A level results out - but what level are they really ?

Question

Listening to radio 4 on the way home tonight a firm that has been testing students intelligence prior to for 20 years has concluded that an E grade in the early 80's is equivelent to a B grade today and as there is nothing higher than "a" in maths the whole thing is becoming compressed and Universities cannot differentiate between the bright and really bright any more.
I have always maintained that an "O" in the 50's and 60's is equal to Alevels these days, but what is your view ?

Answer 1

My view??

Well what is it?? Young ppl are knife welding hoodies that have no respect? Or ..Oh their A level results are SO good they must be of a lower calibre than we were

Please people will you give us some credit. We DO work, we DO study, it is NOT that easy and instead of disrespecting A level candidates could you please give us some credit for trying, caring and doing?

Answer 2

I suppose it depends which Radio 4 programme you listen to. On the Today programme yesterday, the claim was made that IQ scores have been rising year on year in every country and that someone who passed the 11+ to get a place in a selective grammar school in the 1950s would nowadays be "below average".



Quite simply you cannot compare the exams of previous decades with those today because you would not be comparing like with like. Many people make the mistake of just comparing the examination papers but this is very misleading because there is a whole range of other factors at work, such as the setting of grade boundaries and the effect of coursework.



Having said that, two things about A Levels which have a very important impact on the year on year rise in top grades are:



(i) Before 2000, all A Level exams were taken at the end of the Upper Sixth year (Year 13). Nowadays A Levels are "modular" i.e. split into units. Each unit can be taken and re-taken an unlimited number of times and the student keeps their best result. This undoubtably makes it easier to get higher grades.



(ii) Before 2000, each unit of the A Level was A Level standard. Nowadays, only half the A Level is A Level standard and the other half is the "AS Level", which is a standard half-way between A Level and GCSE. To this extent at least, it it difficult to deny that the A Level has been "dumbed down".



Your other question was how universities can tell who the brightest students are. This is indeed a serious problem for the top universities when over 26% of candidates are getting the top grades. There are a veriety of things they can do, such as:

(i) Looking at GCSE results.

(ii) Looking at actual unit scores (not just the grades).

(iii) Looking at whether or not the applicant has used re-sits.

In addition, an A* grade will be used from next year. However, the top universities still believe that A Levels are not sufficiently stretching the top end of the ability range.

Answer 3

Those are the subjects I took at A level aswell! I also got a D in maths, which meant that I couldn't go directly onto my Cyb course, so I had either the option of staying on to do an extra year, or do a foundation year at the same Uni. Foundation year is definitely worth looking into - lots of universities have them, and they're a great way to improve your grades and also get settled into University before all the other first years! As for jobs, they will always ask for your A level grades, but as long as you do well in your degree I think it overrides it. For jobs it's usually far more about the experience you have rather than grades from 5-6 years ago

Answer 4

Seeing as over 1 in 4 A Levels now are Grade A, it is hard to come to any other conclusion that the exams have been significantly 'dumbed down', especially when I have seen evidence of the poor literacy and numeracy skills of many such students.

When I took my A levels in 1980, Grade As were rare; only those who excelled above all other students ever got one. Straight As were even rarer! I achieved 3 A Levels: 1 x B, 1 x D & 1 x E.



Those students who say they worked hard have no doubt done so, but their achievements cannot be worth much nowadays if 'every man and his brother ' has the same huge number of high grades!

Answer 5

I have to agree with Helen. I took my A Levels in 2002, and when faced with an old O Level Physics paper, everyone in my Physics class (bearing in mind I went to a good grammar school) failed miserably. I think that these days, people are taught to just pass exams, rather than actually learn the subject thoroughly.



This of course does NOT mean that students today don't work hard - I know I did. But I don't agree that the modern way of teaching is better, as we're not really teaching people to think for themselves, but rather how to second guess what the examiners are expecting.

Answer 6

No I do not agree. Radio Four is the radio station geared for oldies like me so tends to be biased. Young people listen to such stations as Heart or Five live. Yes,we older guys tend to describe modern youngsters as lazy, scruffy, hooligan yobs who can't spell compared to what wonderful people we were in our school days. But truth is we were just as bad and probably rather worse and it is just sour grapes, though we like to conceal that fact?



I took my GCE in 1953. I only managed to scrape just 3 O levels (history, english literature and geography) failing everything else. and was deemed too thick to even consider taking any A levels. But I am in no doubt my reason for failing was not just that I am thick, but more significently because I just did not work at school but just fooled around. and almost got expelled That is not only why I failed but also why I was caned a total of 17 times both for being lazy and for my numerous discipline offences. I went into the army as that was all I was fit for and did get 3 more O levels (maths, english language and structure of government) fthrough army education but still did not get up to standard to attempt any A Levels.



Today I have looked at some of the A Level papers young people I know got excellent marks in and I am fairly sure if i took them I would fail today too, even in the few subjects I have got my O Levels in. So I do not think the people on Radio four are being fair. It is just that youngsters today work far harder than we did to get to "Uni" , People like me did not work as we did not have anything to work to achieve as the only students that ever went to one of the few Universities in those days were qualifying to do very qualified jobs like Doctor, Judge or Scientist. that is the difference. .

Answer 7

I like the way people believe everything in the papers without researching even a tiny bit. I'm doing IB maths and I'm using past papers from 40 years ago which are A LOT easier than the past papers a few years ago. I don't know who was the idiot that started claiming exams are getting easier but let me tell you. They're not.



Edit: I get marked down for stating true facts?

Answer 8

Education in the whole of the Western World has been dumbed down. In Ontario, Canada, the Minister of Education believes that plagiarism, cheating and copying are simply alternate paths to achievement. Handing in assignments late can no longer be penalized by deducting marks.



But of course if you've always been taught to believe that "I'm the most important person in the whole world", your success is pretty much guaranteed, right?



Poor kids...

Answer 9

I recently saw 11th plus papers from 1962 and O and A level papers from 1966 as well as papers from the GCSE's from last year. They proved to me without a doubt that education has been dumbed down unbelievably and that pass rates are poor when you relate them to what we had to achieve years ago. Now it's anything goes and you don't have to work particularly hard to get to Uni. What makes anyone think that achieving a 50% exam mark is good enough for university?

Answer 10

They are bringing in an A* next year to deal with this problem.



It is probably all true, but it doesn't mean that students don't work hard to get the grades they do.

Answer 11

See my response to this question:

https://answersrip.com/question/index?qid=20090820100017AA9oFhd&show=7#profile-info-r77GUCXmaa



I'm afraid I tend to take the view that people who think an O level in woodworking 40 years ago is worth a PhD now are simply deluding themselves out of pure arrogance.



EDIT:

Helen, you need to be very cautious of those sort of things. Numerous past exam papers are passed around that are nothing of the sort, they're simple nonsense people concocted to try to support their belief. The usual aim to to make people think what 5 year old were learning 50 years ago is more difficult than what's taught at university these days, it's total nonsense of course.

Answer 12

O is for Ordinary level n A is Advanced level. We all evolved. Evolution of Man.. 20 years ago are never the same compared to today



Mr. Fatboy Slim

mrfatboyslim.blogspot.com

Answer 13

Employers are totally confused over this very question

Why? Why? Why? can they not be truthful & give a straight % mark

If somebody can show 90% he/she is pretty good at the subject

I somebody shows 50% he/she is pretty thick