Metropol

The exam papers aren't just what counts towards the grade though. There's also coursework, which counts a lot towards what your final grade is these days. Every year people bang on about how exams are getting easier, and I just wish that these people would try taking the courses themselves. Maybe it would wipe the smug smiles off their faces and stop their cries to bring back the tripartite sytem and O-Levels. Anyone who's done their GCSEs and A Levels knows just how much work they've had to put in to achieve their grade, just to be told how thick they are.

StuartPlymouth wrote:

Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:I've just been trawling the web to try and find some evidence to back up this claim of an A* for 26%... is there any proof?

Well aside from that simple fact that now you get an A* for getting 74% of the paper wrong. 20 years ago you had to get 80% right to get a simple A.

I'm willing to bet you didn't. There'll still have been statistical and other corrections to be made. That still represents the standard boundary for an A*.

Sput wrote:I'm willing to bet you didn't. There'll still have been statistical and other corrections to be made. That still represents the standard boundary for an A*.

Shifting the scale so rediculously the other way makes the grades meaningless to employers and that is what counts.

StuartPlymouth wrote:

Sput wrote:I'm willing to bet you didn't. There'll still have been statistical and other corrections to be made. That still represents the standard boundary for an A*.

Shifting the scale so rediculously the other way makes the grades meaningless to employers and that is what counts.

and yet you never stopped to ask why it was shifted! There's obviously a reason and whole process that had to be followed (assuming the report is real) in order for that to happen, but you're happy to presume it's invalid because you're not party to it and didn't bother to find out! That's a lousy way to make a judgement of something.

Sput wrote:and yet you never stopped to ask why it was shifted! There's obviously a reason and whole process that had to be followed (assuming the report is real) in order for that to happen, but you're happy to presume it's invalid because you're not party to it and didn't bother to find out! That's a lousy way to make a judgement of something.

I was commenting on employers opinions, and at the end of the day that is what counts. You can have degrees coming out of your ears but if the employer thinks they are meaningless then they are.

Qualifications don't put food on the table!

StuartPlymouth wrote:

Sput wrote:and yet you never stopped to ask why it was shifted! There's obviously a reason and whole process that had to be followed (assuming the report is real) in order for that to happen, but you're happy to presume it's invalid because you're not party to it and didn't bother to find out! That's a lousy way to make a judgement of something.

I was commenting on employers opinions, and at the end of the day that is what counts. You can have degrees coming out of your ears but if the employer thinks they are meaningless then they are.

Qualifications don't put food on the table!

They put *more* food on the table though!

StuartPlymouth wrote:

Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:I've just been trawling the web to try and find some evidence to back up this claim of an A* for 26%... is there any proof?

Well aside from that simple fact that now you get an A* for getting 74% of the paper wrong. 20 years ago you had to get 80% right to get a simple A.

I agree with Scrooge in that I can't believe that 26% is an A*. I'm not sure it's true. When I took my GCSEs two years ago, the boundary for A* was (I think) in the region of 85-90%.

We seem to go through this bullshit everyyear. I remember doing mocks at school and college and we used the previous years exam papers. Some of them i thought christ this is easy i hope my exam papers are this easy and others were really difficult and preyed for them to be easier.

I can't remember if mine were easy or difficult. I passed them all but 1 with fairly good grades, but i done mainly cses and a couple of o levels. I never revised and passed ok. The same with college. I never revised for any exams. As when i study a subject i enjoy i have a brain like a sponge. If i revise and revise it, it confuses my brain. Memory flossing doesn't work for me.

Our exams didn't take our course work into account. I wish it had have been though, i would have probably done even better.