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  • Exam Boards
  • tyger
    Free Member

    My poor daughter, out of a 5 week period to take her A-level exams this year, she has 4 A-levels today because her subjects have different Exam Boards that can’t seem to communicate with each other. She’s been so stressed it has brought about a relapse of her Cronh’s plus Hayfever due to her immune system being weakened – why couldn’t they have spaced them out. It just seems typical of many academic institutions (including universities) where plain common sense is just not applied.

    convert
    Full Member

    Sorry she is struggling Tyger but it is not the multitude of exam boards at fault here.

    All courses have a common course coding and “equivalent” courses from the different exam boards are always sheduled to take place at the same time. The exam boards don’t set their own timetables, that is done by the QCA (qualifications and curriculum authority). The problem here is the number of modular exams and the vast multitude of courses that a person could possibly sit. The exams officier at our place (who is by definition a statistics geek!) mentioned that there are 450 different exams that could be taken in the next few weeks, with up to 3 or 4 variations of some of them for the differet exam boards. With that number of possible permutations there are bound to be a few poor souls that get more than they fair share on a single day. The public demands variety in their possible A levels and this is one of the problems it brings.

    It won’t help her to know this but it could have been much worse if she had been a year older. Assuming she is in year 12 and doing AS this year as she has already started, she is only having to do 2 modules per subject per year – last years lot had 3 modules worth of exams and coursework. It has been noticibly easier for the current crop than it has been in the past.

    Schools can make it easier for pupils though – we have pupils in isolation overnight sometimes to ease the burden when they have been double or triple booked.

    miketually
    Free Member

    There are some very stupid timings (like having psychology and general studies on the same/similar days when they’re two of the most popular subjects) but, like convert says, there are so many exams it isn’t possible to space them all out for everyone.

    However, if your daughter has a history of problems with stress/pressure the school could have maybe arranged for her to take fewer A levels? We did that for a student who was recovering from a stroke.

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    tyger
    Free Member

    miketually, sorry meant to say 4 exams (only taking 3 A-levels)

    miketually
    Free Member

    That could be down to how the school has organised it. Our AS computing students had two exams today, because they decided to have both units’ exams in the summer.

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    (like having psychology and general studies on the same/similar days when they’re two of the most popular subjects)

    No-one revises for General Studies do they? Certainly it was the “sacrificial” subject at my college, you took 4 A levels “and general studies” which was a sort of catch-all in case you did miserably at everything else. Most people passed with a C without ever attending classes?

    3 in a day is never fun, does’nt leave you able to refresh your memory between them.

    I believe we have just gone to 3 a day here, up to 8:30 at night – not a good plan IMO.

    CaptJon
    Free Member

    I had something similar back in the day: 2 x 3 hour exams (4 essays in each) on a monday, and then 2 x 3 hour exams (4 essays in each) on a tuesday. Fortunately, five years as a teenage boy meant i had wrists of steel and only suffered cramp once with all the writing.

    wilma
    Free Member

    I had three medschool exams today, only an hour each and I was complaining!… Remembering back to A-levels and the stress of only one a day, doing four must have been a nightmare….
    Hope they went okay for her and her Crohns settles, from what I know about it sounds quite distressing. Good Luck to her if she has any more 🙂

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