Paul3446

I've read 2 interesting stories today:

The first concerns another rise in grades achieved at A Level, this is apparently because kids are generally brighter, working harder and teaching standards have improved. It is nothing to do with exams getting easier.

The second story concerns Universities having to give new students special remedial lessons when they arrive, as they don't even have the sort of basic education such as spelling and grammar or basic maths.

Am I the only one who smells a rat?

Drunken Bungle Whore

I was asked to write a basic Maths and English course for an organisation recently. And I mean basic! So I asked why their recruitment criteria didn't stipulate A-C GCSE grades for Maths & English if they were that important. I was told they already did.......

Markus

Maybe I should resit my Maths GCSE? I might get a better grade than first time round, hell, maybe I should do the same for all of my GCSE's, might bump the C's to A+ and the other grades to B's

I'm not the brightest bulb and my math skills are laughable, but I'm horrified to think that Uni's are offereing remedial lessions. Something is seriously failing in Secondary schools if this is needed.

Iain Young

My mum works in the science dept of a local secondary school. According to her, a lot of the stuff I did in GCSE doesn't appear until A-Level now!!

Bodgit

I have been thinking about doing this as the recruiter would just assume I did them at school before I left quite afew years ago and they were the good old exam grade A's

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

I used to love going out in town on A-Level results night...

Too old now

OllyK

Great, every potential employee now has 4 Grade A, A Levels, as an employer how do you weed out the dross?

I did my second degree as a mature student and they were doing maths sessions for all students (for an IT degree). I hadn't done maths for a good few years beyond the basic mental arithmetic stuff, but I soon got back in to it and got straight A's through the course. I was amazed at the number of students who had just done A level, coming to be asking how to do matrix multiplication and calculus.

andythejock01wrx

I can guarantee never to ask anyone how to do calculus.

OllyK

Indeed, but if you were doing graphical based prgramming then it get's somewhat important.

what would scooby do

I thought calculus was a spikey plant

OllyK

Well if anybody hands you a plant when you ask what the area is under a curved graph, then they're obviously as mixed up as you!!

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I can confirm that unis are indeed offering remedial lessons in maths etc. When I went to study Physics I required some remedial instruction to cover some of the more complex mathematics. I was only a couple of topics, and that was 10 years ago.

Those topics had simply being dropped from my syllabus to make the exams easier. I got an A at A level (easily), the scary thing being that when I did a past paper from ten years previous, just before I sat my real exam, I was B/C standard.

I think I got over 90% on my A-level maths, without wanting to take it away from anyone, it was the easiest maths exam I had seen. ALL the past papers were harder.

When it came to the other subjects the same sort of thing was happening. In A-Level physics they were dropping certain topics to make the course shorter. This allowed more time to teach the harder things, and have less to learn. It was all to make stuff easier.

I just don't know how they keep managing to get away with this.

OllyK

Well they're not really. 20 Years ago, a couple of D's at A level would get you in to a Uni, now a couple of D's and you're not qualified to empty bins. All our cleaners now have to have at least a Masters to even be considered as eligable. Personally I have 6 degrees and 3 PhD's

andythejock01wrx

Tis true. Often youngsters describe better grades than my 4 Scottish Highers (A to C)obtained 20 years ago, but then you just never know whether you are comparing like with like.

Well, either that, or Darwin and Dawkins flunked their "exams" and humans evolve over a 20 year period !

lozgti

How much of an A level is 'copy it out the book at home' coursework?

I think the remedial stuff was,as they described it,'infantile errors such as not knowing the difference between their and there' etc

Oh well,great way to keep unemployment figures looking good....get everyone into higher education for three years

OllyK

Indeed, get people on the road to lifetime debt as early as possible!

fast bloke

For all the thirty somethings that think A levels are too easy now - my brother in law got a C and a D in 1967 - The was enough to get him into veterinary medicine. By the time I did mine in 1989, minimum standard for veterinary medcine was 4 A's. Now I assume the requirement is 16 A+*'s. The exams have always been getting easier, but the final result is the same. I look at it as a type of education inflation.

(I think they should abolish all the dopey degrees - what are you supposed to do with a degree in the philosophy of science - stay off the dole for an extra three years? )

Gymbal

There is a story in the local press about a girl who got 5 A s at A level but (shock) wasn't even offerred a place to study medicine. In the interview she said, "I'm a bit shy....." Well i'm sure they'll want you next year, then. NOT!

Can I see the shy doctor please? ffs Do an IB then!

OllyK

The final result isn't quite the same. The exam results used to pretty much follow a normal distribution curve, i.e. the amjority would get C's, the excellent would get A's and the weaker candidates would get D, E and U. As a university / employer you could distinguish between candidates based on their grades. Now, with the distribution curve skewed to the point where almost all of it falls in the A bracket, you can't tell people apart which pretty much renders having a grade worthless. We're kind of at the point now where you either pass or fail your A levels rather than having a good indicator of a person's understanding of the subject material.

ETA: even if exams weren't getting easier, they would do well to re-distribute the bell curve so that the average students were getting C's still, OK, the results may be over a smaller range than previously, but the distinction could be made, rather than having to introduce A* and A+ etc.

Gymbal

Fully agree with OllyK, top 2% get A/A+ whatever next 5 % and so on, publish the graphs.

Unfortunately statistics are probably PHD level now

SwissTony

iTrader: (19)

yes but can any of these grade A+ students get a corner ???





my neice just got hers, she did sod all studying and partied all the time and now she has passed

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

But at the same time, a lot of the things I did at Uni I now teach to Year 8 students! (12 year olds).

OllyK

What subject is that in? What kind of stuff are you teaching that you hadn't previously learnt yourself until Uni?

Flaps

iTrader: (1)

ICT
At school/college it was all Databases/Spreadsheets etc it wasn't until Uni that we looked at web design. We now teach that (Dreamweaver) to Y8's.

Leslie

That is the real point of course. What is the use of dumbing it all down so that students get strings of A's etc. and also need to do cramming courses to be able to even start a university degree course apart from trying to make the political policies look good.

How can an employer decide who will be fit to do the job he is offering?

Les

OllyK

Well they can't, but in the NL of not liking competition in schools this ensure that all the students get a warm fuzzy feeling right up to the point where they go for their first job interview.

andythejock01wrx

Agree with the post.

Can't remember there being a "U" grade though. Was that "U" for "useless" ?

Leslie

They must get a hell of a shock then.

Les

OllyK

U was for Unclassified