Has anyone got their students to sit both the GCSE mock papers provided by Edexcel? We just have and are wondering about grade boundaries - I know Graham has provided guidelines "to be treated with a degree of caution" but our kids seem to have done quite badly using those figures. Of course it may just be our kids... but I'd be interested to hear what other people think.

thanks!

We have used the mock papers that Edexcel provided. We felt the papers were very difficult and the results from the pupils supported this.  Our A*-C % based on these results are down a lot and this is even with lowering the higher boundaries from 42 to 33 and from 42 to 38 respectively.  I feel that an Intermediate pupil last year could get 1/2 the paper wrong and still get a C but now on these mock papers they need to get nearly all the C grade material correct to get a C.

Last week we had all the principal examiners in for the November GCSE grading and took the opportunity to look again at the mock papers in the light of feedback from centres about them. Having reviewed the mock papers at awarding, the general agreement was that the grade boundaries previously suggested were too high. We believe the new boundaries given below better represent the expected performance for on these papers for each grade, though would expect the papers in summer 2008 to be more accessible and the grade boundaries to be slightly higher.

Amended suggested grade boundaries for the linear mock papers are shown below.

                          A*    A     B      C     D     E     F     G

Paper 2540/1F                           70    56    43    30    17

Paper 2540/2F                           70    57    44    31    18

Paper 2540/3H    84    65    47    29    11     6

Paper 2540/4H    73    60    47    35    23    17

It would interesting to know what you think of your students’ likely performance in the light of these revised boundaries.

We used the Higher Mock papers (linear) in January and applied the amended boundaries that Graham has attached to this thread:

A* for over 78%, A for 63-78, B for 47-62, C for 32-47, D for 31 or below, using the average of the 2 papers

Our results were as we would expect at this stage, A* to D with over half on their target grade and under half one grade below. Subsequently, a few of the D pupils had a go at the Foundation papers, and still got D. We think we'll enter them all for Higher (- we are a selective school, and rarely get a grade below C)

Responses from our pupils were positive - the A/B candidates were less despondent than usual, and those who would previously been Intermediate B-D had enough to get their teeth into.

Can u pls forward me the grade boundaries of modular new 2381 papers for unit 2 ( stage 1 and stage2 )

many thanks

rao

Multiple-Choice Mock Papers

Marks for papers 5382 are each out of 25.

Mock Papers

Marks for papers 5382 are each out of 25.

Mock Papers

Marks for papers 5383 and 5384 are each out of 60.

Do you have a table for UMS Grade Boundaries for 2381 modular units, including Unit 1?

Thanks. 

Graham Cumming:

                          A*    A     B      C     D     E     F     G

Paper 2540/1F                           70    56    43    30    17

Paper 2540/2F                           70    57    44    31    18

Paper 2540/3H    84    65    47    29    11     6

Paper 2540/4H    73    60    47    35    23    17

It would interesting to know what you think of your students’ likely performance in the light of these revised boundaries.

I thought that P3 was actually more difficult than P4 and the results from my students who took these papers as a mock seem to confirm this.

One Y11 class I teach who are aiming for As (I expect almost three quarters will get an A) achieved the following average percentages

 Paper 3 - 56%;  Paper 4 - 67% - they had 65min to complete each paper.

 My top set Y10 early entry class who are all aiming for an A* achieved the following percentages

 Paper 3 - 85%; Paper 4 - 93% - again this class had an hour to complete each paper

I can't even find the mock papers on the new website - I have found specimen papers. Can you send me in the right direction or even just send me the papers please.

Thanks

Clare