If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
It's results time.....so of course exams are getting easier.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Here we go again.... Probably said exactly the same last year, but i really do hate this. I busted my balls in order to get good grades and it's horrible to be told by the media and it seems the Conservative Party that exams are easy. I bet none of those fuckers could sit down and and get an A in an A Level exam. :mad:
0
Comments
Except most of them have :rolleyes: .
What's the point in complaining anyway? Easier exams are in your interest, especially if you had to bust your balls for the desired results.
Standards probably have lowered throughout education, in order to accommodate more people. I know some proper airheads who thus far have done fine at university - and these people are genuinely dimwitted.
20 years is a long time. Why is it so strange that people might be doing better as a result of a better education system?
yes but a threefold increase? c'mon........i don't think college was that taxing personally, boring yes.......
No idea myself. Lets just hope I even pass the first year of college.
Renzo, have you ever compared, for example, an old school A Level history paper to the oens they set now? No comparison, the new one is far easier.
I have not. But I challenge anyone who says I only got ABB in my A Levels because they were 'easy' The amount of effort in learning, coursework and revision time I put in to those things to get those grades was phenomenal and I put 100% effort in.
Mine must have been easier then, I got four A grades for doing essentially none.
i think that's spot on regarding exams anyways, all you have to do is memorise the correct answers, the teachers will give not very subtle hints about what the core topics will be.........and presto you got an A. doesn't matter if you don't remember any of it a week later, you're a master in regurgitation......coursework is fairly difficult, but again you are so carefully guided as to exactly what needs to be done to get the marks, and you get to do several drafts to make sure you've got top marks..........that was the case for me anyways........lots of second chances.....
New a levels are a doss compared to the old ones.
it's not necessarily that the exams were easier to do - they were fairly similar, but it was much easier to get a high grade. things like shifting grade boundaries, amount of marks per question, marks for spelling/grammar. they also didn't try and catch you out as much as the old style did.
GCSEs are a bit of a joke these days though. i have a cousin who has mental health issues, and has a mental age of somewhere around 11/12. he did try hard at school, but we honestly didn't think he'd get anything above a C. turned out he got more GCSEs, and with better grades, than people i know my age who are pretty intelligent. so i'm not really buying that they're as hard as they always were.
But yeah, getting mostly A's and B's was easy, even in the subjects I sturggled in. C in French, but, That was counting the fact that they did our listening throguh a BASS AMPLIFIER. Turning everything, inevitabley, into a mumble. :rolleyes:
Yeah, our school is that good.
So you either have to accept that this years kids are brighter than last years, or that the marking rules change.
Experience in employing people would suggest that the former isn't true...
It could also be better teaching methods - though I don't believe that either.
Me neither, and I work in schools.
http://www.stevehammonds.net/Aberdare/DrewH/Exams/exam_papers.htm
And I think it can be unfair to blame teachers for the focus on teaching just to pass exams better - the introduction of school league tables inevitably means that schools are pressured into focusing on exam results, and teaching methods that provide those results, rather than a wider understanding of the subjects.
Not many people her are saying they're easy, just that they're easier!
Agreed. A good point, well made. I don't think league tables will be around in ten years.
We were under alot of pressure to pass, rather than understnad. Which, pissed me off abit. We would jsut study the parts of Plays that we would likley be questioned on, so I read the wholething at home.
- more people in further education doing what theyre best at and competing for best marks, result being higher marks
- more people being trained for their exams ie going over old papers continously (mainly at middle class areas, i do it as my part time work)
- more schools training their student to do exams instead of understanding the subjects, its why universities complain at the quality of students they recieve cause the students obviously forget it if theyve been trained to let it all out on the exam day
- exam question style altered to be a series of short questions then a long one so it provides more help in a strange intuitive way of what youre doing overall
and you cant compare grades from 20 yrs ago to nowadays simply because they are no longer marked in the percentile system ie 35% were guranteed to fail no matter how well they done, now days the grade boundaries are shifted according to how well people do overall but within fixed limits so around the same % get a certain grade
and i done old exam papers from the 80s just as well as i done ones from the 90s when i took my A levels in 2001
remember 95% of statistics are useless
ps just had a look at the o levels maths papers, and they were like the 1st unit of a levels maths i done, however its actually similar to top set maths i done at school my teacher taught us even if it wasnt necesserily on the syllabus but just to give us an understanding
heres an old gcse paper from last year http://www.gcsemathspastpapers.com/p5j04allqs.htm - not too dissimilar, actually and thats the higher paper
in short its about structure, but mainly exam training that has caused this since people place so much emphisis on exam results not what you really know means people will revert to exam training
and like it says at bottom, the fact people get 50% of their grade in 1st year, means theres more resits, and people are more ready to do exams in 2nd year
personally id like them to make 2nd year worth 65% of grade and 1st year 35%
This is true. The media and the like are always complaining "96% people pass omg!" but I would guess that a high percentage of these people passing are getting D's and E's....
most people at my college were amazed to get a C
a pass means A-E which means sod all really since id rather get a U then an E
That 1960 Geography A-level paper looks considerably easier than the ones I took four years ago to be honest.
There is a clear difference in styles of examining as well. That 1960 paper is asking for diagrams which at A-level is slightly ridiculous frankly........