spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
but highly efficient at passing exams.
Yet more record A level passes: it's bollocks, isn't it?
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but highly efficient at passing exams.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
OED has me getting it right first time
exams in KNIVES maybe
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Well, you're younger than me. I don't stand a chance.
Wiktionary disagrees, and gives some swanky verb tables to boot.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abacus
It also 'has' you with no sense of humour.
N_igma
Epistemic nuisance
NI students win again
That's cos we have the best schools.
internetstalker
Get naked!
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
*splutter*
Not surprising if it's piss.
Minnie_the_Minx
someinenhhanding menbag and me ah bollox
You can tell I've got some A-levels, can't you?
the button
out on the kocker
I thought this one would be about 5 pages by now. Kids today, etc. 
Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
We would do well to look at the lessons The Wire Season 4 can teach us on this one. *serious face*
That's what a lot of people suggest, in the news and that. No idea myself.
_angel_
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I don't know about the pass marks being lower, but I think before they only used to let a certain percentage get a grade A and I think that has now changed to anyone scoring above whatever mark it is.
As for getting 'easier', not sure, but I know when my mum did O level Maths in whatever year it was it contained calculus. You don't have to do that for GCSE.
As for getting 'easier', not sure, but I know when my mum did O level Maths in whatever year it was it contained calculus. You don't have to do that for GCSE.
_angel_
.
Surely this varies from subject to subject?
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
Surely one way to prove if the tests are getting easier is to randomly select a previous year's paper. Say like A-Levels 1992 or something. Surely stuff like Maths, French and Science can't have changed that much since then?
_angel_
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The Telegraph tried to prove that Maths questions had got easier by using a selection of questions from previous decades. All it proved was that I couldn't pass any of them, any time.
I did this - got copies of the Maths, Physics and Chemistry A papers I sat, and of the current year's.
And the syllabi.
No, I could no longer do the papers I had passed
Yes, the recent ones were harder. For example in physics they'd dropped thermionic diodes - but added loads of new physics that had happened since.
One thing I did spot was that the questions had got less tricky - less trying to catch out those who misunderstood obfuscated problem-setting and more content. Hard to evaluate that, though, without having 1000 students sit two different sets of papers each in the same week - and I think the ethics committee would have a word about that!
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
This is very interesting - a trend towards enabling the student to show what they know, perhaps. Certain kinds of questions - for instance, multiple choice with very similar answers - can be very unfair on certain kinds of minds, such as dyslexics. In years gone by many with particular learning difficulties would have left school with no qualifications at all and labelled by others and themselves as thick. Nowadays, there is a far greater understanding of such difficulties and provision of resources to help.
The more I think about it, the more I would be amazed and disappointed if standards were not steadily rising.
I got meself a A level in Englesh graid B an I am well pissed off n that, that the kids today are gettin graid 1s wen they are shit at Englesh compaird to me, innit.
The fact is that the exams have generally not got easier, schooling and teaching methods have improved for many kids. There are those who would like a grading system that is relative. So only the top 10% get As, the next 20% Bs etc. Under such a system performance that would attain an A one year may only attain a B a few years later. Personally I would oppose such elitist screening.
It is difficult to be sure that a B in a subject scored in 1985 is the same as a B in the same subject scored in 2008. Probably the more recent would be the more valid today especially in constantly changing subjects like the sciences. But real life experience surely counts for something too.
I think there are too many grumpy old adults who begrudge the kids their youth and who view everything to do with young people through a sickly smear of jaundice and prejudice.
The fact is that the exams have generally not got easier, schooling and teaching methods have improved for many kids. There are those who would like a grading system that is relative. So only the top 10% get As, the next 20% Bs etc. Under such a system performance that would attain an A one year may only attain a B a few years later. Personally I would oppose such elitist screening.
It is difficult to be sure that a B in a subject scored in 1985 is the same as a B in the same subject scored in 2008. Probably the more recent would be the more valid today especially in constantly changing subjects like the sciences. But real life experience surely counts for something too.
I think there are too many grumpy old adults who begrudge the kids their youth and who view everything to do with young people through a sickly smear of jaundice and prejudice.
Well, my little sister has just heard she's got three As in her A-levels and considering how incredibly hard she has worked over the last few years I am taking the extremely personal and by no means backed up by any statistics whatsoever view that a/she has done bloody well b/I am really proud of her and c/that every single year the same gripes about thicko students getting As come up and yet the world does not end.
editor
hiraethified
Mind you, stories like this don't exact instil confidence:
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure pupils wouldn't have been awarded marks for writing 'fuck off' on their papers twenty years ago.
Isn't that just your own prejudice creeping through there?
Well, you get individual stories like that and you also get individual stories about how incredibly hard people work and how they achieve great things. Up to you which ones you choose to think are better examples of the system today.
Kidss now go straight from GCSEs to AS levels to A levels. That's three years of solid working towards year-end exams and a fuck of a lot of stress. And don't forget all the testing they have beforehand. Personally, I'm far more concerned about stress levels and the lack of joy in learning that the modern exams seem to bring than whether they've got easier, which seems an almost impossible thing to quantify.
2 marks is still a fail.
I favour 2 marks for 'fuck off'. It is more consistant and does not allow for zero to be awarded simply because of the examiner's prejudice against saxon English.
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