 Poster: A snowHead
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| Megamum wrote: |
| it is the employers in years to come that will inherit the problems that more passes at a lower overall acheivement standard will cause, there is nothing the kids can do to change things. |
Something else that bliar's lot are guilty off - making it pretty much impossible to determine whether potential employee (a) is better than potential employee (b) without interviewing them. Next time I'll just drop the application papers on the stairs and innerview the people who's papers land on the 3rd step...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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If you pick up an A level maths paper today, it is categorically not of the same standard as the A level of 30 years ago. Why do we have to send everyone to university? What happened to Polytechnics and vocational courses? I feel sorry for the truly gifted students of today who just aren't being challenged. As it said in the paper today 'what use is a degree in origami from the university of cokeland'...
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| bertie bassett wrote: |
| Megamum wrote: |
| it is the employers in years to come that will inherit the problems that more passes at a lower overall acheivement standard will cause, there is nothing the kids can do to change things. |
Something else that bliar's lot are guilty off - making it pretty much impossible to determine whether potential employee (a) is better than potential employee (b) without interviewing them. Next time I'll just drop the application papers on the stairs and innerview the people who's papers land on the 3rd step... |
 Yeah A levels/etc were always a brilliant way to work out who's going to actually work well
Obviously I don't have any experience of what A levels were like 20 years ago, but the counter argument to 'they're easier these days' usually seems to be that teaching is better now - any (informed) comments on that?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| clarky999 wrote: |
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Nuffield A-level chemistry
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Absolute mission - put me off science! |
It made undergraduate chemistry really easy though (as did maths).
erica2004 prove it. Or, I'm feeling generous, tell me a decent method to go about proving that hypothesis.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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clarky999, I certainly believe that kids are better motivated and have much better learning resources these days... but I think that the academic standard of those who enter teaching has actually fallen, and there is very clear objective evidence for some subjects that can be easily quantified that todays exams are graded higher than they were 10 or 20 years ago. See Laundryman's link for one example.
interesting paper from civitas
from wikipedia
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| As of 2009, the pass rate for A-levels rose for the 27th year running, and was 97.5%, up from 68.2% in 1982. The share of A-grades rose by 0.8 percentage points in 2009 compared to 2008, and stood at 26.7%. As of 2009, an eighth of all candidates scored three A grades, as opposed to a single A in 1982 |
It beggars belief to suggest this is all down to improved teaching, or taking exams in modular format.
And despite GCSE maths grade inflation actual mathematical ability has stood still
The solution as Imperial College saw it might be...
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| The new entrance exam will assess candidates' general intelligence and creativity. It could be brought in from 2010. "We are doing this not because we don't believe in A-level but we cannot use A-levels any more as a discriminatory factor," he said. "They have all got four or five A-levels." |
As someone else said - difficult to see A levels as fit-for-purpose.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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bertie bassett, can't blame them for everything - this is the 28th year running that A level passes have risen, and only 10 of those were under Labour...
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my next door neighbor who was a 30 year in post head at the local public school view was that the kids just work a heck of a lot harder now and grade "inflation" in the tougher subjects is in the main nonsense... my buddies daughter got her first choice place for medicine with an A*A and a B and just about killed herself studying for two years...
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clarky999, I'm not saying it's not an achievement, but he applied to Oxford etc. Everyone applying to these types of unis would have similar grades as him. It was the same 10 years ago when the A* didn't exist, so probably comparable to a mix of As and Bs back then. - the grades aren't enough, but I was under no illusion they would be. I was in nearly the exact same position as him - I applied to 6 top unis with straight A predictions but I was lucky and got one offer. I had another friend in the same position who got none, and she got straight As. If we'd set our sights slightly lower we'd have got several offers I'm sure.
To be honest I think it's the media who's in the wrong here making a story out of something I don't think is.
I'm sure he'll have a great gap year and reapply again next year. Maybe that something extra on his CV is what he needs.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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skimottaret, even if that is the case (I have already said kids do work harder) studies on maths ability done post A level are not consistent with A level standards having remained consistent - and if one purpose of A levels is to let future employers and universities to distinguish between potential candidates - they fail to do so. If huge numbers of applicants have A grades they become useless as a discriminator.
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Maybe the new A stars should have been awarded to the top ten percent of each subject, ratehr than 'everyone who got more than x marks?'
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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clarky999, I'm not sure they add much without the curricula being extended to include more challenging material.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Old post, but I wanted to add something. I did my A-Levels back in '06 and I guess I cant comment on getting easier or not because at the end of the day I've only done one set. Fact is, if I looked at older ones which I have in the past, I will find them harder, most often because I've never learnt some of the stuff they ask you because curriculums change as someone's already said.
Back to the point though. A*A*A*AAA, I only had AAB and got 6 offers from all 3. I guess it was a different course but i applied to similar level unis.
Personal statement will always matter because the fact is uni uses different skills to A-Level. At college you can get away with turning up to lessons and doing pretty much nothing in between. Uni you need to teach yourself, if he didn't get that across in his personal statement, he's not going to be chosen.
Everyone applying to Oxford and LSE probably had the same AAA that they ask for or whatever it is now, but maybe they made it sound like they'd be better students. A personal statement should indeed matter. The same as when you apply for a job. You get an interview, if you could just take exam results reliable surely places like IBM and Accenture would take those purely as a basis to employ on.
A random story of a kid that happened to do well on his A-Levels, unless they want to include the personal statement I don't think it should be used as evidence of much besides uni's not being as shallow or one-dimensional as some people like to say they are.
And I think his school failed him. Someone should have seen at some point that his PS was below par...
I think its harsh when people say AAAAAA means he had no social life, he probably did, fact is he's not getting across the right impression and I think its good for him that he's learnt that sooner rather than later.
EDIT
Oh, and "there aren't enough places?", I don't think that's why he got turned down(that'd suggest EVERYone had 6As), to get turned down with 6As mean he did something to turn a lot of people off him. I know a massive load of people at uni with MUCH worse results than that. Maybe he's just a bit out of touch...
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Could someone confirm whether an academic at Durham discovered that a 1980 GCE O Level Maths paper somehow turned up as an A2 paper in 2006? I do recall something like this being unearthed a while back!
Of course there's no correlation between this (if true) and numerically illiterate maths and physics first year undergrads who have to be taught 'remedial' courses!
Amazingly, I have the misfortune of encountering English and History undergraduates who dislike reading. Perplexing.
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You know it makes sense.
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like when we hire PhD's - "bring me someone who knows everything about f*ck-all"
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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A levels, and exams in general are not necessarily easier now than perhaps 30 years ago but kids appear to be taught to take and pass exams rather than educated.
This can be seen from the high pass rates coupled with the general poor maths, literacy, spelling and general ability to do anything other than what is directed.
Yes, there are exceptions but, working with a lot of kids over the last 20 years, I believe this to be the case
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Quote: |
"I want to be a teacher/lecturer/something else valuable (to society)"
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Or policeman, join the armed forces, doctor
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
"bring me someone who knows everything about f*ck-all"
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You say " I know f*ck nothing, i tell you i know f*ck all"
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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kevin mcclean, I can't tell you that but I can tell you that six or so years ago I was in a hotel next to someone who was studying his A levels, I asked if I could have a little look at his mock paper and was very surprised to find that I could answer arround 75% of the questions easily, bear in mind this is something like 10 years after I took my O levels and I hadn't done any revision, I got grade a at O level maths but failed my A levels with a U I think that it says a lot that I could answer (correctly) so many of the questions on an A level paper.
Philbo, agree children are definitely educated to pass exams and very little else which I find worrying
I can tell you that many universities teaching Mechanical Engineering now have to include everyone in extra maths lessons, something that only those who didn't have A level maths used to have to go through
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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i'm always a bit undecided about this....
I was a music teecause acher.
My GCSE music was a hard silly bus compared to the one that I taught.... BUT.... the syllabus for the music that i was teaching hardly changed in the time that I was teaching it (for 2 different exam boards) infact they toughened it up a little by removing some simpler stuff. Anyhoo - my grades for my students got better.... because I got better and more experienced at my job.... I always feel sorry for the teachers... they improve, produce good results and then get it all knocked out of them by the Daily Mail on results day.
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