If so – good news! You’ve got advantage when doing a GCSE English exam. For the two pieces of non-fiction text this year were a Nissan Micra advert (non-fiction? haha) and a hilarious piece from Bill Bryson about America’s addiction to cars. Decent questions too, so no complaints there, despite the theme of cars.
Section B offered a choice as usual, I went for the slight gamble of writing the text to another advert for a car aimed at young men. It was called the Skaro SVI and features a ground-braking “noise control” system that allows you to choose how loud the motor is. Oh, and metallic paint! Genius, I’m sure you’ll agree. Slogan?
“It’s not your father’s car. The new Skaro SVI.”
Before I get carried away with the fun of creative writing in English, I should remember that tomorrow is History. We’ll be sampling the delights of India’s Road to Independence as well as a whole bunch of stuff that happened in the USA after WW2 (Civil Rights, Women, Watergate, McCarthy, etc..) and suchlike.
Today was the first (and only) day with two subjects on the same day, and my neck is hurting from having to lean over the low table. Apart from that, it went well 
ICT was first and went as expected. I had finished, checked and double checked after 1 hour 15 minutes, so I had 45 minutes left to drink some water, lean back, read the case study, go up to 1000 on my calculator simply by pressing +1, go back down to 0 by pressing -1, re-read the case study, count the number of lights on the ceiling, read the nutritional information on my water bottle, and finally stare at the clock. Seriously, the ICT exam is easy.
“Peter is 12. What two things might he do online to pursue his hobby – golf?”
Well, getting a life would help. Golf?! At 12!?
Anyway – then came 2 hours of Maths (non-calculator, higher tier) in the afternoon. And it was actually quite a good paper, although I won’t use the word “easy” like our head of year did. Screwed up on a question about cylinders and ignored an algebra one, but apart from that I was quite pleased with it. Especially satisfying when you get the vectors question (it’s a little puzzle!) and when you’ve got a mass of equations down to something nice and simple.
My Maths GCSE now really lies in the second paper, and how generous they are with the grade boundaries.
Tomorrow is English Part 1 – but without any poetry. Thank god.
It was back today with Double Science Paper 1, co-incidentally the same one which was hastily rewritten after falling out the back of a van and to be honest, it showed.
The weirdest thing was the abundance of questions where all the facts would be given to you in bullet points, before asking the question. Example:
Here are some facts about the birth control pill
– The pill is 99% effective
– It does not protect against STDs
Name an advantage and disadvantage for the pill?
I mean – how can you get that wrong, unless you can’t read? To be fair there was a nice question on why giraffes haven’t evolved long necks to reach the leaves from tall trees, instead because males use them to fight and female giraffes think long necks are hot.
However, if my science teacher is reading this, I did get a Physics question wrong involved an equation about waves or something. Oops.
Tomorrow is a double whammy – 2 hours of ICT in the morning (easy but dull) and then Maths in the afternoon. It’s non-calculator so it should be slightly easier than the other but still a challenge… however, Maths is also the most satisfying exam to do if you get it right. Expect a tired Dalek to post tomorrow.
Hi there, and welcome to the new DomSez presented with plenty of new RV orange. The big news today has been the government’s new plans for a road charging scheme, so let’s take a closer look.
Continue Reading
At 9am this morning ruberyvillage.co.uk went live with a huge redesign. As Nic wrote, it was a long night for the dev team – I hit the pillow at 1:30 but Nic and Andy stayed up literally all night to get it finished. Great work everyone, especially seeing the CSS needed reworking at the last minute!
Don’t forget to check out DomSez on Monday – which may or may not be cross-posted here – and leave your comments on the RV site itself.
In other news, as you’ve probably gathered I’m back from Suffolk and we’re meeting Tash and Mum at the airport today. I have a long task list for today as well! Including some last minute Science revision for tomorrow…
Helen on It’s (waiting) time.: “Fabulous news, congratulations to you both! X” Jun 8, 21:51
