Predicted grades for yr12 exam

Dear all

I am in Yr12.

Just finished my year end exam and gotten my results back. I got an A for Biology and A* for the rest of the 3 subjects.

Was wondering how predicted grade would be calculated for my Biology as I was aiming for a A* but due to personal circumstances, my revision was disrupted a bit as Bio was my last paper.

I hope to apply to medicine at Oxbridge and G5 uni but not sure if my A in Bio would be predicted higher.

Thanks

(edited 5 months ago)

Reply 1

isabellag0093

Original post by Jonjon7

Dear all
I am in Yr12 taking Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Maths for my A level.
Just finished my year end exam and gotten my results back. I got an A for Biology and A* for the rest of the subjects.
Was wondering how predicted grade would be calculated for my Biology as I was aiming for a A* but due to personal circumstances, my revision was disrupted a bit as Bio was my last paper.
I hope to apply to medicine at Oxbridge and G5 uni but not sure if my A in Bio would be predicted higher.
Thanks

Yes certainly you can get a predicted A*. If you are on a solid A (not just by a couple of marks achieving an A) then I don't see why they wouldn't predict you an A* especially considering you still have a whole year to improve, despite y13 topics being quite challenging compared to y12. I don't know about your school but at mine we still had lots of exams in the first term of y13 to bump up predicted grades, showing that we have improved over the summer. Also, tell your teachers about your personal situation and I'm sure they will take that into account when it comes to thinking bout what grade you could get in your best-case scenario exam day. If you ever need help with bio i would be happy to help as I'm a y13 bio student.

Reply 2

Jonjon7

Original post by isabellag0093

Thanks, Bio was always my stronger subject but I fell on wordy questions this yr. Am worried about this tbh.

(edited 5 months ago)

Reply 3

isabellag0093

Original post by Jonjon7

Thanks, Bio was always my stronger subject but I fell on wordy questions this yr. For my Bio year end exam, I got 65 where A star boundary was 74, so am 9 marks away - quite a way away. Am worried about this tbh.

Yeah, the wordy questions can be hard because of how much information they give you and i know for me I used to struggle picking the relevant info for the 6/ 9 markers - especially considering the mark scheme is SOO picky. I do history as well which definitely helped me because it's all about making judgements and criticising different factors.

What I have done to be able to get more marks on those wordy questions is:
most importantly: talk about the data sets/observation/ drugs/ treatments they give you in the q one by one - by splitting it up into smaller chunks you can analyse things a lot more easily an more likely to go into enough detail to get full marks

for each data set/observation/ drug/ treatment they give you:

talk about the trends you see in the data presented to you - as x increases y increases

explain the reasoning behind the correlation of the data linking to your own knowledge

talk about the positive aspects of the investigation e.g they used a large sample of people, representative of both genders and a variety of ages, use of SD shows reliability of results

talk about the negative aspects of the investigation e.g no repeats, only done on animals so effects might not be same for humans, small sample size (if they haven't given you a sample say that it reduces reliability of data as you don't know how many repeats have been conducted or if a mean has been made), sd bars overlap so no significant difference between factors, ethical issues of using animals

some questions require you to come to a conclusion or criticise the conclusion scientists of the investigation have made - be specific, why do you agree/disagree, is the conclusion too vague e.g X increases the risk of all CVDs when from the data you only see an increase in strokes

I hope this helps. it's just a matter of practising, you will get the hang of it soon! I have some examples of 6 out of 6 markers I could send you pictures of if you would like too.

I just did my bio alavel paper 2 yesterday and we had 2 very nasty 6markers and lowkey wanted to cry but i used the tips above and now just have to hope that I wasn't just rambling and what I said is what the mark scheme wants

Reply 4

Jonjon7

Original post by isabellag0093

Yeah, the wordy questions can be hard because of how much information they give you and i know for me I used to struggle picking the relevant info for the 6/ 9 markers - especially considering the mark scheme is SOO picky. I do history as well which definitely helped me because it's all about making judgements and criticising different factors.
What I have done to be able to get more marks on those wordy questions is:
most importantly: talk about the data sets/observation/ drugs/ treatments they give you in the q one by one - by splitting it up into smaller chunks you can analyse things a lot more easily an more likely to go into enough detail to get full marks
for each data set/observation/ drug/ treatment they give you:

talk about the trends you see in the data presented to you - as x increases y increases

explain the reasoning behind the correlation of the data linking to your own knowledge

talk about the positive aspects of the investigation e.g they used a large sample of people, representative of both genders and a variety of ages, use of SD shows reliability of results

talk about the negative aspects of the investigation e.g no repeats, only done on animals so effects might not be same for humans, small sample size (if they haven't given you a sample say that it reduces reliability of data as you don't know how many repeats have been conducted or if a mean has been made), sd bars overlap so no significant difference between factors, ethical issues of using animals
some questions require you to come to a conclusion or criticise the conclusion scientists of the investigation have made - be specific, why do you agree/disagree, is the conclusion too vague e.g X increases the risk of all CVDs when from the data you only see an increase in strokes

I hope this helps. it's just a matter of practising, you will get the hang of it soon! I have some examples of 6 out of 6 markers I could send you pictures of if you would like too.
I just did my bio alavel paper 2 yesterday and we had 2 very nasty 6markers and lowkey wanted to cry but i used the tips above and now just have to hope that I wasn't just rambling and what I said is what the mark scheme wants