Article I came across on the BBC website today:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8211936.stm

Now, I don't think he concluded that they are significantly easier, on this occasion, and his grade suggests they aren't, surely? But my biggest niggle in this case is the comment about 6 hours of teaching time each week.

Did anyone get 6 hours of weekly teaching time for their A level subjects?

For my Alevel maths we got slightly less than 4 hours per week. I got an A. And I was preparing for G8 flute, and 6 IB subjects at the same time! For my 6 IB subjects we got 2hr40m per week for standard level subjects, and 3hr40m hours per week for higher level subjects.

And why don't people realise that every time they say how much easier modern exam are, its not the efforts of the straight A students they're running down; so much as the efforts of those who work so hard for their Ds Cs and Bs...

Let me start by saying 'well done' to all those successful A level candidates, and commiserations to those who were disappointed with their results. I'm certainly not wanting to rain on anyone's parade, but let me offer some thoughts - which are my own, not necessarily those of the institution I teach at!

It's hard to assess the relative hardness of exams - syllabi have changed, for a start. However, it does seem to be the case that schools have become more accustomed to 'teaching for the exam' and much better at it (I took A levels 34 years ago, BTW, and didn't get the grades expected of today's candidates - though I perhaps came close).

This is not to denigrate candidates, just to note that as more are expected to take exams and competition becomes harder, then you would expect standards of performance to rise and the training for exams to become more focused and effective. It's rather like athletics - once Usain Bolt smashes 9.6, you can expect other people to do so.

It depends what you think A levels are for; if they are to be competitive exams (rather than, say an assurance that people have reached an acceptable standard) then perhaps an 'A' at A-level should not be an absolute standard but a relative standard (as I believe the equivalent exams are in France). In other words, if we want to to identify the very best academics we should raise the bar so that fewer people reach it. That, I guess, is what A* grades would be about.

From a university perspective, what is disappointing is how many incoming students have basic problems with writing clearly, proof-reading, spelling, grammar etc. There is also a misapprehension about what university is about, so that *some* 'sat-nav' students (the Guardian's phrase, not mine) expect teaching to continue on the heavily directed model of a school, rather than providing them with an outline which they must fill in with their own study and research. So A levels don't seem to fit many students well for university study - and for some, this continues throughout their university course. But perhaps 'twas ever thus.

This is particularly obvious when *some* students are shocked that their contact time with academics can be just 6 hours a week - not per subject, but *for their entire course*, and sometimes appeal for 'more teaching' - by which they mean being told more things to remember. But this is how universities (in the Humanities, at least) have always worked - you go off and study on your own (you 'read' a subject) and then come to your tutor (whom you should see as a more experienced guide, not the dispenser of infallible truths) to discuss this, test things out, and have your understanding improved. And the more prestigious your institution, the more likely it is that it will follow this pattern - which is why the 'best' university will not be best for everyone.

If this isn't what people want or need then we should have quite different sorts of institution - perhaps more like technical colleges, which would probably be better for the individuals involved, and perhaps for the country as a whole. But British academic snobbery and distaste for 'trade' leads to demands that 50% of students should go to university ...

We got 4 hours per week for each subject (although it's 7 rather than 8 for double maths).

I didn't realise you could get your A level results online. We all had to go in to collect our brown envelopes yesterday and my college strikes me as the kind of place that would use online results if they were available.

That's familiar lol *cough* physics *cough*

I'll echo Nick and say congratulations to everyone on their results and I hope you all got what you want.

But it must be a nightmare job for universities who have to make decisions on entrants when so many get similar grades. I don't think they have necessarily got easier, just different and the schools certainly are more adept at teaching to the exam now. However I do think that there ought to be more options for people to prove themselves academically so they can stand out in a competitive environment.

The IB was supposed to do this, I would be interested to know as a few on here seem to have done them whether you feel it is worth more, less or the same as your A levels?

I also feel that the government should stop seeing university as an ultimate goal for everyone, and encourage the less academic routes for those who are not academically minded. As I have so much respect and gratitude for the lovely gas engineer who fixed my heating last February, I had been teaching in gloves and scarf!

When I did maths for engineering, we did all these calculus exercises and the exams were just the same questions worded differently and with slightly different values. I didn't really understand how to apply the concepts to examples much different than I'd seen.

Some of it was insanely hard though, stuff like calculating the speed and location of impact of a buoy dropped from a helicopter at a certain velocity, at such an altidude given wind direction and speed, if I remember correctly. God knows how I managed any of it. I wouldn't stand a chance now.

Good job I bought one of those all-singing, all-dancing scientific graphing calculators at the time.

Yes - academic achievement (in the narrow sense) is not (by a long chalk) the only measure of success or ability. It is a specialised ability that is emphatically not for all. We admire great athletes and musicians, but we do not think that success in athletics or music is the most important thing for everyone. Ditto academic success.

I know a few mechanics. Although they may not be considered "academic", they have just as much, if not more common sense and ingenuity than many grads I've met You can be "clever" without being academic, IMO.

I couldn't agree more. Not everybody can go to university, and many won't go, either because their family can't/won't fund them or because they don't want to start their adult life in debt. By making university the ultimate goal, it gives the impression that anything else is inferior, which it most certainly ISN'T. Going to university won't necessarily mean that a job will be more easily found, let alone a well paid job, and yet that is the carrot which the government holds out


Many congratulations to those who have got the results they want and need To those who are disappointed not to be going to university, please don't think it's the end of the world - many employers value a willingness to learn, a good attitude, commonsense, interpersonal skills, commitment and even old-fashioned things like time-keeping and conscientiousness, every bit as much as qualifications. Good luck to everybody who is leaving school and making their way in the world

I have to admit that I have similar feelings to Nick.

The media fuss surrounding declining standards has been around for a long time. I did my A-levels in the year when the national pass rate hit the dizzy heights of 80% amid a huge media outcry - and around 6-8% (depending on subject) of candidates obtained an A grade. This is very different to the contemporary profile, and was different to the profile 10-years previously.

Whilst I do not wish to detract from people's achievement, the reality is that (under the current system) an A/B at A-level in arts/humanities and social science subjects no longer identifies the candidates with the most academic potential, and often gives students a false sense of their academic ability ("I got an A in my level, therefore you should have given me a first for my essay"). I am increasingly encountering students with 4 A grades at A-level in essay subjects who do not know how to write in sentences and paragraphs and are unable to structure simple ideas on their own. These students would have achieved a D/E grade at best (and quite possibly a N/U) if they had done their A-levels 10 years ago, and sometimes their critical thinking and writing skills are below the standard which would have been expected for an A/B grade at GCSE. These deficiencies are not the fault of the students, many of whom have worked very hard to obtain their grades, but the reality is that for the purposes of university entry an A grade at A-level does not have the same value as it did 10 years ago. This does not mean that A-levels are intrinsically easier now, rather that the differences in the way they are structured and taught means they are no longer a reliable indicator of academic ability. The combination of focused teaching and hard work is now enough to obtain an A grade, whereas an intellectual 'spark' for the subject had previously been required (and the breadth of the syllabi made it difficult for schools to simply teach to the exam). You could argue for ever about which system is 'better', 'fairer', etc. To me, a central issue is the purpose of A-levels, and whether they should be a school leaving qualification or a university entrance qualification (with the former intended to reward achievement and the other intended to identify academic potential). At the minute, A-levels are a good school leaving qualification - but they aren't very reliable as a university entry qualification (which had previously been their purpose). This does not mean that they have less value, simply that they are different.

I personally would favour the re-introduction of the old S-level. This was taken by higher ability students alongside their A-levels (and examined at the end of the Upper 6th, like A-levels were at that time). In style, the S-level was more akin to 1st year undergraduate study in terms of the critical thinking, analysis and writing skills required, and also encouraged a more independent learning style. It provided an excellent foundation for university level study in academic subjects - however it was harder to pass than A-levels and fell out of favour with schools' increasing focus on league tables.

There's AEAs now (Advanced extension award, I think) which, I think, are the equivalent of the old S-levels. They're based on the A-level syllabus but have much more complicated and challenging questions. Oxbridge etc encourage you to do one or more of them alongside your A-levels. I decided not to do any so am not really the best person to explain about them but I'm sure someone here must have done a couple.

For me, I'm planning to go into databases and feel university is not a suitable option, not only because it is so unaffordable these days. In this particular sector of work at least, employers tend to look for those with specialist qualifications instead, which in this case are MCSEs (Microsoft Certified Specialist Exams).

I was listening to a Radio 4 show on Tuesday about university fees and all that, and it's just shocking to hear about all those students who will end up or have ended up being tens of thousands of pounds in debt. There's some that even had to pull out after the first year because they couldn't afford it. The problem is that those in the upper-class don't necessarily need grants, those in the lower-class do get them, while those in the middle get nothing. There was a guy (can't remember his name) who claimed that there has been a 7% decrease in those who have part-time jobs alongside their university studies in the past year due to the fact there are more maintenance grants available (55% to 48%). As far as I understand it, the decrease is due to the fact there are hardly any jobs available for young people at the moment, which adds to the money problems. If there are enough grants available, why are most students coming out of uni still in debt?

In terms of exam pressure, there was even a student who phoned up on that Radio 4 programme who got four As at A-Level, applied to five unis, but still didn't get a place in any of them. So they're having to take a gap year and will reapply again next year.

(I've tried to look for the programme on iPlayer but can't find it)

At the end of the day, university should be about education, not about money. Yes, universities need to be able to compete on a global scale, but it's just getting beyond ridiculous. This certainly couldn't be a worse time to apply to uni or even graduate as the jobs are just not there, as I've experienced recently.

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Car Expert

I haven't read all the posts on this thread, but I bet I can guess what some of them say.

I'll just say that this myth of easier exams has been going around since the eighties. I do kind of buy into the idea that some, newer subjects may have easier exams than the traditional ones, but the basics, maths, English, physics, chemistry, foreign languages and so on, are still just as difficult as they ever have been.

My dad found, a couple of years ago, some copies of his O-Level and A-Level exams and I had a look at them. There were a few things on them that weren't on our syllabus, and they were missing a few things that were, but by and large they were of the same standard and difficulty that my GCSE and A-Levels were.

The whole university debt problem is a big worry. BerkshireSon hasn't managed to get a part-time job this summer - there just aren't many around, so unless you already had a foot in the door somewhere because you'd worked there during 6th form, it wasn't easy. Also, the interest rates are now so low that interest on his savings has dropped.

The amount which you can borrow from the government is not enough by quite a long way to cover a year at university. This didn't matter so much when students could get holiday jobs to make up the difference, but is now becoming an issue. I feel my generation was so lucky to get enough grant to cope on; it's getting harder every year for students now, and who knows whether there'll be a job for them at the end of their course anyway?

I certanly agree with you, Car Expert, that university isn't the right answer for everyone. I hope you really enjoy the course you've chosen.

Just checked back on this thread. I honestly think 4 hours contact time per week is the norm for an A-level. I think Alevels are very different to how they used to be. After all, in the past very few people would have taken 4 or 5 Alevels, with another couple of ###### (leaving this as its so funny, that said AS s) which now seems to be standard in private or grammar schools.

Niether myself or any of my friends would ever have been offered AEAs. I'd never even heard of them til I got to Uni. We just didn't go to the right schools or FE colleges for that sort of thing.

As regards the IB, well, its certainly challenging. A 7 in a IB Higher subject definitely indicated a more fundamental grasp of that subject that an A at A level. Some of the Standard levels are incredibly easy though. At the moment it is over rated compared to A levels (according to UCAS I have over 700 points... a friend of mine has over 1000). Unfortunately, when I applied to Uni UCAS hadn't yet allocated points to the IB, so I got asked for 34 points ( now considered equivalent to 3As) and an A in Alevel maths.... for a course where the standard offer was BBB!

The funny thing was, I got the 34 points with ease, but had to work my backside off for the A in Alevel maths. Mainly because the subject doesn't come naturally to me. I dropped down to 6s in English and German to get that blasted A, and sat 5 of the modules for it in 2 weeks.

The IB is definitely better preparation for Uni than Alevels. You cannot get through it without decent essay writing skills, for a start. And the non-modular structure means the crash-revise-and-forget method that works for Alevels so well is useless. On the other hand, the second year is absolute h'ell (the students on my course were regularly breaking into hysterics in lectures during Y2; 20 out of the 70 that started at the same time as me gave up to do Alevels instead). You have to sit all the exams in 3 weeks at the end of the course, meaning that some days involve 6-8 hours of exams (though this happens to some Alevel students too). I would never suggest the course to anyone without mainly As and A*s at GCSE.

At my college the IB also had a reputation for being cliquey, and the students tending to have a superiority complex. But then, there were 3000 Alevel students, and IBlings did tend to stick together! The IB friends I made will be friends for life, because we went through so much together.

This time last year, I was getting ready to go to university, aged 17, just out of school - and everyone accepted that as being the right and proper thing to do. Skip forward a year and when people ask me what I'm doing I'm met with "Oh". I went back into my old school fairly recently with a friend from my year who has just finished his first year at university. The teachers would ask what I was doing - "I'm working, probably going to university next term..." and then spend hours or what felt like it telling XXXXX how wonderful he was to be making the school proud and other associated rubbish. No-one should be made to feel inferior for choosing either not to go to university, or to delay it for a bit. It is not compulsary.





Sounds just like Advanced Higher... in Scotland

As for contact time - I did my Advanced Highers on <1 hour/subject a week, and Highers on 4.

I would never do well with IB. I'm not good at english or MFL. I like the idea of doing 3 subjects easy and 3 advanced though.

I think the GCSE courses aren't good for preparing for A level or IB though. Why can some people get A* in a subject and find it too hard to do at AS?

I am sick of these! A Levels are NOT getting easier!

If they were then I wouldn't have had a panic attack and mental breakdown in school, crying my eyes out whilst sliding down a wall and screaming ....

Of course that's right - and teachers don't always know what goes on in universities, and university tutors don't always know what goes on in schools. Went to a 'progression to university' conference recently with teachers/college tutors/university tutors. Very interesting and helpful.

My own feeling is that there is a real advantage to leaving it for a couple of years before attempting university - if you still want to do it after that time, you're far more likely to succeed. Far too many new stoodies arrrive without much idea of what they're doing there

You don't want to leave it too long, however, since the very plasticity of the adolescent brain (infuriating though it is!) makes learning and remembering easier, I think. Just my 2p.

Interesting to hear about IB ... sounds good. My god-daughter is doing IB at the moment.




Notice that no-one here (if I recall ...) has said that A-levels are getting easier. Though the issue isn't just whether the exams are 'easier' (note the difficulty in comparison that I mention in my first post) - it's also the pressure that people feel under, and the limited expectations they are offered (either: 'get 3 As' or 'you've failed'!!!!).

It's like rats in a maze, with only one way out. No wonder it's stressful. This is why it's refreshing to read so many people pointing out that a) academic success is only one sort of success, and b) they are many. many extremely worthwhile things to do that do not involve going to university. At least as many as DO require a degree.

(If I go on like this I'll put myself out of a job ...)



So why dread the question? Surely the answer is 'teaching music, thanks. And you?' Substantially better than 'I'm working in the City'

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I guess it brings back bad memories for me - it was the question everyone asked when university went so horribly wrong!
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My best ever OU student was in exactly that posiiton ...

I think nickjones summed it up nicely, I don't think that the A levels my parents took are the same thing as the A levels I took in the early 90s or the ones folks have just had their results from.

I think it was harder to get the highest grades when I did them but then again you didn't need such high grades to get onto university courses. For example I needed CC to get onto my course, the nearest equivalent course at the same university now asks for ABB.

The way of working for qualifications has also changed a lot. I only had coursework in Geography GCSE, composition for music GCSE and all of my GCSE English Language was coursework. At A level I had no coursework at all. All of the assessment was on a single set of exams at the end. My degree had some coursework for about 1/4 of the courses but coursework and exams had to be passed separately to pass the year. I had no resits available at any part of my education other than repeating the entire course (whole year in the case of university - this was rare though at the time). Did this make my education harder? Well for me possibly it did as I was better at coursework than exams but foolishly was more interested in subjects that didn't have much coursework!

The current AS/A2 system is very different system taken by a much higher proportion of the 18 year old population. I think students are working exceptionally hard to get the grades they are doing. Teachers are working very hard to get the students properly prepared and in general our schools are getting better at preparing students for the exams they are going to take.

Irrespective of what results are achieved you can be certain that every August the papers will be claiming that things aint what they used to be. It sells far more papers than 'look how great our 18 year old have done'. The majority of the paper buying media consuming population didn't do A levels this year and much prefer to be told how much harder they had it.

Rant over......congratulations are due to those who did well in their exams this year - we know you worked really hard and did exceedingly well in the 2009 version of the A level.

A-levels in the subjects I did (Maths and Physicsy ones) definitely are a lot easier - we used to do O-level papers for practice (also Physics A-level was and is a terrible course and has very little relation to doing Physics). Clearly if the results go up every year, the exams are generally getting easier - no other explanation makes sense.

Since they're easier, at the top end (and since I was lucky enough to go to a selective grammar school, that's all I really know about) you get a massive ceiling effect. The exams are not hard enough to differentiate based on ability, so it all comes down to how few mistakes you made on the day. Which shouldn't be what they're testing. The introduction of an A* grade solves nothing as it'll just lead to increased pressure on having good exam technique and being lucky on the day (rather than being actually better at the subject). Compare it with uni, where 70% is all you need for a first-class degree - the exams are harder so you get a good spread of marks.

By the way, this isn't an attempt to belittle the achievements of people doing exams at the moment - you can only take the exams they set, and lots of people have to work very hard for their grades. However, for the best students they are often pretty useless and don't do their job.

Unfortunately, some government decree resulted in Physics A-level being dumbed down so that people could do it without doing Maths A-level alongside. Now it is just a hotchpotch of ideas with very little mathematical content. Before 2000 (when the new AS/A2 system started) A-level Physics was a better introduction to a University course (though even then Uni lecturers were complaining there wasn't enough maths content); now to a large extent it's just a woffle subject, and students are carefully led through the most basic calculations.

I thoroughly agree with your remark about how few mistakes you make on the day. A-level has been reduced to a measure of how much hard work the student has put in (not that I'm knocking that, but is it really what an A-level should be measuring?) rather than an assessment of understanding. Unfortunately, as soon as someone goes to uni to study something like Physics, Maths is an integral part of everything and there's very little woffle; if you don't understand, you will sink.

BerkshireSon lost confidence in A-levels early on because the really brilliant Chemist in their group never did well in exams. This lad understood Chemistry so well, it was just natural to him, but he couldn't be bothered with exam technique; he was more interested in learning Chemistry. Seriously, my son was prepared to e.g. look through 8 years of past papers to find which answer was always right in a particular question (all the questions are repeated ad nauseam, so by hard work you can know all the answers, and what really matters is the keywords you use - not your understanding). When he got 293/300 for AS and the really bright guy got a B, he knew the whole system was flawed.

Something has to be done about A-levels. They're becoming another set of hoops to jump through, and as long as you put in a lot of hard (but arguably useless) work you will do well. This makes university places more and more of a lottery, as unis have no real idea of whose understanding is good (the schools do, of course, but every student gets virtually identical references, as you can't speak ill of anyone). The new A* grade will put so much extra pressure on kids, and won't help much; it will just be even more important not to make a silly mistake.

Oh dear. This backs up several private suspicions that I've held for a while now...

To me, I don't want to knock people's achievements and say "oh exams are getting easier" because I think it's very obvious that teenagers are under a huge amount of pressure and are studying just as hard, if not harder than they ever did, and it feels mean to demean their achievements. However, I think if it has got to the stage where everyone passes and a quarter of all people sitting the exams are getting the top grade, then regardless of the level of difficulty of the exams they are failing to do what they are there for. Exams should differentiate between people. The top grade should only be for the very best candidates, not 25%! And if teenagers now have to do four or five A levels rather than the traditional three to make themselves stand out, that's just putting cruel and unfair pressure on them.

I'm also loath to say exams are getting easier as I think that while in some respects they undoubtedly are (I remember being shown a Higher French paper from the 1960s and I could never have passed it), in other ways it's simply a matter of a different style of exams.

My best subjects were English and History, and yet I always struggled with the essays in the exams because I could not physically write quickly enough. I knew what I wanted to write, and I would sit there feverishly writing for the allotted time (a ridiculous 80 minutes for two essays in Higher History, or three hours for three 1000 word essays in CSYS English), but I could never finish on time. I also struggled with the source questions in History, as you could only use the sources, and were not allowed to pull anything from your own knowledge. It felt like in some ways, studying hard and really knowing your stuff put one at a disadvantage in History exams, which seems utterly ridiculous! Whereas maths, which I was not so strong in, I could answer the questions in the General paper in half the time, rub all the answers out, rewrite it all in pen, and still have time to sit twiddling my thumbs!

I also think there is far too much emphasis on university. Targets of 50% of people going to university are unrealistic and unsustainable, and I think many people would be much happier, and able to progress better, doing something else. University is not for everyone, and it's a matter of personality as much as anything else, and it's definitely not for everyone at seventeen or eighteen! I wish I had taken a year out, as I still feel that while I was reasonably bright (though not by any stretch of the imagination one of the best at my school or even among my friends) I was one of the very youngest in my year at school, and was emotionally and socially immature when I went to uni. I also went to uni locally and stayed at home. I feel I could have got a lot more out of the experience if I had waited a year or two. It also meant that when I went into the work place I was still trying to catch up, and was starting at the same time as people who would have been almost a year older than me at school anyway, and had taken a year out or changed careers, so I was still the youngest, and everyone commented on it. I think there ought to be much more emphasis on making people aware that they don't need to go to uni straight away and that it's a really big step, it's not neccessarily a natural progression from school.

I hope people can find a point somewhere in there!

Perhaps it is just that kids who would never even have contemplated trying these exams are now having to, because the system expects more to go to university - and yes, the pressure is there, to make the exams fit the circumstances, and to make kids jump through hoops which may actually not suit them best. Part of the problem I think is that we place so much value on a university education and the jobs which arise out of that - why is someone who has done a degree "better" than someone who hasn't? There is no university degree I know of which would teach someone my husband's job - yet he is highly valued by those who need his work to function properly: there are few people in this country whose tuning and harpsichord regulation skills are even remotely close to his. Not perhaps a life-saving skill, but a rare and very useful one all the same.

If you look at what exams demanded of kids decades ago, and what is asked now, there is no doubt that many subjects have become easier to pass - if you also look at the skill-mix with which kids now emerge from school, then there is also no doubt that in some areas they fall well short of those who preceded them, but in exchange for that, they have compensatory skills and ability, notably in IT but also in research skills. There is a much broader range of subjects available for people to learn in schools, too. Universities and employers have noticed that they need to provide "catch-up" tuition for their students, but again, this is not about decrying the efforts of our teenagers, it is about how the system may actually be selling them short.

they want you to use background knowledge to explain sources now.


I think that 25% A is very high and makes the Bs and Cs seem less when it'll still a good pass.

What makes me so cross about the current system is that by putting so much emphasis on exam success, it undermines those whose skills/interests lie elsewhere and means that some people might find it more difficult to fulfil their potential in non-academic areas. A university education is NOT the panacea for a happy, fulfilled life, nor is it the gateway to automatic success in life, nor is the lack of a university education the gateway to failure in life. One of my clients who is now retired was a former coal miner - yes, down the pits in South Yorkshire. He had virtually no education, he wasn't literate and he wasn't particularly articulate. But he's a great guy, very smart, very astute - he's just got Nil interest in the printed word so was never going to be a success at school. When the pits closed, he set up his own business in a small way, and over many years, it grew to the extent that when he eventually sold it, he became a millionnaire, possibly a multi-millionnaire for all I know, because he's also got property all over the place. Yet by academic standards, he would be deemed a failure (yes I know money isn't the only factor in determining success in life, but I'm speaking in the context of the government promoting the carrot that a university degree leads to a better job/more money). Conversely I know someone who has academic qualifications coming out of his ears, but he is basically unemployable because of his personality. I'm not speaking against a university education, I'm just saying that it's so wrong, in my opinion, to push everybody in that direction when it may not be suitable for them, and to make out that it's of such importance that anything less isn't quite good enough

Oh and another thing , when did using your hands for a living fall out of favour? Craftsmen (sorry, it was always men) used to be revered for their skills, but now if you use your hands for a living, it's considered less highly than if you have an office job It's about time this attitude ended, but the system as implemented by the government continues to promote the notion that going to university is "better" than learning a trade

Oh dear, sorry...

Quite. How many 9-5 pen-pushers does the world need? Yet so many young people these days can barely change a lightbulb, let alone put up shelves or actually build or mend something. There's definitely an imbalance in the values attributed to academic qualifications vs practical skills.


I see your point, but exams can't keep getting longer and longer as you work your way up through A levels, undergraduate study, postgraduate study - eventually there has to be a limit!

To answer the OP subtitle: Yes.

Compared to my performance at A-level several centuries ago, which was nevertheless good enough to get me to an elite university, my kids and their friends know more, are better skilled, and have worked far harder. A lot of what is in (science at least) syllabuses (forgive this non-pedant her anglicized plural) wasn't even known then. Genetics, e.g., was pretty Mickey Mouse - Mendelian stuff; I think they do that at GCSE now. OK, maybe they don't do a lot of other stuff I did, but there isn't time. They are under relentless pressure as it is. Whatever happened to the growing-up period of the Lower Sixth? They've become sprint specialists. I don't know why more of them don't crack, but as it is they remain optimistic and enthusiastic, grit their teeth and carry on. They occasionally panic they can't do it all, or do it well enough. Of course they can't. Life becomes a game of juggling and compromise. More wonderful life skills, but I could weep sometimes.

They've also got to get higher grades than I did - as already said - so they need to be better than I was, and certainly don't have the luxury of an off-day, or even an off-minute in an exam. And how long will it be before the A** and universities asking for scores of >95%? Maybe to do medicine you'll have to get 100%. Anyone else reminded of San Gimignano and the ever-higher towers of the Guelphs and Ghibellines? As someone else said above, and looking around my daughter's friends this week, it's becoming more an exercise of luck than anything else. Did you have a decent teacher? Did the right questions come up? Were you feeling 100% or just a tad off-colour? Did you have back-to-back papers, or were your exams reasonably spaced? And even if all that goes your way... Was whoever marked your paper competent or did s/he assign Bs and Cs at random? Will the school support you through appeals? I have no personal axe to grind, but it depresses me to see bright and enthusiastic young people have their dreams blown away because the dice didn't go their way.

That is nothing new - I did GCSE music in the 3rd year it was offered. Even then the head of music at my school was saying that she wanted to let the more able students take the exam in 1 year to allow more preparation time for the A level. I dread to think what additional material she wanted to cover in the 3 year A-level. Talking to music students when I went to university made me realise we had been prepared exceedingly well covering points in analysis and harmony that many didn't encounter until well into their degree studies.

Unlikely. From my (limited) experience of marking A levels, the marking standards are pretty rigorously monitored and maintained. Trouble is, if my memory serves me well, this is done in part by marking schedules (listed what is expected in an answer) and 'positive marking' (credit for giving the expected answer, with only ltd penalties for adding wrong stuff).

So what happens if a candidate includes something which is correct, but unexpected? Do they get no credit for that? If so, that sounds almost like a way of penalizing brighter candidates like Berkshire Son's friend.

If my (limited) experience is anything to go by, it's common enough to worry about. I'd be glad to be wrong though.

In at least the chemistry physics papers, you can give exactly the right answer perfectly explained but without the key words and get barely no marks.

Yup. And even the unis which do interviews only get maybe an hour total to talk to the student, so there's a lot of luck involved over whether you happen to get a question you can answer. A* grades and unis getting individual module scores make it worse, not better.



I'm gonna nitpick and say that, on average, that is true (although obviously there are exceptions). However, I completely agree that uni's not for everyone and in many cases not appropriate at all - with some courses you don't end up much more employable and you're in a bucketload of debt.


Or you can say the key words in the middle of an answer which is entirely wrong, and get most of the marks regardless...

Has anyone else actually marked A-levels? I wouldn't like to be responsiblr for starting an urban myth ...

Yes, I am getting fed up with reading that the exams I've just worked really really hard for aren't all they're cracked up to be Things are bound to be different as times move on, and it seems to me that more people are taking A-levels now than there were, say, 30 years ago. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the teens of today are more or less smart/hardworking or exams are easier - it's just a media frenzy. Both of my parents think that it is ridiculous to be able to retake modules though, alongside the other subjects to boost a garde - because they went to school etc in Italy, where you must pass every subject at the end of each year in order to progress to the next year in school - and the whole year must be repeated if subjects are failed. I'm not sure if they still have that system, but it seems tough to me. Yes, there is more competition for university places now, but that is most probably because going to university is within the reaches of ordinary people, and isn't confined to the upper classes(although that could well happen if the top-up fees aren't capped - but that's another debate altogether). - more students are taking A-levels as well. I think that an apprenticeship scheme for students who have good A-levels but don't want to or can't go to uni would be a good stop-gap - it would mean that young people are trained for jobs that don't necessarily need a degree, but that some people have degrees for - while others can opt to do more specialist degrees (like vocational subjects etc). It's a bit of a mess if you ask me.

And another thing (sorry guys!) - the exams and the grades etc are all relative to the time they were taken; it's exceedingly unlikely that a school-leaver and a person with A-levels from 20 years ago would be applying for the same course or job. For example - one of my prep school teachers had been teaching so long that she didn't have a degree, but still had a good job - whereas the younger teachers had all been to university. So I guess it's just down to the individual to make sure that they stand out amongst their generation. Who knows - in 20 years very few people may be going to uni due to finance or if the standards required are raised so high it becomes unattainable for students to reach the level without specialist tutors etc?!

I'm gonna be slightly blunt here - the fact that you worked really hard for the exams has no relation to how difficult they are. Exams are, without a doubt, easier than they used to be. It is simpler to get an A. The only alternative is that kids have are working harder and being taught better and getting smarter. Every year. For 27 years. In a row. It doesn't seem very plausible, does it?

And applying your argument in reverse, you're saying that the people who took exams 20 years ago and got worse grades (which, on average, they did) were just more stupid or less hardworking than the kids of today...

Good grief, is that really true? Surely the people marking the papers have the experience and knowledge to comprehend whether an answer is correct or not, even if it doesn't use particular terms or buzzwords!

Unfortunately it is the case for some subjects (ICT can be included in that list as well). The answer you give to a question may technically be correct, but if it doesn't match exactly what it says on the mark scheme, then you simply don't get the marks for it.

Car Expert

I'm curious to know what makes you say university used to be just for the upper classes? When I was at school, quite a few years ago, many students in my year went to university, including a few to Oxbridge, and it certainly wasn't an "upper class" school - it was just an ordinary state school in an ordinary suburb, but it did have a good academic record. What makes you think this?

Slightly off topic, but maybe relevent. A few years ago my sons' primary school reccomended the BBC Revisewise site for their year 6 SATs revision. We didn't go in for this sort of thing ( I refused to take home practise papers for one son's SATs, and had every child wishing I were their mum!) but I had a look and found the best question I've ever seen. It was a multiple guess science question and none of the given answers were right. I clicked to see which they thought was right and found that they'd given a completely different answer as the 'right' one, and that wasn't right either!

I've see mistakes on modern exams and in mark schemes. It is true that if a child is bright and gives a correct but unexpected answer they can receive no marks for it. Today's exams are considered to be very 'fair', in as much as mark schemes are explicit and simple, but this can leave intelligent children baffled by questions with answers that aren't really right (all of primary school science) or fail to see deeper or more subtle meanings.

Of course teenagers work hard these days. No one would dispute that. But some courses and exams are terribly narrowly drawn. A candidate might know everything on the course but it might have been a better education to have had a broader education in a given subject, with more opportunity not to know what would be in the exam, but also more opportunity to shine.

And well done to everyone.

Appalling.

Length of exams...I don't think this is completely related to "difficulty", it's more a reflection of which testing methods are currently in favor.

The more multiple-choice and short-answer (where only the answer is assessed, and only one "answer" will do) questions, and the fewer essay questions there are, the shorter the exam.

If the curriculum is also narrow, you might think that the exam just has to be a walkover...but examining authorities still need a gradient to "sort" students along. If they can't include untaught material or more complex questions, the only thing they can do is cram more actual test material of the same level into the test.

To outsiders, no doubt short exams and stripped-down curricula look "dumbed down", but for test-takers, the only way to get top scores on these overstuffed short answer exams is to build up speed and accuracy by repetitive, test-specific study, instead of broadening or deepening their overall understanding of the subject.

Japanese university entrance has both type of exam - 8 short-answer exams over 2 days for the nationwide Centre exams, then around 5 3-hour exams over 2 days for the actual university you are trying for.

Candidates know their stuff...but they have honed it in such test-specific ways that they often seem not to know anything about the subject if asked about it in a non-exam context. That's not really a reflection on their intelligence, it's just the result of too much weight being given to bad assessment methods...I hope that when people look at "dumb" modern exams, they take into account the time given to complete the exam, and the total number of exams that need to be prepared for before they sneer too much...

It's definitely true for biology and chemistry, both at GCSE and A-level. I was always told to make sure that I used a certain word in an answer because that's what the examiners are looking for.

You get little credit for actually understanding science, as long as you can regurgitate scientific terms you'll pass easily.

In that sort of question where you write in sentences, you write loads of stuff about it and hope the keywords are in there.

That is the most ridiculous marking scheme I have ever heard of. I guess this is so they can farm out the marking to companies/people who have no understanding of the subject... Sounds a bit like buzzword bingo.