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Which is the worst exam board?

I did this sometime ago (for GCSE I think).

Now it's turn for A-Level. Which board and subject..why?

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Original post by sulaimanali
I did this sometime ago (for GCSE I think).

Now it's turn for A-Level. Which board and subject..why?


I do AS maths and do edexcel. I don't find AS maths that hard- but for some reason I HATE edexcel and I hated them when doing GCSE maths too!:s-smilie:
I know this is for A level, but at GCSE for some reason I always loved AQA!:tongue:
WJEC

All the mainstream noobs will post English exam boards, but let me tell you this:

My biology exams had a boundary of ~55% for an A in Unit 1, and 50% for an A in Unit 2. My AS chemistry exams were similar. We do NMR, logs and **** at AS. In biology, we do genetics in A2 detail.

Basically, WJEC's new A Levels consist of putting A2 content down to AS, and replacing A2 with harder stuff
Reply 3
AQA are *******s

They used to do the jack and jill story ******** in 2008, and had the most random questions
you could think of.
Reply 4
OCR.

My AS-levels were all from different exam boards (Edexcel, WJEC Eduqas, AQA, and OCR) and let me tell you, I understood NOTHING from the OCR marking schemes.

Edexcel? All nice, clear, and easy.

WJEC Eduqas? All nice, clear, and easy.

AQA? Less clear, but still understandable if you read the marking scheme five times.

OCR? Might as well have been written in alien hieroglyphs.
Good thread for venting out anger. :colone:
Reply 7
WJEC by far.

AS Maths:

-Add things which Edexcel don't even cover at AS
-Terrible layout of exam paper

AS English Language:

-Give 1h 45 mins for a paper which should be 2h 30m
-AQA gives 1h 30 mins for the first question of WJEC's 1h 45min paper (and doesn't have another question) whereas you've only got 1h 45 min to do the 1h 30 min AQA question and another 20 mark question with WJEC

Moral of the story:

AVOID WJEC (Wales spec)
ocr are awful
Reply 9
Original post by MrBindo10
ocr are awful


How? I bet WJEC Wales is 100000x more awful.
WJEC

Only exam board I know where you can be writing the right thing and still be marked down just because you "didn't word it precisely".
Original post by Laughh3
How? I bet WJEC Wales is 100000x more awful.


ocr lead examiner came to our school and told us they don't know how to mark history paper we are doing in May, have no experience of WJEC Wales tho tbf
Original post by sulaimanali
I did this sometime ago (for GCSE I think).

Now it's turn for A-Level. Which board and subject..why?


All of my boards are AQA (Barring my WJEC/Eduqas English Language A Level which is pretty easy). I must say that if you want a board to make a bunch of questions purely just to catch you out then AQA is the worse offender. My Religious Studies teacher even switched boards for the new specification to OCR just because of it.
If we're counting international A Levels in this, CIE are the worst by far. Their grade boundries are higher, the content is harder and the format is worse. A friend and I compared our Psychology specs (I do AQA, she does CIE) and holy crap the difference is amazing. Her papers are a lot harder than mine.
Original post by GradeA*UnderA
WJEC

All the mainstream noobs will post English exam boards, but let me tell you this:

My biology exams had a boundary of ~55% for an A in Unit 1, and 50% for an A in Unit 2. My AS chemistry exams were similar. We do NMR, logs and **** at AS. In biology, we do genetics in A2 detail.

Basically, WJEC's new A Levels consist of putting A2 content down to AS, and replacing A2 with harder stuff


I fail to see how they're still an exam board with all their bullsh*t.
Original post by MrBindo10
ocr lead examiner came to our school and told us they don't know how to mark history paper we are doing in May, have no experience of WJEC Wales tho tbf


Woah, that's quite bad.

Trust me, WJEC Wales is awful.
Original post by RoyalSheepy
I fail to see how they're still an exam board with all their bullsh*t.


Me too. Surely there must be some regulation board who ensures the exams are at the same level of difficulty?
CCEA is pretty bullsh*t too just by how much they demand you to know. I took it for Irish only (thank god) but it's genuinely the hardest exam I've ever taken - they expect you to know things that feel like university level, and you have to guess at what the exam questions want as well since it isn't that clear. I heard from a friend in NI it's even worse for sciences because of no clear curriculum? Idk.
WJEC - the syllabus is very vague for all of the subjects I'm taking (Computer Science, Biology, and Chemistry).

This doesn't come from me, it comes from my teachers - there have been many times that a question will be asked, the teachers have to clarify with WJEC and they say "maybe", or "we don't know". The Computer Science coursework deadline was in about a month ago, several sections of the coursework mark scheme were only answered around a week before the deadline - which we had to add to the coursework.

As far as I can tell, they just haven't finished the syllabus, for all of my subjects and they're just making parts up as they go along.

I know that they have to change the syllabus, as the government is forcing it; but if it isn't finished?

Also:

Original post by GradeA*UnderA
WJEC

All the mainstream noobs will post English exam boards, but let me tell you this:

My biology exams had a boundary of ~55% for an A in Unit 1, and 50% for an A in Unit 2. My AS chemistry exams were similar. We do NMR, logs and **** at AS. In biology, we do genetics in A2 detail.

Basically, WJEC's new A Levels consist of putting A2 content down to AS, and replacing A2 with harder stuff


Completely agree.
Original post by Laughh3
Me too. Surely there must be some regulation board who ensures the exams are at the same level of difficulty?


I was looking at AS-Chemistry AQA papers and they look much easier than AS-Chemistry WJEC papers, just not fair at all. And the difference between them is huge!

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