The A Level Results

[Hookey]

Ah but Unc was evacuated when the Kaiser threathened to drop mustard gas....

[Uncle Urchin]

Originally Posted By: Hookey

Ah but Unc was evacuated when the Kaiser threathened to drop mustard gas....

don't be silly hookster...








I was too busy fighting in the boer war to be evacuated anwhere....

[YELLOW]

Originally Posted By: Stu M

I wouldn't worry. Aren't they introducing an A* to sort the the real boffins from the sort of people that would have got a C in my day (1991)...?

They do the A* grade for GCSEs I know, have done since the mid nineties when I took mine. Not sure about A levels though.

A heck of alot of the grade (around 50%) is made up of coursework. If your coursework is damn near perfect then you can achieve a D or E grade without even sitting the exam.

Access to previous test papers also makes it easier to anticipate which subjects and questions are likely to be asked. When I was at school/college the teachers would go through the test papers freom the previous 5 to 6 years checking which subjects and questions had come up and virtually tell us what questions they thought would be on the paper!!!!

[YELLOW]

Originally Posted By: The Invisible Man

I understand that children are also encouraged to use the internet for 'research' but at that stage they are not equipped to evaluate the source sufficiently: while some serious work is published on the net the huge majority is drivel. Plus of course they simply plagiarise it. In principle I agree that coursework is generally better, and they will come across it a lot at university, but it is only as good as the standards by which it is monitored and I am not sure that this is sufficient at present.

At uni we were always told to quote fully author and source in any essay, dissertation we did or be docked marks for plagiarism.

Most university lecturers can tell if your using your own ideas or copying somebody elses without crediting that source.
Some students therefore may get a shock when they go to uni.

Copying some random essay off the internet may help them achieve a decent A level grade but certainly won't help them get a degree although these days it seems that isn't the case!!!

[Big J R]

Originally Posted By: thespursfan

amo amas amat amamus amatis amant

wolfgang amadeus mozart werde in salzburg geboren

and what was the point in me ever looking at a logarithm table?

I think they had one of those on last weeks 'Antiques Roadshow' !

[Yellow Bungle]

I read on th BBC website that 96.7% of A level exam entrants passed. Bearing in mind that entries are made some months before that exam so some entrants may not finish the course and sit the exam, and that some entrants may be ill and not be able to attend is it unrealistic to assume that 2 or 3 % of entrants may not in fact take the exam.

 

This leads to the conclusion that basically you just have to turn up and get the admin - candidate number and exam title/number correct to pass.

 

What a waste of time for everyone.

[Greg_Dyke]

Originally Posted By: Yellow Bungle

I read on th BBC website that 96.7% of A level exam entrants passed. Bearing in mind that entries are made some months before that exam so some entrants may not finish the course and sit the exam, and that some entrants may be ill and not be able to attend is it unrealistic to assume that 2 or 3 % of entrants may not in fact take the exam.

This leads to the conclusion that basically you just have to turn up and get the admin - candidate number and exam title/number correct to pass.

What a waste of time for everyone.

or perhaps, in the more rational world...those heading for failure, are directed onto more vocational, and other levels of course, before they reach the final exam stage.
A lot of the marks are tied up in coursework for some subjects, so it is easier than ever to predict, accurately the final grade.....

........those taking the final exam, do not "just have to turn up", THEY WOULD HAVE HAD TO PROVE THEIR WORTH OVER 2 YEARS, before reaching that stage....Then, they are graded A-E upon the conclusion of their course/and exam.....

Those who work hardest, will achieve the A*, thiose who take the exam lightly, may find a B drops to a D, for example !

Students are not cleverer, Exams are not easier, they are just different and more focused...

[cantos]

My son who has special needs has 7 GCSE passes.He is not clever it is just too difficult to fail nowadays.

As i have mentioned before,a 11 year child could pass the F G paper in Mathmatics and English.

[Yellow Bungle]

Greg; no, the exams are easier and they are also marking considerably more leniently.

[Greg_Dyke]

I think we'll have to agree to disagree.....A levels are much different from 10-15 years ago...they are now AS/A2's for example.

 

Students study a lot for them, and work hard for two years for them.

Teachers know how to get their students to succeed and also work hard to make this happen

 

To say they are easier, is just too simplistic

[Yellow Bungle]

If you assume that evolution has not resulted in significant intellectual development in the last 20 years then you would expect that if standards of qualifications remained the same and the amount of entrants remained the same then the distribution of results would remain similar. Indeed if, as has been the case, increasing numbers of people are taking A levels then it is not unreasonable to assume that as these people would not have been previously taking A levels as they would not have has sufficient academic qualifications, then the distribution wold skew away from the previously established normal towards fail.

 

To maintain the normal you would have to make the exams easier to pass. To skew the distribution towards pass, as has happened, the exams would need to be even easier.

 

Okay, you could argue that socio-economic considerations have enabled more academic but socially disadvantaged kids to take A levels, but I don't think that this is the case since the 1980s - if you were looking at the 1960s you mighth have a point.

 

In reality GD, it is simple - just like the exams are these days.