Advice on what to do for next year?

Hey everyone,

This is going to be an extremely long post, so please bear with me. I've quoted my post from the results day thread, as it seems to have been lost amongst everyone else's. I just need some advice on what to do for my next year. Excuse my ridiculous attempt at structuring my post! :colondollar:

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The situation:

Original post by Causton97

Hey everyone, just wondering if you could give me some advice. I've ended up with the following:

English Language and Literature (full A level):
Overall - C
Unit 1 (AS English exam) resit - A
Unit 2 (coursework) - B
Unit 3 (A2 English exam) - D
Unit 4 (coursework) - C

AS Applied ICT:
Overall - D
Unit 1 (coursework) - C
Unit 2 (coursework) - E
Unit 3 (exam) - E

AS Geography:
Overall - B
Unit 1 (exam) - C
Unit 2 (exam) - A

AS History:
Overall - A
Unit 1 (exam) - B
Unit 2 (exam) - A

First off, I'm very pleased with my Geography and History results (although I'd like to perhaps get a remark on the unit 1 paper for Geography, as I just don't feel that I performed well enough to only deserve a C grade). I'm really frustrated with the English and ICT grades because they're only so low because of coursework being marked down. I always aim high with my coursework and am extremely thorough. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I won't really relax until I know I've got my marks as high as I can reasonably get them. All of my coursework was submitted at A grades, but it seems that the moderators weren't happy with the marking of my teachers. I was perhaps expecting them to go down a few marks at worst, but no, what they've done is far worse.

In English, I dropped from an A to a C grade, but that's only the tip of the iceberg. The ICT coursework has dropped from A grades to a C and E grade respectively in Units 1 and 2. I performed terribly in the exam for ICT (mainly due to lack of preparation) and will be resitting it, as I only got an E grade with about 40 UMS, so I was relying on the coursework to bring my grade up. Right now, I would be sitting on a B grade in both English and ICT if the coursework had been marked correctly, so as you can probably tell, I'm quite frustrated.

I'm also going to get a remark of my A2 English exam paper, as I can tell in my heart that my low D grade isn't right. I put in a ridiculous amount of effort into revision and every single mock paper I did came back with high C or low B grades. Call me stubborn or ignorant or whatever you want, but I'm unwilling to accept that I only deserve a D grade for my performance in that exam. I only need 9 UMS points to get myself up to a B grade overall, which was my target anyway. Only then will I feel ready to drop English for good. I've worked hard on this for 2 years and I will not take this lying down. I accept there is room for improvement in my performance in some areas, but I gave 100%. My coursework should definitely not have been marked down. I must have had it triple checked by at least 5 different teachers before I handed in my final submissions.

Now, you could say I'm just not performing to the standard that I should be, but I honestly know what I'm capable of. I don't want to seem arrogant or stuck up or anything, but I know it is in my ability to achieve high grades in coursework and exams. I stuck to that mark scheme like glue and I fully understood what I was doing. As for reliance on coursework, I don't rely on it, but prefer to use it as a safety net just in-case my exam doesn't go as well as I hope (like in this instance). We had a lot of issues with teaching this year too (which is part of the problem, as we only started exam prep in mid-may, just before the exam, due to coursework not having been finished and marked on-time).

Incidentally, this marking down of ICT coursework grades doesn't seem to be an isolated occurrence. I've got real life and internet friends that are doing Applied ICT in a few different schools around the country and the same thing has happened to them, which I think is a bit of a freaky coincidence. I'm not one to jump to conclusions by looking to blame others or creating conspiracy theories, but it all does seem a little suspicious.

As for my English coursework, my teacher in all her years of marking coursework has always received glowing reports of her marking from the exam board in past years. There weren't any major issues like this in the past, so I can't see where they've found fault enough to cause them to drag down the whole cohort two grades.

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Options for next year:

PLAN A

Get my English and ICT coursework remarked and in the case of ICT, regardless of whether the grade goes up, drop the subject. I no longer have any faith in my teachers' marking and I'm not prepared for the same thing to potentially happen next year. Also, the amount of time and effort needed to complete my A2 coursework is much larger compared to my other subjects, and at this point I'm questioning whether it really is worthwhile.

Dropping the subject would allow me to focus on the three solid subjects that I already have decent grades in. I could optionally take another AS subject, leaving me with at worst, a D grade in ICT (rising to a B potentially depending on the results of the remark) and a second AS level in another subject. I don't know whether this would be better compared to a fourth A level, however.

PLAN B

As before, but instead of dropping ICT, complete the second year to obtain a full A Level in the subject. I could optionally drop English if coursework remarking takes it up to a B grade (I was only 9 UMS off) so as to give myself a lighter load next year.

So, which plan do you think is best? Bear in mind that I still need to discuss with my ICT teachers (who didn't even turn up to the results day) what their plan is for the next year. I put in way too much time and effort for my AS coursework to simply start again from scratch. if they ask us to do so, it would cause me to immediately drop the subject without hesitation.

Thanks in advance to anybody that replies, I really appreciate it. :smile:

(edited 9 years ago)

Original post by rayquaza17

Care to elaborate on that at all? :P

I'm applying to universities that have entry requirements ranging from AAA-BBB... I don't know if that would make a difference in which decision would be best? The idea of the fourth A Level was that it would give me something to potentially fall back on, but obviously two AS levels won't make up for not having that, right? :s-smilie: