Good to know I'm not the only one seeing this. It would seem the days when all a good student needed to know was core reading to guarantee a pass are long gone!
Certainly I'd be interested to hear Colin's take on this exam. Have ActEd tutors seen the papers yet? I really don't know how these things work
Yes - we have seen the papers. On inspection, I agree that it was a tough paper. Very little bookwork, and not much "application of knowledge from the course".
I found the paper very challenging in real time. There were at least two question components that I'm 99.9% aren't in or alluded to in the Core Reading at all, though thankfully only for a mark each. The first two questions were very strange and the whole paper felt like a weird ST5/CA1/CT2/CT7 mashup rather than an SA5 paper. I know they can and do draw on those subjects, but I've never seen them do it to such an extent. There were some OK sections but not many. I also suspect question three will prove extremely divisive. I didn't mind it so much though I thought 3)ii)b) was difficult. I have since realised what the question was getting at, but didn't in the exam and I tip my hat to anyone who did!