year?

Was wondering what you all think about A2 this year. I have only had one AS resit and that appeared to be a little different. From what people have said in AS this year they appear to have cracked down on it a little (maths was apparently awful today) Do you think they will be doing the same for A2? Personally I don't think A2 is an easy game.

Reply 1

Picture~Perfect

19

Original post by sphereix96

Was wondering what you all think about A2 this year. I have only had one AS resit and that appeared to be a little different. From what people have said in AS this year they appear to have cracked down on it a little (maths was apparently awful today) Do you think they will be doing the same for A2? Personally I don't think A2 is an easy game.

Hi there

I'm sorry to see you've waited so long for a reply.

I don't know how much use I can be however I can ensure your that A2 is harder than AS, it is intended to be that way as you're are supposed to be progressing with your subjects and encountering more complicated theories and ideas.

I'm afraid I don't quite know what you mean by suggesting this year of exams is different from any other.

Reply 2

TheWiseSalmon

8

Do you mean "will June 2014's A2 exams be harder than A2 exams from previous years?". If so, I think it's possible. I know from experience that the exam board CCEA has really made their maths and physics exams a lot harder this year and friends have told me that CCEA have asked morre bizarre or difficult questions in Economics, Moving Image Arts and English.
Both my C3 maths and Physics Unit 2 exams were far harder than any past paper (C4 turned out to be all right though, thankfully and I haven't yet done Physics Unit 2)
However, I haven't sat any A2 exams from any other exam boards yet so I don't really know if their difficulty will also be stepped up. My advice would be to prepare for the worst and expect and exam far harder than any past paper. If the paper turns out to be fine, then you'll still feel good so it won't matter.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

The Empire Odyssey

21

Yeah, A2 sucks ass man. I hate it. A levels in general have been the most depressing 2 years of my entire life... But uni... for 3 years outside of home.. Just screams to me which is why I'm putting up with it.

A2 as rightly as someone else said, it is intended to be harder as the content of what you study are more complex and complicated in various ways.

Reply 4

sphereix96

OP

Original post by Picture~Perfect

Hi there

I'm sorry to see you've waited so long for a reply.

I don't know how much use I can be however I can ensure your that A2 is harder than AS, it is intended to be that way as you're are supposed to be progressing with your subjects and encountering more complicated theories and ideas.

I'm afraid I don't quite know what you mean by suggesting this year of exams is different from any other.

Its fine aha it wasn't bothering me or anything I was just curious to see what everybody thought. I understand A2 is harder, I have been doing it from September and its a bugger. I meant with regards to the standard of the papers in recent years. They clearly aren't to happy with the AS papers thus far because they have cracked down on them this year quite a lot. I think A2 is always difficult anyway but I wonder if they are cracking down on A2 as much as AS. Someone below addressed that.

Reply 5

sphereix96

OP

Original post by TheWiseSalmon

Do you mean "will June 2014's A2 exams be harder than A2 exams from previous years?". If so, I think it's possible. I know from experience that the exam board CCEA has really made their maths and physics exams a lot harder this year and friends have told me that CCEA have asked morre bizarre or difficult questions in Economics, Moving Image Arts and English.
Both my C3 maths and Physics Unit 2 exams were far harder than any past paper (C4 turned out to be all right though, thankfully and I haven't yet done Physics Unit 2)
However, I haven't sat any A2 exams from any other exam boards yet so I don't really know if their difficulty will also be stepped up. My advice would be to prepare for the worst and expect and exam far harder than any past paper. If the paper turns out to be fine, then you'll still feel good so it won't matter.

Yeah that was what I meant, because AS has been cracked down on apparently. So far I have heard that the Maths exam was quite tricky for AS and the Psychology Unit 2 was apparently a lot different. I can't really see what more they can change in A2 though they might put in the harder topics.

Reply 6

sphereix96

OP

Original post by Cool_JordH

Yeah, A2 sucks ass man. I hate it. A levels in general have been the most depressing 2 years of my entire life... But uni... for 3 years outside of home.. Just screams to me which is why I'm putting up with it.

A2 as rightly as someone else said, it is intended to be harder as the content of what you study are more complex and complicated in various ways.

I feel ya. I meant in the form of what they ask as I put above ^.
The crack down on AS is interesting I'm wondering how they will change that with the A2

Reply 7

Tarquin Digby

9

No. I've already done an A2 exam (AQA FP3) and it was your typical easy dumbed down A level paper.

Reply 8

The Empire Odyssey

21

Original post by sphereix96

I feel ya. I meant in the form of what they ask as I put above ^.
The crack down on AS is interesting I'm wondering how they will change that with the A2

I don't understand what you mean... From my 3 essay based subjects - I think the exam questions are like more open which makes it tricky because you have to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING. Whereas AS was more structured where you know sub-topics that would come up. For example AS English Language "From data 1, explain how grammar is used in Child Language Acquisition". So you'd only talk about grammar in CLA, instead of phonology or morphology, etc. It's more focused.
Whereas in A2 Lang: something like "From your knowledge, evaluate how language changes from the two extracts below"... That's like, "WHAT DO I PUT?", "WHERE DO I START?" etc etc. It's more broad in terms on what you have to put in your essay and make sure it relates to the extracts and so forth.

It's like this for Lit and Philosophy.. Content is like 100x more too(in pretty much all A2 subjects). :frown:

Oh and A2 has a lot more pressure because of uni and the fear of failing, revising for a longer time, earlier, and you know they are no resits so you have to pass with flying colours otherwise you ain't going to uni at all... So much pressure for education and life itself as an A2 student... Because they will be LOTS and LOTS of 18th birthdays and this will welcome you to clubs and nights outs. (if you live in a city based area like Bham and are a clubber).

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 9

TheWiseSalmon

8

Original post by Cool_JordH

I don't understand what you mean...

They want to know whether June 2014 A2 papers will be harder than June 2013 and before papers, not whether A2 will be harder than AS.
The answer is "possibly" because some exam boards are writing harder exams this year compared to last year in some subjects because they have been told to do so.

For example, the CCEA January 2014 and June 2014 Unit 4 physics papers were both far harder than the A2 Unit 4 papers from June 2013 and before because the people who write the exams have been told to write more challenging papers.

Reply 10

Anny Smiles

2

I would suspect, however, than any significant change in the standard/difficulty of the papers compared to previous years would be followed by a subsequent alteration in grade boundaries, too? So it should, theoretically, be as easy/hard to get the same UMS and grade?

Reply 11

QuantumSuicide

I hope it's harder. The past exams in recent years feel very "watery", just like the content imo.

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Is A2 going to be harder this year?

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