Exam results down

[calorific]

Moving the grade boundaries doesn't mean that the questions have got any harder. All it means is that the powers that be have decided to allow fewer people to pass it, and that's a completely different thing.

As for exams allegedly getting easier, there are many different parameters - for example the number of subjects that a child has to study is greater than it used to be, the opportunity to review and refine their work through coursework has increased, and indeed the fact that pupils have to attempt "all" questions within exams and thus have a wider spread of knowledge rather than the option of specialising more deeply in a smaller number of things.

Add in the obvious political factor that determines how many pupils are to attain a particular grade or better, in order to make the politicians of the day look better.

You may have had to develop a deeper understanding of a smaller number of things. This does not mean that the current cohort has worked any less hard or indeed learned an equivalent number of facts than you.

Gove has done nothing other than play politics and use this year's pupils as pawns in his cynical little game.

 

[chapeau]

Some exams have got easier over the past 25 years, some haven't.

A levels are easier.
S levels are so hard they no longer exist.
O-levels are much the same but nobody in the UK state system takes them anymore.
GCSEs have got easier since introduction.
The International baccalaureate has stayed much the same (I would strongly recommend this to anybody fortunate enough to be able to take it. You will have to work a lot lot harder than any A level students at your school but the top universities love it)
The driving test is a lot harder. No parking in my day, I still can't park.
It's now a lot more important to know subject and university name when deciding whether a degree is worthless or not.

They have also moved the grade boundaries.

All a bit of a mess.

 

[EB1caneyeB]

How bloody marvellous it would be to see some younguns getting notice letters that had won an apprenticeship. And to see some younguns getting notice letters telling them that they had qualified to be tradesman.

It aint, or shouldn't be, all about younguns that have had twenty-odd years of schooling.

I am personally left non-plussed as to what the fuss is all about.