I don't think the exams are getting that much easier, more the courses are getting stupider. At some colleges near me they offer film studies and all this other lark. That's not too hard if you ask me!

 

None of my a-level subjects were like that and they've been hard but I have to say GCSEs were a doddle. I'm not stupid but they were really quite easy. Higher level maths I got 40 marks on coursework I think it was and therefore to get an A for the subject I think I had to get 40 or 50 percentage on each paper. I mean that is quite silly.

With higher Maths 55% is an A, 75% is an A* ;)

With higher Maths 55% is an A, 75% is an A* ;)

 

55% is an A ? :o :o :o jesus bloody christ :o

 

So someone gets an A (a supposed achievement) even though they got HALF the questions WRONG ? that is f***ed up

 

55% 20 years ago would have got a D not an A, the rise in exam passes seems to be entirely down to the grading system

I don't think the exams are getting that much easier, more the courses are getting stupider. At some colleges near me they offer film studies and all this other lark. That's not too hard if you ask me!

 

I did my degree in Film Studies... "Not too hard" eh....? Nonsense... 100 students started the course, only 30 of us actually completed it three years later, and it was Mature Students and Foreign Students who got the highest marks of our year..... People think it's an easy course.. Not when it's taught properly it aint..... All the School Leavers said words like "Blimey, this was really easy in College....". The standards of University are MUCH higher, and school/college clearly is NOT preparing students for the steep learning curve, hence the 70% drop out rate....

55% is an A ? :o :o :o jesus bloody christ :o

 

So someone gets an A (a supposed achievement) even though they got HALF the questions WRONG ? that is f***ed up

 

100% FULL TRUTH mate.... How the HELL can 55% be considered an 'A' ffs.....? :wacko: :wacko: It was a bloody 'C' when I was at school.... And if you got 55% on a University paper, you'd be looking at a low Second Class honours.... A 2.2 to be precise.....

 

I agree 55% is low but remember this is the higher papers; if you do intermediate (top mark B) and foundation (top mark C) its a higher percentage for an A as the paper is less challenging.

Edited August 6, 200717 yr by Jark

I agree 55% is low but remember this is the higher papers; if you do intermediate (top mark B) and foundation (top mark C) its a higher percentage for an A as the paper is less challenging.

 

But, still, it does present a rather distorted picture Jark, people are gonna go to Uni and wonder why 55% equates to a lower second-class mark.. And I still rather doubt that it prepares you for that standards expected in University coursework or exams anyway...

 

Well remember I'm talkin' about GCSE here so there's a step up between that and uni, in your a-levels.

55% is an A ? :o :o :o jesus bloody christ :o

 

So someone gets an A (a supposed achievement) even though they got HALF the questions WRONG ? that is f***ed up

 

55% 20 years ago would have got a D not an A, the rise in exam passes seems to be entirely down to the grading system

 

 

that is GCSE - and the papers are different. The higher paper is a much harder paper - AND the course work has to have been completed at a higher level.

 

The marks needed on the exam for grades depends on the course work completed throughout the 2 previous years

 

My sons teacher was trying to explain it all to me .... it all seems very confusing!

 

BUT I can tell you the maths higher GCSE paper in NOT easier than the old O level papers - it scared the bejesus out of me - and I have a maths degree :rofl:

^Thankyou!! :D

I've done the Higher GCSE Maths paper 5 years ago, and if I recall rightly it was two exams too on top of the coursework, and believe me it was not easy. I got an A somehow :lol: , and I take it rather personal when people who haven't taken the GCSE papers and coursework on top of the 10 other subjects you have to juggle tell US that it's too easy.

I've done the Higher GCSE Maths paper 5 years ago, and if I recall rightly it was two exams too on top of the coursework, and believe me it was not easy. I got an A somehow :lol: , and I take it rather personal when people who haven't taken the GCSE papers and coursework on top of the 10 other subjects you have to juggle tell US that it's too easy.

 

Sorry Matt, but I call it as I see it, and what I saw at University was staggering, the evidence seemed overwhelming to me that school and college examinations were pretty easy and did NOT prepare the majority of students for the learning curve expected in University... Especially when it came to writing essays and the basic use of good English grammar, which just seemed a totally alien concept to a lot of my fellow students who came straight from sixth form colleges... My Lecturers despaired at the standard of some of the work they had to mark... How else can you explain a 70% drop out rate, ALL of them school-leavers....?

Well, my opinion on the subject:

 

IMO, exams are not getting easier. There are plenty of explanations for it.

 

a| I was discussing this with my French teacher before my AS oral, and the truth is the method of teaching is different. She said that when she was my age, she may have known more vocab than I do, but in terms of speaking and pronunciation, she wasn't as good as kids are these days at AS/A level. There is emphasis on different parts than what there used to.

 

b| Lots of students are taking 'soft courses' ie instead of taking traditional subjects such as maths/history/english or a foreign language, are taking modern courses such as media studies and sociology. It's proven these are much easier courses, taking less intellectual demand, and now the 'market' as such is flooded with people waving a-levels and degrees in these subjects, thereby saturating fields of work.

 

c| Exams are different Take for example, French. Wheras in the past it would totally based on the language itself, the course and exam now expands over different areas. Sure, the basis is still the language [naturaly] but students look at the language in context, keep up with the news of country. the modules themselves are about different aspects of France, and each one offers a wide selection of vocabulary etc. I mean my project this year is on the wether Sarkozy is right for France at the moment. The fact coursework exists also allows people to build up a grade before the exam, and remember that the AS mark counts as half of the A2.

 

d| Students are taught what they need to know to pass the exams, nothing more, nothing less. Schools are interested only in the ratings given to them, and as such will try to get everyone through, they won't waste there time teaching something not on the syllabus, unfortunately. One of they reasons there are higher passes in exams.

 

I had another point, it may come back to me later :lol: but it's not down to exams getting easier, or people getting smarter [iMO] - it is down to the fact that students are led through the course, the exams are different to what they were, and the fact that many people are taking easier soft courses than traditional subjects.

Edited August 6, 200717 yr by Melody.

Sorry Matt, but I call it as I see it, and what I saw at University was staggering, the evidence seemed overwhelming to me that school and college examinations were pretty easy and did NOT prepare the majority of students for the learning curve expected in University... Especially when it came to writing essays and the basic use of good English grammar, which just seemed a totally alien concept to a lot of my fellow students who came straight from sixth form colleges... My Lecturers despaired at the standard of some of the work they had to mark... How else can you explain a 70% drop out rate, ALL of them school-leavers....?

What kind of uni did you go to that had a 70% drop out rate?! It was nothing like that where my brother went :unsure:

What kind of uni did you go to that had a 70% drop out rate?! It was nothing like that where my brother went :unsure:

 

It was on that one particular course.. People presumably thought Film Studies would be a "soft course"... They got a big shock when the 'D's, 'E's and 'F's started coming their way.... :lol: :lol:

I don't know if exams are getting easier or not but I found my A2 Levels extremely difficult, sixth form to me involved so much work all the time that you had no think to think, coursework coming out your ears and then changing modules every second.

I managed to get B, B, C for my A2 Levels and I am extremely proud of these, I worked my butt off for these and I have to say it's bloody annoying when I heard these stories about how A Levels are now 'easy'.

 

I have now just graduated from University, achieveing a 2:1, which again I am extremely proud off, yet that degree is in Meida Studies, which is apparently an 'easy' subject. You can't win.

I'm looking at a GCSE Maths, the syllabus looks familiar to the O-Level.

An example question here. http://www.gcsemathspastpapers.com/Examples.htm Seems pretty much as it used to be, Perhaps the pass mark required is less then it used to be? :unsure:

Then how come Mensa is saying that the average IQ of school leavers are falling?

Has it? My little reading of this gave me the impression that IQ wise any change in Europe is with a statistical sample tolerance and that the US hasn't dropped recently.

 

And how come major Employers in the UK are saying that School, Colleague & University graduates are applying for jobs with a reduced grasp of basic English (spelling & writing abilities) & a poorer grasp of basic Mathematics (adding, subtracting, multiplication, division, conversions of fractions to percentages) than 20 years ago? ....

UK employers might just say this simply to try and keep wages down and other expectations of graduates, especially as the market as a whole has an over supply of graduate types applying.

 

And how come major Employers in the UK are saying that School, Colleague & University graduates are applying for jobs with a reduced grasp of basic English (spelling & writing abilities) & a poorer grasp of basic Mathematics (adding, subtracting, multiplication, division, conversions of fractions to percentages) than 20 years ago? ....

 

 

and how come there's been a campaign for ages for people to get rid of their "gremlins" with ADULT literacy and numeracy.

 

And who are these major employers may I ask, did they tell you in person? And I agree with what Ricky is saying about them using that as a smokescreen to keep the whole wage budget down.

 

 

and how come there's been a campaign for ages for people to get rid of their "gremlins" with ADULT literacy and numeracy.

 

Simple. My generation - school children of the 1980s who grew up watching Zammo on Grange Hill, etc had a significant minority of school children who left school with no qualifications because our school education system gave up on them as a dead loss probably because it was more socially acceptable at the time and also their were significantly more jobs available then in manufacturing industries, or as labourers or working in dead end blue collar jobs.

 

In this more compassionate, support the minorities environment there is significantly more effort to support these school children. The down side is that the current education system does not do enough to support the brightest students because of it's obsession with League Tables, passing exams as opposed to providing a good all round education & successive governments moving the percentages for grades required downwards to show that a greater number of students are passing exams than ever before. Hence creating the false illusion that children are brighter than ever.

 

And who are these major employers may I ask, did they tell you in person? And I agree with what Ricky is saying about them using that as a smokescreen to keep the whole wage budget down.

 

Last year, the department that I work in took on 7 graduates. 5 of them were foreign nationals.

 

27 graduates had applied for these positions. 19 were British nationals, 8 were foreign nationals.

 

The reason why 5 out of the 8 foreign nationals were successful & just 2 out of 19 British nationals were successful, was because from the evidence of the interviews and applications and internal exams showed that the foreign nationals had a better grasp of English grammar than those from the UK and were the best candidates.

 

As the Senior manager of my department said "Its becoming like Arsenal's football academy" and I can say he was genuinely disappointed by the calibre of UK graduates who under went the interview process.

 

 

I must strongly stress that I'm not having a go at any of you who are going through the education system right now within the UK. Having been through it myself I know full well what it is like with all the stress of exams, coursework, deadlines, etc. (Although, I would have loved to have had the Internet available when I was a teenager).

 

I certainly don't want to devalue any of your efforts or achievements.

 

But from the evidence from what I've seen and heard exam grades are being devalued within the UK, and foreign countries education systems have caught up and in some cases overtaken the UK to how things were 20 years ago.

 

Also more people are furthering their education these days, where as 40 years ago, alot of people had to just get a job straight after school. In my opinion, it is just the older generations trying to make out that they had a harder time and in some way generate a sense of prestige amongst the exams in which they took over the modern day equivilents. It's also really insulting to bring this up every year just before and after exam results come out, as students have spent the whole year working realy hard to have it thrown back in their faces. Also people complain about subects such as media studies, well, i was looking in to subject areas in which people studied at uni and media was one of the highest subject areas for people to do at uni and go straight in to a job and i'd blame primary schools for not teaching their pupils good enough english, as it is easier to learn as a child and most school just don't teach english to a goo enough standard... i mean it is causing people to struggle with english throughout their entire lives. If you look at the rest of europe, they are being taught a second language from when they are practically still in their nappies, whilst english students are failing at their native language. -_- But yeah my point is :lol: can they stop making students feel like they are inferior to students of yesteryear, it just isn't fair.