AQA A2 biology EMPA? What would you do?

Ok I need to get a minimum of a A overall, at AS I got 286 UMS. In my ISA I got a B on last years grade boundaries, 40/50 our school is one of those schools who refuses to cheat, so the grade boundaries are ridiculously high and that B will probably be a C. Do you think I should bank my isa grade, or do an empa? Does anyone have experience with doing an isa and then an empa, and did you improve? I'm pretty good at exams so I wouldn't get a tragically bad mark on the empa anyway, but do you think it's worth the risk? How hard are empas? Thanks!!!

Are you sure you'll be allowed to do an Empa?

What do you mean? Anyone's allowed to do one

You school may not enter you for an EMPA if it's ISAs they do.

Ok I need to get a minimum of a A overall, at AS I got 286 UMS. In my ISA I got a B on last years grade boundaries, 40/50 our school is one of those schools who refuses to cheat, so the grade boundaries are ridiculously high and that B will probably be a C. Do you think I should bank my isa grade, or do an empa? Does anyone have experience with doing an isa and then an empa, and did you improve? I'm pretty good at exams so I wouldn't get a tragically bad mark on the empa anyway, but do you think it's worth the risk? How hard are empas? Thanks!!!

Wait I'm confused... you get to choose whether or not you get to do one? Cause I just did my first one for A2 on Thursday (the practical bit)

If your school offers it, then you can do both , but I dont know which one to do

What's the difference between an ISA and EMPA then? For GCSE i did the one where you do an experiment and then write up a 12 page report, but in A levels I've done the one where you do an experiment and do an exam paper.

An isa and an empa are essentially the same except in the empa you do 2 practicals. The only difference is that the grade boundaries for the isa are ridiculously higher than the empa, because the isa is marked by your teachers and 80% of schools cheat! whereas the empa is externally marked so you can't cheat.
but with the empa, you can't resit it. SAy you did the isa and got a C and the. Did the empa, and got a D, the D stands.

Well you said your school doesn't cheat- mine refused to cheat too for some reason. However, they did offer me advice so when I resat it I did much better and the grade boundaries were like 34/40 for a B! Defo do an ISA.

The thing is I can't resit it- it's either stick with the grade I've got for my ISA which is a B/C, or do the empa!

Defo keep that grade! It's only like 10% and a B/C is good ! (I got a B last year on it )

I know, but my uni offer is A*AA :/ it's the mark requirement for a B so if the grade boundaries to down at all it'll be a C!

Ah i see! You can still get an A though- but only if you make sure the Unit 4+5 exams are an A grade. It's also unlikely that the grade boundaries will go down as ISA's are really hard!

i know, in an exam that's an A! well I got 36/50 and that was a B

That was at AS, I'm in the middle of my A2 so once I've done the paper I'm waiting on the grade boundaries...

Ahh ok, the grade boundaries are higher at A2!