We dont all do that, some of us quite like teenagers.
No wonder A-Levels mean and are worth squat
- Thread starter Hatter The Mad
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We dont all do that, some of us quite like teenagers.
Soldato
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Surely people get good grades at A-Level because they choose to stay and take them. GCSEs are mandatory, and thus people who aren't willing to put the work in don't bother and fail.
Have you taken any of the maths tests from the early 1900s? I took some that were published in a recent newspaper that were aimed at 10 year olds during this time period and they were very challenging, verging on ludicrous for what was expected of them. Less has been expected of students for well over the period of 20-30 years like some posters are advocating - standards have been slowly dropping for the best part of the century. From that extreme, I can't honestly say this has been a truly negative thing.
More amusingly, isn't everybody today complaining at Labour's plans to send everybody to University and undertaking unnecessary education? If it was getting to the point whereby people were leaving school at 16 and were not able to do simple sums, then I would be the first person to jump up and say that there was a problem. But is not learning the 27x table (yes, the did do this ages 10 in the early 1900s) really going to change the abilities of our workforce?
Is this really about schools 'dropping standards', or is it about people feeling disgruntled that their own achievements are scoring lower and lower on what they are making out to be some sort of standardised IQ test?
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Regardless of if they are getting easier or not, its what you can do with them that counts. And nowadays even straight A students are not getting places on their desired course in university.
So yes perhaps they are easier and the teaching is more focused on passing rather than learning, but at the end of the day, university course requirements have also changed, and some courses have gone into new areas to try and differentiate students.
I know for medicine for example, there is a whole separate exam not related to A-levels specifically made to provide more differentiating information on the student for universities to use. Not all of them use it though, but back in the day when I was applying to university, the only universities in the whole country that required you do another exam was oxford/cambridge.
So yes perhaps they are easier and the teaching is more focused on passing rather than learning, but at the end of the day, university course requirements have also changed, and some courses have gone into new areas to try and differentiate students.
I know for medicine for example, there is a whole separate exam not related to A-levels specifically made to provide more differentiating information on the student for universities to use. Not all of them use it though, but back in the day when I was applying to university, the only universities in the whole country that required you do another exam was oxford/cambridge.
Soldato
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School may or may not be easier nowadays but getting well-paid work is harder I reckon (more competition from other prospective candidates).
At the end of the day, you need a degree to get anywhere it seems, even if you start off at the lowest step of the ladder.
At the end of the day, you need a degree to get anywhere it seems, even if you start off at the lowest step of the ladder.
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Caporegime
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THe point being, those jobs aren't there anymore, so rather than like 30 years ago getting ONLY the best students in to do degree's, there are less jobs, way more office jobs so they need to get more people in education rather than into the world of jobs, where there aren't any.
Think of it like this, theres what, 3.5mil unemployed, very few jobs around, while at any one time we now have, what, 500k - 1mil in education who frankly, the majority of don't need to be there and are learning nothing useful.
Its better than having 100-200k in uni doing incredibly hard courses getting worthwhile degree's, and another 400-800k unemployed and unable to get jobs
As for Klo's point
Not much really, but the point of having the tests reflect a realistic score and show the top 5-10% of students easily so the people who go to the best uni's and get on the hardest courses are really capable of them.
WHen you devalued A-levels by making them easier, you run into a choice, you make degree's easier so that anyone can pass them, or you have lots of unqualified people doing course they shouldn't have got onto because they really should have had C's, and most of them fail.
The way the government went, was to make degree's easier also. So much has been dropped, they are also far more focused with less actual knowledge and more learning to take tests. Every smart person I knew was bored with repeating work in the first year as they are now there really to bring everyone to the same level before moving on properly, but you lose a year teaching the less capable students to be the same level as the more capable students. The answer is due to results those people shouldn't get in the course and the people who should get on get 3 years intense and hard learning and a degree worth a damn at the end.
Anything to back up that degrees are getting easier? And what University / course was that at?
Soldato
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Depends what you class as a worthwhile degree.
I agree to a point that there are unqualified people in University who are simply wasting their loan money by being there (I know someone who fits this description perfectly). However, allowing them to drag down the image of others who do actually try is unfair.
There are also a lot of courses where the majority of students probably shouldn't be there. That shouldn't discredit the few that want to be there though and may get something out of it.
Surely this is a matter of opinion as different people will have different strengths.
I took both French and German to A-level and found them easier than Chemistry. Is it true that spelling doesn't need to be correct on language exams nowadays
That would make them even easier!My school taught Spanish and Latin, thought I wanted to learn Japanese personally.
Pointing out that exams are a lot easier these days is a lot different to disliking teenagers.
Associate
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I did my GCSE in 1994. Got 3 A grade and 5 C grade. I didn't revise for any of them except sciences and some tube from the school entered me on the intermediate paper by accident so they were capped at C. I'm not sure they got easier, just the teaching got more and more focused to passing exams. Even then we spent from about February doing mostly past papers in the classroom as revision and teaching us to pass the exams. Coursework played a part as well but there wasn't huge plagiarism opportunities like now.
Then I went to A-Level and the gap was staggering between the GCSE and A-Level. Though I could do the work I preferred spending the grant on beer and snooker which I deeply regret now. This worked for the first year where I had results equal to some people who put in a lot of effort, but in the end bad coursework and exam results catch up and I messed them all up.
Depends what your brain is good at I guess. When I write formally or creatively I have an excellent grasp of English and the same when spoken. English Language A-Level though was a real hard slog for me but I can understand the sciences because they are interesting.
League tables and targets pushing teaching towards passing exams rather than making people learn to think. A bit like driving lessons teaching you to pass the test instead of teaching you to drive properly.
Then I went to A-Level and the gap was staggering between the GCSE and A-Level. Though I could do the work I preferred spending the grant on beer and snooker which I deeply regret now. This worked for the first year where I had results equal to some people who put in a lot of effort, but in the end bad coursework and exam results catch up and I messed them all up.
I took both French and German to A-level and found them easier than Chemistry. Is it true that spelling doesn't need to be correct on language exams nowadays
Depends what your brain is good at I guess. When I write formally or creatively I have an excellent grasp of English and the same when spoken. English Language A-Level though was a real hard slog for me but I can understand the sciences because they are interesting.
League tables and targets pushing teaching towards passing exams rather than making people learn to think. A bit like driving lessons teaching you to pass the test instead of teaching you to drive properly.
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Associate
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Ignore
Soldato
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Here's the thing. School isn't about learning those specific fields. It isn't about leaving sixth form and knowing how to integrate by parts, it isn't about knowing how to work out the electrical capacity of a battery, it isn't about being able to explain photosynthesis in 250 words, and it isn't about knowing all of the events of twentieth century history. School is about learning - more accurately, it teaches children to learn.
If it immediately sounds ridiculous to you, think about it - how much of school do you remember now? If you're being honest, probably not all that much. Yet I can tell you with absolute certainty that it was very far from being a waste of time. Why? Because those skills you learnt in school, such as time management and how to study, how to digest information and then how to use it are skills that you will keep your entire life. Those are the skills that will help you succeed at university and to become a versatile and skilled member of the workforce. After all if school was really about teaching you what you need to work, then we'd have plumbing class every monday morning.
This is why I don't understand this ridiculous over-specialisation which actually closes doors to our students rather than opens them. Doing three subjects at A-level is a joke not because we leave sixth form only knowing a select few things, but because we leave sixth form with a bad work ethic and get used to being able to call ten hours a week "full time education".
That is nothing more than tripe imo. We're not talking about fluency here. We're talking about basics, hell even intermediate language skills. Maybe that way we'd end up with more than 50% of the population who know more words than "hello" and "goodbye".
I defy anyone to tell me knowing an entire foreign language isn't useful, and to prove it. If you grew up around a foreign language you have even less of an excuse imo.I personally don't see the point. Anyway, it would be wasted on me, I grew up around two languages. I only learnt English though
Being able to say you're proficient or even fluent in a foreign language can do wonders for your personal statement in my opinion. Saying it has no influence at all is wrong.
Students should be given a choice. Whilst I disagree with your "tenth and eleventh most spoken languages in the world" point, since any foreign language will be very useful - especially French/German which I'm willing to bet we (as Westerners) encounter more often in our lives than most other languages - I definitely agree a lot more languages should be offered, though.
All top flight universities (some already do) should set their own entry exams in my opinion. That way they get all the information they need on who is fit to go on their course or not. If they really want to push the boat, make it a contest rather than a pass mark. i.e: Only the best 30 applicants are taken, regardless of what number 31 scored. It changes the game since we're not beating an exam which people argue are getting easier - we're beating the competition and its much harder to argue that recent generations of students are dumber
Soldato
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Maltese isn't used by anyone though. Plus, people in Malta all speak English.
Maybe but its always good to knock their achievements every now and again.
I accept that exams may be getting 'easier' but I don't understand the annual national outcry over it. I wonder what the situation with exams is like in other European countries.
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Soldato
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... and yet, knowing two languages is a good way to make it easier for ourselves to learn a third - no matter how trivial you believe Maltese or whatever language is. Do you see why?
Soldato
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No?
I mean, if I was motivated to learn different languages, I would have learnt Maltese in the first place.
Seriously, as already mentioned, Arabic and Chinese would be the most useful to learn, although seeing as English is my native language I cba.