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OCR Physics AS-Level

Our year just did a mock exam of the alternative breadth and depth sample papers (the ones not available to students) and our year average for the depth paper was 25/70 (I haven't got my result yet but I can't see myself getting 90%). I'm not sure about the breadth paper yet but I can't see it being hugely better. Anyone else finding the new exam system ridiculous in comparison to g481 and g482?

When doing past papers from the last few years I can get an A no problem, but the new breadth and depth system is causing a lot of issue. Other high achieving schools in the area have supposedly contacted our school with the news that their AS classes have done equally badly. What is going on?

Reply 1

manwtfisthis

What were the major topics in the breadth and depth papers? I believe the key to succeeding in this new breadth/depth model is to do as many questions as possible, if you have not already done the practice questions in the textbook I highly suggest you do them, their style is very similar to the specimen paper and (perhaps) your sample paper.

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Reply 2

Edieeee

Our class all got U grades!

Reply 3

manwtfisthis

Original post by Edieeee

Our class all got U grades!

Can you send a picture of your paper?

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Reply 4

Shmadm

Unfortunately I don't have access to the papers. Over the two I averaged 50% which was above average in our year surprisingly. The sorts of things that were throwing people off were things like the question asking to define using moments an object that is in equilibrium. The obvious answer is and has always been the sum of the clockwise moments is equal to the sum of the anticlockwise moments. For some reason, this year they decided that you HAVE to mention that this is about any axis. Another difficulty was the questions about uncertainty. There was a huge question the in the paper that all the parts added together was about 9 marks. Uncertainty on a scale like this has never been asked before, let alone in so much detail.
Our physics teacher (who got a first in his Phd in astrophysics) only managed to get 60/70 on the depth paper. After going through it, I definitely understand it more, the only real issue was the way in which the questions needed to be answered, but this will then reflect on the grade boundaries IMO.