How we got on with the A2 in 2002: report from Halesowen College

We finished the A2 course with a bit of time to spare, and I had been quite pleased with the students' progress. However, having just marked their mock unit 6 paper my confidence is slipping fast! They seem to have coped well as we progressed through the course, but they obviously still have a lot of work to do. I wasn't too sure if the investigation we did (the same as usual - enthalpies of hydration) gave them the opportunity to perform as well as they might on this assessment.

Some examples of good student practice on the website would be appreciated, I'm sure.

Students' views of the A2
Some students found that explaining the effects of temperature and pressure on position of equilibrium in terms of entropy was difficult. They liked the practical work and got a lot of entertainment out of the nylon rope trick - we do it as a competition. They liked the Special Study (Chemical engineering or Biochemistry) as it was 'different'.

Students said that the assessment is good, but felt that the exam questions were different in the textbook from the actual exams. The shortage of past exam papers (particularly unit 6) was a problem.

Some students thought that the jump between GCSE and A- level was not too big so maybe we got Topic 1 right!

Graham Hall