Paidtoplease

That won't happen unless the P.C Bods are put back into their box and they let Competitive competition start again along with Christmas Activities and a clout round the ear by your local bobby !!!

Amazing Grace

Excuse me, I didnt get any A levels and I am definitely not a thicko, as I said previously I received all my qualifications I have after I left school and the reason I got them then was because I wanted to learn not because I had to learn.

Amazing Grace

Here! Here! I went to my eldest grandson's sports day and it was so wonderful to hear the School Houses being called out, yes competition and sports on a playing field, everything very un PC in schools these days but in his school which is in North Wales they dont have SATS as they do in England, I think this is the test they do something like the 11 plus (OMG I am showing my age now) but please tell me if I am wrong. The competition and the eagerness on the childrens faces to do well for their "House" was brilliant. The Offsted report on the school puts it as one of the top in the area. Lets bring back UN PCness TODAY!!!!

typical

Right, a system where it's by design impossible to compare between years... and where students fail no matter how well they've done on their course just because a few people did better that year, even if in any of the previous ten years they'd have passed... excellent stuff...

The only real problem with A levels now is that the bar for the top grade is set too low. Luckily there are A* grades coming in soon.

In the end grade inflation doesn't matter much even if it does exist, as long as you can still pick out the real bright sparks. Am I the only one to have done the special papers as well? (Now GCE Advanced Extension I believe)

Cham128

its very true... I was taking a CIM course a couple of years ago... and was basically told we would be learning how to take an exam and you need to answer using this.

at which point i couldn't understand why i was spending £2.5k of my own money to regurgitate rather than learn... when I mentioned that you couldn't use a certain thing in the real world... i was told to stop thinking about the real world, you are studying to pass an exam and gain a qualification...

true but on paper a person may not have as good grades but be better for a job... but you'd never know because if you could only interview one of them it would be the person that looks better on paper

Paidtoplease

Beat's me mate, school qualifications now a days are like double dutch to me, I'm a straight foreward ''O'' Grade and Higher ABC = Pass anything Below = Fail

IndieG

Reminds me - daughter's class results in Maths - almost every one got over 90% with several scoring full marks. The teacher made the paper a bit tricky - the person who scored the second highest - was 23% below the person scoring the highest And this happened in one of the better schools here in Dubai.

Fairydust

OK I might be having a seriously blonde moment but how can the second highest scorer be 23% below the highest if everyone got over 90%???

Blue Cat

I knew someone else would ask!
blonde cat x

Cham128

because the teacher made the test a bit tricky for the next one

IndieG

Not in this test! The previous tests were too easy - so many scored over 85%

Fairydust

Ahhhhh I get it now

Celso75

They must be easier now, i struggled to get through two subjects Besides, I found my degree easier, probably because it was a lot more interesting

Eeyore

The universities certainly think that exams are getting easier.

For the last few years, many unis have been complaining that they're having to lay on remedial classes in all their major subjects to bring their new intake of undergrads - even the ones with multiple A-grades - up to the standard that *used* to be taken for granted among new entrants.

Once upon a time, if you had a A-grade A-level, it *guaranteed* a certain level of academic achievement and ability. It doesn't any more, which is why I believe some unis are even considering introducing their own entrance exams, so that they can sort out the A-grade students who are actually good from the A-grade students who are crap and who wouldn't have been given A-grades under the old, stricter marking system.

If that isn't a damning indictment of the standard of A-level grading these days, I don't know what is.

But then, it's been demonstrated more than once that if you give modern students old-style exams (covering questions that they *ought* to be able to answer) and mark them as strictly as they used to be marked, all the kids crash and burn big-time - even the ones predicted for multiple A-grades under the modern system.

Redlippie

Cambridge U. is currently working with Eton and the other toff schools, to introduce a new qualification which shall be called Pre-U or something along the lines as they're utterly fed up with the A-level sub-standards. Or so I have read.