Are A-levels getting easier?

[**Helen**]

Hattie fiercely believes the answer to that question is no. Read her rant and share your view on the matter.

[Kaff]

It's shit when you're doing A levels and all anyone can say is how much easier they're getting, but imo, it's true. They're easier now than when I did them, and they were easier when I did them than when my parents did them.

If they were consistent, the pass rate and percentage of people getting top marks would hover around the same point. Some years it would be higher, some years lower. The fact that it increases year on year, for me, points to one obvious conclusion. And it isn't that people are getting smarter.

[Scary Monster]

It's also hard to deny that they're getting easier when they rewrote the maths one a few years ago.

P1, P2 and P3 got rejigged to become C1-4 and yet you still only have to do 6 modules. Aka people one the new system do 5/6s of what the ones on the old system did..........

[Thunderstruck]

The line that gives her away is as follows:

I've just completed my first year of A-Levels, so I feel my opinion on this subject is valid. What many critics either forget or don't seem to realise is that the transition from GCSEs to A-Levels is enormous. It's not a mere step up the ladder.

1. You're taking exams at one point in time. You have no basis for comparison, ergo, your opinion is, in fact, not valid.
2. No-one is arguing that the transition is small, merely that both are getting easier and easier.

There is absolutely no question that they are getting easier.

Teachers who have followed curricula for years have been saying this and who is better qualified to opine on the matter? Employers are bemoaning the fact that school leavers and even university graduates lack basic numeracy and literacy skills that would have been taken for granted from folk 20 years their senior.

I've seen Spanish and Russian O level papers from 20 years ago that are A-level / First year degree material nowadays. How else could that be explained?

That said, it's not the fault of those taking the exams; they still have to work hard and put the effort in, but unfortunately have been betrayed by a generation of politicians attempting to artificially boost exam results.

Couple that with the emasculation of the teaching profession in the harsh face of parental litigation, accusations of being a paedo or an abusive bully where 30-odd years of impeccable service are disregarded the second you try to restrain some little scrote who is wreaking hell and destroying not only his chance of escaping the gutter but those of the kids around him and you have to ask yourself, who'd be a teacher?

[Franki]

Originally Posted by Olive

It's shit when you're doing A levels and all anyone can say is how much easier they're getting, but imo, it's true. They're easier now than when I did them, and they were easier when I did them than when my parents did them.

If they were consistent, the pass rate and percentage of people getting top marks would hover around the same point. Some years it would be higher, some years lower. The fact that it increases year on year, for me, points to one obvious conclusion. And it isn't that people are getting smarter.

. I agree.

Then again I think everyone should do the IB at college, which is certainly NOT easy.

[notanotherusername!]

eeeven though i'm not doing A levels as i am in scotland, I like to think our english exam was hard as only 4 people got A's (out of 60) and me and someone else were the only two that got band one. and most others got C's.

I must admit though i think if you were doing one subject then yeah the exams would be easier, but when combining that with another 5 that include the three sciences it is hard. And i do get annoyed when credit is taken away as people say they are easier when they haven't sat them. But i do get where people are coming from, when i look back my standard grades were a walk in the park but at the time they were the hardest thing ever.

So after that condridicting rant, i feel better

[Franki]

Originally Posted by notanotherusername!

eeeven though i'm not doing A levels as i am in scotland, I like to think our english exam was hard as only 4 people got A's (out of 60) and me and someone else were the only two that got band one. and most others got C's.

I must admit though i think if you were doing one subject then yeah the exams would be easier, but when combining that with another 5 that include the three sciences it is hard. And i do get annoyed when credit is taken away as people say they are easier when they haven't sat them. But i do get where people are coming from, when i look back my standard grades were a walk in the park but at the time they were the hardest thing ever.

So after that condridicting rant, i feel better

You're not combining it with another 5 though. You're combining it with another 2-3.

That's why I like IB. It gives you an all round education in every area (you HAVE to do English, Maths, a science and a language, whether it's basic stuff or hardcore) but still allows you to focus on the things you're good at.

[notanotherusername!]

oh...i didnt think scottish and english were that different! its max 5 here and most do 4 or 5.

[Franki]

I'm not 100% sure because I didn't do A-Levels but from what I gather, you can do 4-5 AS levels, then 3-4 A2s. So people going into say, medicine, would do Maths and the three sciences. Or something. I don't know for sure though but I will always say IB is best .

[purplestarfish]

Originally Posted by Franki

You're not combining it with another 5 though. You're combining it with another 2-3.

That's why I like IB. It gives you an all round education in every area (you HAVE to do English, Maths, a science and a language, whether it's basic stuff or hardcore) but still allows you to focus on the things you're good at.

Hmm thats the thing with IB... you can like Franki said, focus on specific areas yet still keep skills up to date in other areas. For example, I do Chemistry, Biology and History at higher level, and French, English and Maths at standard level. And thats not it... I also study TOK (Theory of Knowledge) written an extended essay (4000 words) and done the CAS programme (150 hours in creativity/action/service). I like that by the end of 6th form I will have still been writing essays and studying another language... whereas if i'd done A-levels, i would have probs done the classic chemistry, biology, maths option.

With only a small percentage of people scoring the top marks - 45 points (i think its something like less than 1% worldwide get that score) then well yeah... its harder.

I think whether A-Levels are getting easier or not is hard to judge... But from the amount of As around... surely thats an indicator that regardless of why (down to better teaching/them getting easier etc etc)... they need to be harder. And I don't think that introducing the A* grade was the answer....

My opinion is well... the IB is better than A-Levels... More rounded education etc etc. And I also strongly believe that everyone should be required to learn a foreign language... In most other countries people are at least bilingual, and I think its an important skill to have. Ha, enough ranting

[FireFly85]

Given that these sorts of exams are assessed normatively, and that it is impossible to set an exam of exactly the same standards year after year, I would say that it is the whole system that is at fault and that can be so easily manipulated, as opposed to A levels getting easier or harder. One year for an exam an A grade could be 60 marks out of 100 for the top 20% of people taking the exam, the next year it could be 90 marks out of 100. It depends on how everyone else taking the exam does.

[Scary Monster]

Although I don't quite understand how they can be being marked normatively and results go up year on year?

If anyone does I'd appreciate the explanation.

[Kaff]

Originally Posted by Scary Monster

Although I don't quite understand how they can be being marked normatively and results go up year on year?

If anyone does I'd appreciate the explanation.

I don't believe they are, are they? At least, I'm pretty sure they weren't when I was doing them, as I think I remember being told grade boundaries in advance of sitting the exams.

ETA: googling tells me that boundaries are largely fixed, with an amount of scaling depending on the difficulty of the paper - as has been mentioned, it's impossible to have papers of exactly the same difficulty.

[Franki]

Originally Posted by Olive

I don't believe they are, are they? At least, I'm pretty sure they weren't when I was doing them, as I think I remember being told grade boundaries in advance of sitting the exams.

ETA: googling tells me that boundaries are largely fixed, with an amount of scaling depending on the difficulty of the paper - as has been mentioned, it's impossible to have papers of exactly the same difficulty.

Another reason the IB is better . Results are on a curve, so while it means that a person who got 45 one year would not necessarily get it the next, it does show that they were in the top howevermany percent of thousands and thousands of people AROUND THE WORLD that year. Says something to me....

[Kaff]

Originally Posted by Franki

Another reason the IB is better . Results are on a curve, so while it means that a person who got 45 one year would not necessarily get it the next, it does show that they were in the top howevermany percent of thousands and thousands of people AROUND THE WORLD that year. Says something to me....

Tbh, I think that fixing the boundaries makes more sense.

If I were an employer, or a university, and I saw someone had 4 As, I'd have a certain expectation about their ability. But what if they only got those grades because they took them in a year when the standard was particularly low? Equally, you could have someone who was very able, and in any other year would have got top marks, but because the standard the year they took them was very high, they might come away with Bs or even Cs. Extreme examples, I guess, but you know what I mean.

If you grade based on top percentages, you don't get marked as an individual, but on your ability as it relates to everyone you took the exam with.