We are now just weeks away from Exam Season. Across the United Kingdom, students are spending practically every evening and most of their weekends on revision.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
French proverb
A-Level exams 2024 reflects that sentiment. In many ways, A-Levels resemble General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) exams. Students spends lots of time revising before heading to the testing centre. They will complete at least one paper per subject and then, wait for their results.
In other ways, A-Levels represent a shift away from GCSEs. For one, because they more sharply define our future. For another, they're more intensive than our first exam battery.
A-Level exams 2024 return us to pre-pandemic exam conditions. We are now back to conventional testing standards. We will have no supplemental instructions. Our coursework is reduced to a part of our grade; it won't be our whole grade.
We'll soon repair to our classrooms to confront exam papers. Before making our way there, we need to know a few things:
- the key dates for A-Level exams
- other major updates to the A-Level testing and grading systems
- how our marks will fit within grade boundaries
- what our options are, in case of a less desirable result.
This guide to A-Level exams 2024 condenses these critical questions into a single narrative. Read on to discover your A-Level timetable and what your options are.
A-Level Timetable: Key Dates and Preparation Strategies
Oversleeping on a day you have an early-scheduled exam could have drastic consequences. So could missing an afternoon exam. Going into an exam unprepared could be the worst, yet.
Preparing for A-Levels isn't just about revision and mock exams. You must also make sure you have the 'administration' side of things under control. That covers everything from making sure your clothes are ready to knowing when you will sit each test.
Scheduling exams for hundreds of thousands of students takes time and coordination. When A-Level candidates look over their exam boards' A-Level timetable, they often wonder why it seems so scattershot.
Consider a student preparing to sit AQA Further Mathematics. According to this year's A-Level timetable, they'll sit their first paper on May 22, their second on June 3, and their third on June 7. That's a wide timespan, during which they will likely continue revising.
Wouldn't it be more efficient to test the whole subject across consecutive days? In theory, such a timetable would make a lot of sense. In practice, exam boards must constantly revise and update their timetables to meet the greatest number of needs and demands.
The Joint Council for Qualifications set the A-Level exams 2024 window to run from mid-May until the end of June.
The exam season timeline is the only definite date range anyone can offer you. You might sit all your exams within the first two weeks of that timeline, or during the last two. Most likely, your personal exam schedule will spread across the entire exam season.
As close to that window's opening date as possible, create a personal exam timetable. You may use a planning app on your phone or, better yet, a wall calendar, to record your exam dates.
This is a fundamental A-Level preparation strategy. Others include maintaining a healthy balance of study and personal time and, of course, getting enough sleep. Eating 'brain fuel' foods and getting exercise matter too. Being organised - setting your alarm, laying out your clothes, and planning alternate transport routes will help keep exam season stress away.
A-Level Exams 2024: Marking and Other Updates
In this article's introduction, we mentioned that the pandemic-era grading system has been retired. A-Level exams 2024 bring a return to traditional grading methods. Those include distributing students' raw scores across grade boundaries.
This return to standard grading practices will only have a minor effect on you. You must make sure your teacher uses pre-pandemic grade boundaries to give you your indicative grade, as pandemic-era grade boundaries might skew your results.
Studying pandemic-era past papers and marking schemes might also deliver you a distorted expectation. That's because marks had to be adjusted to reflect those unusual times, while still giving students enough points to satisfy UCAS standards.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Services strives to make university access as fair as possible. Instead of considering students' marks - the percentages earned on their exams, UCAS converts them into a letter grade.
To do that, they measure the current year's exam results against previous years' statistics. That way, these boundaries don't swing too far out of range, from one exam season to the next. As noted above, now that we've returned to standard exam practices, exam authorities will use standard exam grade boundaries.
After two years of phasing out pandemic-era grading, A-Level exams 2024 bring the return to normal marking and grading practices.
Some students believe this return to the standard represents a shift towards more difficult exams. Worrying about facing challenging papers is a valid concern. However, those tests won't be hard because of the switch back to traditional exam practices.
In fact, we can't decide for you whether exams are hard or easy. Only you can know what you consider a challenge. However, we can tell you that revised grading won't make your papers harder to complete. Rather, it will make them easier to stand up against your peers' work.
A-Level Exams 2024: UCAS Deadlines and Boundaries
Boundaries come in all forms, and they serve many purposes. For instance, exam season's boundaries define the six-week period of assessment activity for students. Likewise, deadlines set completion boundaries.
UCAS sets boundaries for every student interaction on their platform. January typically marks the start of registration season. Clearing opens on June 30 for automatic entry. October 21 marks the last day to add a clearing choice.
Besides sticking to UCAS deadlines, all of this has little effect on students. The deadline that matters to learners is when exam administrators report their exam results. The six-week wait between the end of exam season and results day can be agonising.
Exam administrators upload students' grades to schools on August 14, 2024.
Students may receive their results on August 15, 2024, starting from 8 AM.
Once you've completed your A-Levels, your hands are tied until you know your results. This is a good time to start planning your next steps. Such plans must include what to do if your marks don't coincide with your future goals.
If your raw exam scores are within a few points of the next higher grade boundary, you could ask your teacher for a marking review. That entails going through your papers to make sure examiners assessed your work fairly. You should present a compelling reason for this review. Merely insisting you deserve higher marks isn't reason enough.
You may also appeal your grades. Here, too, you will need to present reasons for special considerations. Such typically include illness or personal hardship that kept you from doing your best. Note that you might have to pay a fee for either a marking review or an appeal, if your school doesn't cover those costs.
A-Level Timetable: Deciding on a Resit
According to AQA statistics, more than half of their A-Level candidates resit at least one exam. Typically, these students exercise that option to raise their grades. However, we find many other reasons for resitting exams.
Sometimes, resit students want to buy time. Their future plans might not be fully fleshed out. So, another year in college gives them time to decide which direction they want their future to take.
To decide whether a resit is worthwhile, you should do a cost-benefit analysis. You must wait a full year to resit your exam, and you will pay for it yourself. What if your raw score is at the low end of a grade boundary? You might not earn enough points on your second go-round to raise your grade.
Before deciding to resit your exam(s), contact your target university to learn its resit acceptance policy.
On the other hand, your scores might be just a few points shy of the next-higher grade boundary. If a grade review and/or appeal didn't resolve the matter, resitting your exam is a wise move.
Just beware that some universities will not accept resit marks. And, those that do will likely ask you to explain why you chose to resit your exams.
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!
Loading...
