AVCE courses

Without sounding like an old man I think they had to make it easier after the 2000 exam disaster. I got a B and was told that was the second highest mark edexcel had for that exam. So I got the second highest grade in the country, only 3 people in my college out of 30 past it, it was so bad it made the Daily Mail.

Do you have any past papers for that unit? I would be interested in seeing what it was like...

I did single award AVCE ICT (Edexcel) when I was doing my GCSEs. The units I did were Presenting Information, Serving Organisations, Spreadsheet Design, Systems Installation and Configuration, Systems Analysis and Database Design. I have to say, I thought it was quite ridiculous that all it really involved was following instructions, and if you didn't know how to do something, the teacher would do it for you. It was much more about the huge amounts of work and getting it all done than it actually being remotely difficult. Although the exams were easy, I think they must mark them pretty harshly. In the Serving Organisations exam I did in January of Year 11, I got a low C (63%) and that was the highest out of everyone in my school who took it! The funny thing is, in the Systems Analysis exam I did in May, which according to the teacher is the hardest, I did no work at all, let alone revision, because I didn't have the time, and I still got another low C (61%). A lot of the questions are just common sense. ICT and business studies are both pretty popular.

I do AVCE ICT. Last year in year 12 we had 13 students doing the ASVCE and now we have about 8 doing the AVCE, it's a pretty big class compared to most other subjects at A2.

Well I can't exactly say I learn't a lot on my AVCE. Although at least we did Java programming rather than VB. I think the most pathetic module is the networking one, its stupidly easy. It is beyond the point of easy toplogies is about as far as it went.

Nothing about TCP/IP (apart from what an IP address is), no subnetting, no theory on how the data is actually transmitted.

If I was in charged of the AVCE I would make it harder but easier to pass. The wiered thing about AVCEs is there are really hard to pass with a good grade, but the content is actually pretty easy, but then the same can be said with A level Business Studies.

In our school, we do VB as it's easier to learn and the teacher knows it better. I know there are 2 networking units, the exam and coursework. Which one are you talking about, exam or coursework?

The course work one, maybe the exam one is much harder.

So I am guessing niether involve any concepts such as phase shift keying? I don't think its even covered in A level computing though, although at least that covers some sort of encoding.

I do AVCE Business we started out with 30 people in our class an now have just 22 still a big (ish) class.
I find the A-Levels easier then the AVCE i agree with the person who said AVCE is harder (i also do 1 a-level)
Its more teach ur self and a lot of reasearch in AVCE where as ur spoon feed in A-levels.
This is the last year the AVCE qualification will exist because its now gonna stop.
The coursework is the hardest part u really have to do a lot of research.

I do AVCE Business we started out with 30 people in our class an now have just 22 still a big (ish) class.
I find the A-Levels easier then the AVCE i agree with the person who said AVCE is harder (i also do 1 a-level)
Its more teach ur self and a lot of reasearch in AVCE where as ur spoon feed in A-levels.
This is the last year the AVCE qualification will exist because its now gonna stop.
The coursework is the hardest part u really have to do a lot of research.

I wasn't aware it was being scrapped are sure thid inot just your schoo/college?

I don't think it will be scrapped completely though. It should be his school scrapping it. I thought schools were to encourage AVCE subjects.

By the way, there is a new GCE Applied (subject) starting from spetember 2005. Hence, it will not be called AVCE anymore.

Without sounding like an old man I think they had to make it easier after the 2000 exam disaster. I got a B and was told that was the second highest mark edexcel had for that exam. So I got the second highest grade in the country, only 3 people in my college out of 30 past it, it was so bad it made the Daily Mail.

Thats great, so I have an AB in a qualificiation that no longer exists

I teach avce ICT and its great fun

regards mr j