A* grades

[stevie_b]

I don't understand the reason for these new A* grades at A-Level. If they're supposed to distinguish between top students, why don't the examiners just make an A grade harder to achieve?

 

What happens when a significant proportion of students achieve an A*? Will they introduce an A** grade?

 

I suspect it's political correctness: not wanting to lower anyone's grade to hurt their feelings, so they have to make more room at the top.

 

If they did normalise students downwards, employers would need to be aware that this has happened, but just adding new grades at the top seems unsustainable.

[JustGav]

I've given up trying to understand the gradings....

 

when I was at school, you got A thru to F-G.... F being fail and G being 'YOU REALLLLLY FAILED'....simple as that.... now it is G for good, E for excellent, and I think U for fail.

[Matt H]

I've given up trying to understand the gradings....

 

when I was at school, you got A thru to F-G.... F being fail and G being 'YOU REALLLLLY FAILED'....simple as that.... now it is G for good, E for excellent, and I think U for fail.

 

Anything below a C is sh!t.

[Animal]

I was talking to a lad at the weekend who said if he'd have got an Ungraded in a subject he could have spelled 'FUDGE', lol.

[C_Strike]

I was talking to a lad at the weekend who said if he'd have got an Ungraded in a subject he could have spelled 'FUDGE', lol.

 

my mates bro can almost spell it twice, lmao

[supra_aero]

I was talking to a lad at the weekend who said if he'd have got an Ungraded in a subject he could have spelled 'FUDGE', lol.

 

BED were the unlucky set of grades you got back in my day

 

"Sleep man, sleep it off", were the jokes we used to say

[Paul]

97.6% passes

I'd like to say that this is because they are more intelligent but the people I've met and keep meeting through work with degrees are usually next to useless and have zero life skills.

Fact is that A levels have got easier, and degrees are worth less.

 

About time the government cut back and stopped all but the talented going to 'uni', let's face it they've used it to keep the jobless figures down for years;)

[marbleapple]

97.6% passes

I'd like to say that this is because they are more intelligent but the people I've met and keep meeting through work with degrees are usually next to useless and have zero life skills.

Fact is that A levels have got easier, and degrees are worth less.

 

 

97.6% is a pass but what is a pass? A-E? Decent uni's now want either A*/A/B (C if your lucky)

[Paul]

97.6% is a pass but what is a pass? A-E? Decent uni's now want either A*/A/B (C if your lucky)

 

Not bothered to look at all the figures but I bet the A*/A/B's have all gone up by a similar percentage figure.

That's another thing, all the crappy colleges and polys are now University of this and that

 

*most* degrees mean sod all imo, just makes me laugh at all the youngsters that are under the impression it's the key to a super job regardless of the individual talent.

At work some girl was commenting on a managers job, they were asking for years of experience in a specialised field and specific engineering qualifications, well her boyfriend had been out of work since 'uni' and she thought he had a god given right to get this job because he had a degree (albeit in some unconnected area), twats !!

[a98pmalcolm]

there making it easyer and easyer for students. Even so that they PAY them to go to collage with that stupid EMA thing!! £30 a week! i know of some people that go just for the feww money!!

[stevie_b]

Fact is that A levels have got easier

 

I agree with you there, along with GCSEs. Not sure if degrees have got easier though.

 

The topic of whether exams are getting easier crops up most years although the media seem to have piped down about it in the last 5 years or so. Whenever the subject used to be raised, people would suck their breath in and say, "oooh, you can't say that!" Well, I happen to think it's true.

 

I did my GCSEs in the early 1990s and A-levels a couple of years after that. At the time I had a look at some old past papers (including O-levle ones) and they seemed considerably harder than the up-to-date ones. It's difficult to do a proper like-for-like comparison because whenever you study for O-levles/GCSEs/A-levels, what you are taught is focussed on that year's syllabus. A past paper will always seem hard if the syllabus has changed from what you were taught.