Just achieved an A* in EPQ, feel free to ask any questions you may have

Hiya, was just wondering if the A* was an official grade or not? I've also done my EPQ, was given a predicted score back in may-ish and haven't heard back since. What exam board did you take for EPQ? Mine was AQA

Reply 4

OP

Original post by freya_elsey

how many hours a week did you spend on it?

I had an 3 hours of class time a week. Throughout the course I would spend different amounts of extra time when needed however towards the end this was quite excessive. I would be pulling all nighters etc

Reply 5

ShadowHokage

17

Original post by rundale toodle

any tips under your sleeves that you used to get an A*? does the topic you choose affect the grade you get? how many pages did you do?

Hi there, I know this question is not aimed at me. But I got 50/50 on my EPQ, so an A* as well. You asked for tips and I think the biggest one is making sure your production log is very detailed & having evidence. So make Gantt Charts, Deadlines on Google Calendar, have an excel sheet for your sources (keeping a track of them and etc). I did a literature review as well which is not required but I had some time.

The topic doesn’t affect the grade at all. I had exactly 5000 words on the dot, I can’t remember the number of pages.

Reply 6

OP

Original post by rundale toodle

any tips under your sleeves that you used to get an A*? does the topic you choose affect the grade you get? how many pages did you do?

I chose a topic that I was able to go very in depth with to the point where I was told to stop researching which means I never ran out of ideas. I think it’s also important you choose something that interests you or else you will get bored. My word count was over 10,000 for the essay so don’t be stressed about going over it (my exam board is AQA). Absolutely anything that you change throughout the project should be logged and explained thoughtfully. One of my strong points was the amount of sources I used, so try to find as many different types of material as possible to support your essay, for example fiction books and podcasts. Also, carrying out some primary research is definitely beneficial, especially if you can show how the data you collected supports your own research. Hope this helps

Reply 7

OP

Original post by Ionomer

Hiya, was just wondering if the A* was an official grade or not? I've also done my EPQ, was given a predicted score back in may-ish and haven't heard back since. What exam board did you take for EPQ? Mine was AQA

Hi, I’m with AQA and received my grade on A-Level results day. I think that some schools might not submit the EPQ unless the student is in year 13 for external moderation. Maybe chase it up with your college/sixth form?

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 8

3cutecats

7

Does anyone have any good examples or know what I need to write for the EPQ Literature Review as I have confused myself so much! I am not sure how the Literature Review is different from the discussion or the source evaluations !?!?

Thank you so much!!!

Reply 9

OP

Original post by 3cutecats

Does anyone have any good examples or know what I need to write for the EPQ Literature Review as I have confused myself so much! I am not sure how the Literature Review is different from the discussion or the source evaluations !?!?

Thank you so much!!!

Honestly, I can’t really remember what I did for my literature review. I think I made a table of all the sources that I used and the date that I accessed them. I just wrote a short summary of what the source was and why I used it/didn’t use it. Hope this helps!

Reply 10

sciencegcsesss

17

Original post by confusedlime

Hi, I just wondered if anyone had any questions or need any advice about their EPQ. I just got an A* and would have found something like this really helpful last year :smile:

Hi, well done!
For the part of the EPQ where you message experts on your topic, what do you actually message them about especially something that isn’t redundant like asking them for their views on a topic when you could just read their work to find out what they think?

Can you use

OP

Original post by sciencegcsesss

Hi, well done!
For the part of the EPQ where you message experts on your topic, what do you actually message them about especially something that isn’t redundant like asking them for their views on a topic when you could just read their work to find out what they think?

Hi, I’m really sorry but I’m not sure I can help as I didn’t do that for my project. I’m sure that reading their work is absolutely fine though!

Reply 13

Chaeli-Jade

Original post by ShadowHokage

Hi there, I know this question is not aimed at me. But I got 50/50 on my EPQ, so an A* as well. You asked for tips and I think the biggest one is making sure your production log is very detailed & having evidence. So make Gantt Charts, Deadlines on Google Calendar, have an excel sheet for your sources (keeping a track of them and etc). I did a literature review as well which is not required but I had some time.

The topic doesn’t affect the grade at all. I had exactly 5000 words on the dot, I can’t remember the number of pages.

Where did you add in evidence of your Gantt Charts, deadlines, etc? As in, in your production log? If so, how? Sorry to bother!

Reply 14

arialle

17

Do you think a combined journal with log of hours would be accepted? Overall how many pages was the file you submitted?

Reply 15

Original post by Chaeli-Jade

Where did you add in evidence of your Gantt Charts, deadlines, etc? As in, in your production log? If so, how? Sorry to bother!

Heya I know this isn't directed at me as well, but I got 49/50 (A*) so I'll try and answer a bit -

I know some people who did this differently, but for me I put everything I did in chronological order, so for example in the record of initial ideas I put down mind maps, any ideas and any initial research, and then in candidate proposal I then put down my gantt charts, my action plans and plans for the future, and implemented a couple of deadlines.

I added in a couple of new drafts of the plans that I made if something changed and I put I think a total of 2 drafts of gantt charts and 3 drafts of action plans in total. (to make this easier to understand>)

Record of initial ideas -
Mind map, initial research, new ideas

Candidate Proposal A -
Gantt chart draft 1
Action plan draft 1
Deadlines draft 1
Risk assessment and other things

Candidate proposal B -
Gantt chart draft 2
Action plan draft 2
Deadlines draft 2

If you do have several drafts of your gantt chart make sure you explain WHY you had to change them to get those reflection marks. Hope this helps!

Reply 16

Original post by arialle

Do you think a combined journal with log of hours would be accepted? Overall how many pages was the file you submitted?

So an EPQ roughly is around 125 hours (or should be taking that long) from memory (I may be wrong)
It's a good thing to do and if you have a log then I would definitely put it in, but also make sure you put in other things like gantt charts or SMART targets to get points for planning ahead. If you deviate from deadlines then again, make sure you explain why that was.

My file was a total of 96 pages including supervisor comments etc. I would arguably say that that isn't exactly necessary but I did lots of extras to make sure I hit all the criterion boxes. (like for instance I also put in my presentation into that big document and annotated on different bits I thought could've gone better when I actually did the presentation) Hope this helps!

A tip for everyone here would be this -
Have a picture of the criteria list of the EPQ project with you at all times, and make sure everything you do ticks boxes and that's how you can get higher scores more efficiently

Reply 17

Chaeli-Jade

Original post by Ionomer

Heya I know this isn't directed at me as well, but I got 49/50 (A*) so I'll try and answer a bit -

I know some people who did this differently, but for me I put everything I did in chronological order, so for example in the record of initial ideas I put down mind maps, any ideas and any initial research, and then in candidate proposal I then put down my gantt charts, my action plans and plans for the future, and implemented a couple of deadlines.

I added in a couple of new drafts of the plans that I made if something changed and I put I think a total of 2 drafts of gantt charts and 3 drafts of action plans in total. (to make this easier to understand>)

Record of initial ideas -
Mind map, initial research, new ideas

Candidate Proposal A -
Gantt chart draft 1
Action plan draft 1
Deadlines draft 1
Risk assessment and other things

Candidate proposal B -
Gantt chart draft 2
Action plan draft 2
Deadlines draft 2

If you do have several drafts of your gantt chart make sure you explain WHY you had to change them to get those reflection marks. Hope this helps!

This is great, thanks - sorry to be so specific but did you add them as screenshots? I'm not sure how to get them into the document haha

Reply 18

Original post by Chaeli-Jade

This is great, thanks - sorry to be so specific but did you add them as screenshots? I'm not sure how to get them into the document haha

Ya it was kinda half half - Most of them were copied and pasted but there were a couple of screenshots that I added if formatting was an issue.

That being said, all my gantt charts, mind maps, and anything that I used another software to do were put in as screenshots :smile:

Reply 19

Chaeli-Jade