My Thoughts: Calculator Exam – 5 March 2012

‘It was certainly a lot easier than the Non-Calculator exam’, was the general consensus on today’s GCSE Maths Calculator exam. Indeed, personally, I’m without doubt that I’ll get a better mark from today’s paper than I will from Friday’s exam. Sure, I left the last question completely undone, and I expect I’ll have made a few ‘silly mistakes’ throughout – but given how badly I felt the previous paper went, I’m really quite pleased with this one.

This paper did questions which required more steps than their counterparts from past papers: for instance, in the question on histograms, we had to work out the frequency density for all of the results in the table (usually some are already given, which makes the process a lot easier).

I kept calm as I progressed through the paper, working slowly but carefully through each question. Aside from the final one, there weren’t any questions I looked at and didn’t know where to begin, which further added to my confidence as I went on. I’m rarely one to be especially worried by any upcoming exam, and I hadn’t woken up fretting about how today’s would go. But, that said, I was also in half a state-of-mind where I was resigned to it being a flop – and, happily, that it was not.

I never like to predict what grade I’ll ultimately get, but given I’ve similar feelings to those I had after the equivalent exams I sat in November (in which I got an A), I’m not sure that I will overall get the A* I was really hoping for. If it were just awarded on the results of this Calculator paper, there’s a possibility I would get it, but of course Friday’s horrible Non-Calculator paper will probably average it out to a similar mark to that that I got in November.

For now, though, with the sun shining over Burdett Towers and the paper, a cup of coffee, and slice of cake on my desk, I’m relieved – whatever grade I get – to have finished GCSE Maths (for the second time!). Tomorrow, my revision begins for the summer exams, but I’m going to enjoy this evening knowing how hard I worked for these two latest papers and Thursday’s Music Theory examination.