Turbo2

Surprise, surprise the number of "A" grades is up again. You must get one just for turning up these days!

BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Record top A-level grades awarded

"More than one in four entries - 26.7% - got the top grade, up from 25.9% last year and the overall pass rate rose to 97.5%, up 0.3 percentage points."

"The improvement in grades - for the 27th year in a row"

We must be the cleverest country in the world by now. The flip side of this for me personally is that because I took my A-levels back in 1987, that must make me one of the stupidest people out there.

Oh well, at least I can still poke fun at the Classes of '86, '85; '84, '83 and the real Joeys of 1982!

TelBoy

I just don't understand who this benefits apart from the PC happy clappers.

dpb

You could get one in Sociology just for turning up , in 1984 !

stilover

I don't necessarily think A level have got any easier, although Coursework based subjects mean more of the grade can be achieved "out of exam".

Isn't just a case of grades have come down. Something silly like 65% gets you an A grade now, where before it was 90%.

Steve vRS

I agree.

It's the pressure on the whole system to show improvement that is causing this "success creep", set by the government as it is their perception that it is what the public wants.

This however, is meaningless as exams are a way of demonstrating the understanding of a subject and to differentiate that degree of understanding. By making the entire school population A* superstars, you are not achieving the intended goal.

Pity the kids, as they are still working hard with diminishing recognition.

Steve

john banks

An A used to be an achievement, just like a pound was something valuable.

Just another form of inflation, the tokens become worthless.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

Problem is there is a very negative bias inherent in interpreting exam figures i.e.

More people get 'A's everyone cries "exams too easy" No-one asks whether it possibly reflects an improvement in teaching, curriculum design, demographic shift in the students or just an increasing realisation from the kids that it'd a tough world out there and they need to deliver the goods!

However, if grades go down, no one says: "Maybe the exam was too hard"

I think there is also an element of the "old School" try to elevate their own achievements above the youngsters in some cases too. That's from someone who got an 'A' at A level 14 years ago!!

I do know, from experience, that it's rarely the A level entrances into university that cause tutors to say "how the f*eck did they get in" it's usually the people from the other routes who clearly don't have the requisite educational attainment.

Probably best not to get me started on this subject though!

Simon 69

Degrees are now FAR harder (according to every lecturer I spoke to about this, in 1997).

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I suppose we all have different experiences, but mine do bear out that A Levels have become much easier than they were in the past. I know from when I took mine at school past paper questions were much harder. In addition, the previous syllabus was more extensive, meaning students had less time to cope with what was presented.

Further to that, when I got to uni there was a special class in the first week that listed all the things that you should already know in both Physics and Maths (I was reading Physics). There were holes in my knowledge, and the depth of ignorance increased each year according to lecturers at my uni (Nottingham). This lack of knowledge was a direct result of the 4 year degree courses being implemented there so that they could spend the time in the first year teaching things schools should have already done.

The current trend is a real shame, as it does nobody any favours. It simply devalues the qualification, negatively impacts on people's achievements and fails to help potential employers/educational establishments differentiate between prospective candidates

yoza

I left school with noffin, didnt do me any arm.

Infact I did leave with something.......my first STD.

And a healthy disrespect for anyone or anything in authority.

On a serious note I havent done too bad for a thicko.

If they would have done horololigy I would have turned up, and have some interest.

The only thing I enjoyed was Tech Drawing and Metal work, I did extra metalwork after school and was doing really well with it.

But I fcuked up when enameling a copper shield, holding it with a pair of tongs over a furnace until both the copper shield and tongs were cherry red, I felt the urge to pinch some lads neck with the tongs...

He earlier in the term threw a leather sand bag at me and knocked me out, so revenge was sweet but costly.

Big respect for anyone who can stick out school/stay on/go to uni and further their education, see you at the drive through.

dpb

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Sorry but success creep helps no-one, when I started H.E. the head of engineering told me, "You won't get a first !", based on my level of attainment to get to a degree course.

Now I probably would as the "happy clappers" will make it right for me, Or Sir Jimmy Saville, O.B.E. ?

dunx

Sbradley

Not so!

My daughter has just got her results today, and there's a table of percentages vs grades on the back of the paper.

A needs 80% or more.
B is 70-79%
C is 60-69%
D is 50-59%
E is 40-49%

As usual, D and E don't really count as passes.

I took my A levels in 1980 and the percentage requirements were the same.

She worked her buns off to get the grades she did. It seemed to me that coursework made life easier, yes, but she really worked bloody hard.

SB

PS She got an A and 2 Bs and got the Uni place she wanted

john banks

Even in 1992 when we felt clever for doing Maths A-level in lower sixth, we were brought back down to earth when some of the mock exam questions were from an older O-level textbook (and of equal standard to the new A-level questions, and this was from Ox/Cam or JMB exam boards, the hardest ones). So instead of being a year ahead, really we were a year behind... hate to think how much it has slid now, even then the best courses at the best universities were needing dedicated entrance exams as everyone was offering 4+ grade As at A-level.

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Congrats to your daughter I don't want to take away the achievements people have made and have worked so hard for, but the issue is that the system is doing that for us. Getting your hands on past papers (and syllabus) for the past years is a revelation at just how much easier things have become.

Your daughter's grades are good, but if passes just keep on rising in a decade or so her results will appear just mediocre, and that will be unfair on the work that she has put in.

Diesel

I'd love to know if they are having a laugh with grades so as politicians can crow about their 'success' or if it actually really is kids working harder and being cleverer than 'us' when we were doing them and only the genius socially inept hyper academic type could get several 'A's...

Is there any way of comparing say an English exam paper now and one 10 years ago?

D

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Most probably there is a way to compare an English paper, but it will probably be more subjective than comparing a Maths or a Physics paper. When I was at school I did this exercise on the last 10 years papers (I worked hard for my grades). I was finding that the more older past papers and revision I did, the harder things were getting. I was confused by this and talked to my teachers. Two of them sat me down and showed me the changes to the syllabus, levels of questions etc etc. It was quite a revelation.

Diesel

I think that comparing papers on something like Maths would be less representatitive - it all depends on what was taught in the years. Did they do Venn diagrams and calculus for eg? Using English should level it a bit as wrong spelling and poor writing is still just that! D

john banks

Calculus was in O-level maths up until the 1980s. Nowadays you can have an A in GCSE maths and barely be numerate.

c_maguire

It is in the interests of the system, those working for the system, and those receiving qualifications from the system to deny standards are falling. How likely is it that an individual who has just got 3 'A' levels will concede that to achieve the same 20 years ago would be harder, thereby devaluing his/her current qualifications? Besides which, how the hell would they know anyway?
The papers themselves are perhaps no easier now, but they are not the be all and end all that they were back in the day. If you have to sit down for 2 long exams where you are expected to recall any and all material covered in the previous 2 years then you need to know your stuff. And when I was in the system the percentages required to attain each grade were not fixed and the 'A' grade would be given to perhaps the top 5-10% of all candidates sitting an exam. In this way an easier paper one year would not result in loads more people getting 'A's. The continuous assessment operating now will of course make any course easier because the pressure to know everything at one time is taken away.
My other half is an 'A' level chemistry teacher and she happily admits (to me at any rate) that it is now much easier to achieve a grade than it was when she was a student, although of course this difference is much smaller where mathematics and the sciences are concerned. Terms like 'deferred success' are de rigeur these days.
I don't have any exposure to the system now, but when I did I was marked down in exams for bad spelling and grammar. This isn't regarded as a big deal nowadays, but I personally cannot reconcile being intelligent and committed enough to attain a 'good' 'A' level or Degree with an inability to spell or construct. And in a country that is obviously becoming incredibly clever, how is it so few can spell or make any sense?
Kevin

Diesel

Agree with you Kev - although I think that as an adult it is perhaps normal to look at exam papers and think they are far less scary or difficult than they seemed as a 17yr old?

In fact I may have re-sat English at college as a favour for a dyslexic mate and got him an A as opposed to my own C... Same brain - just a bit more mature/older. (he was a bit p'd off as he'd re-sat it loads of times and now had to explain an 'A'... He got into Poly as was his wish and now they accept 'new-fangled' dyslexia is no reason not to be permitted to do Civil Engineering etc.
D

TelBoy

Kevin, you're a dying breed.

Or is that...

Kevin, your a dyeing breed.

Many on here would only be able to guess at the correct version...

Trout

iTrader: (1)

There are lots of girls around Paddington with A levels!! They leave their CVs in phone boxes everywhere!

jasey

I always remember a TV show from a couple of years ago where they sent some 16 year olds "back in time" to a 50's school.

Told them they were taking an O level from back then and they all said it was much harder than the current O Levels.

They had actually just sat a 50's Eleven Plus exam - which for the youngsters on here was an exam you took at 11 years old to decide if you were a mong or not

bigsinky

agreed. my O level and A level maths did not prepare me for the hard sums at university. 3rd level hard sums are proper hard IMHO.

TurboKitty

Its brede innit?

TurboKitty

Yesstidy I cunnt speel A grayde at A livle an now I got ate ov em.

dunx

iTrader: (3)

I is did engineering, so it my bad not matter how poor my gandma was, or my splleing...

I remember back in 1977 meeting two guys on the A-level re-sit course at college, they both got dropped for medical school because they ONLY had 3 A's and a B..... Maths, Physics, Biology and Chemistry, I learnt to be a little more humble.

WTF is critical thinking, is that a course for wannabe film critics ? ?

dunx

P.S. numeracy is of little use in applying partial differentiation....

jasey

sounds like the entrance exam for SN membership.

Or is it being a critical basterd

austinwrx

I sat both O levels at 15 and then did gcses at 16- the first yr to take them.

they are poles apart: gcses even then in the 80's were much easier.

I recall a mark of 25% last year got you a C grade in gcse maths.

we've have been beaten black and blue at school for turning in work that was 25% right.

for us too, it was 100% exam as oppose to coursework- I guess as yrs have gone by the coursework makes it so much easier.

I know as an employer, exams results mean very little, as do some degrees tbh.