No wonder A-Levels mean and are worth squat

Nitefly said:
How are you going to define relevant in terms of 'pure' maths? None of it has much use to real world applications.
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Pure Maths at A-Level is entirely relevant to pretty much any Engineering, Physics or more mathematically based Economics course at University. All what I would call real-world subjects!

Infact, what is defined as "Pure Mathematics" at A-Level is really the bedrock of all the applied mathematics based subjects at University. It skips a lot of very low level material that real Pure Mathematicians would find crucial; ideas about proof, assumptions and deduction, the axioms of mathematics, all the stuff that Engineers and Applied Mathematicians (like myself!) rush over to get to the equations.
 
sjcf1 said:
Having just taken My GCSE's. They aren't getting easier, maybe not that much harder, but they certainly arn't getting easier - for instance I had to revise from December to June to get my 10A* and 1A out of the 11 I took.
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blatant troll is blatant
 
In my GCSE's I got
3x A,
4x B and
3x C

I did no work except the night before revision...
GCSEs are far too easy, I should have failed, nevermind getting an A in maths

Alevels I had to work a little harder but not much. Still got onto my software engineering course with no problems.
Alevels are too easy
 
Nitefly said:
How are you going to define relevant in terms of 'pure' maths? None of it has much use to real world applications.
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There is no "pure" maths taught at school, nor has there ever been imo. Pure maths (i.e: Analysis and things like set/group theory) aren't even mentioned. Almost everything you learn at school to do with maths is applied maths, even subjects as advanced as calculus.

Nitefly said:
You are going to have a very tough time convincing us that the change made no difference to the difficulty of the course.
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I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything - I was just trying to say that simply stating: P1-3 is now C1-4 doesn't mean it is easier. When I did them, C1-4 was a joke and anyone with half a brain cell could crush it. However I don't know what P1-3 was like :p
 
sjcf1 said:
Having just taken My GCSE's. They aren't getting easier, maybe not that much harder, but they certainly arn't getting easier - for instance I had to revise from December to June to get my 10A* and 1A out of the 11 I took.

Having looked through many past papers, I'd have to agree that they have the same structure of the exam, but the questions are worded differently.

Reason why they don't teach you anything else is because school is too target orientated. Having taken Spanish, what good is it if I can describe my school to an A grade level, when I really need to be able to complain, and try to solve problems that I may encounter on my holiday there.

I'd also have to agree that college isn't for everyone and that people shouldn't be forced into doing something that they arguably don't want to do and would disrupt everything that goes on.

The exams may appear easier as teaching has got better, as the resources have. I doubt many people could brag about having a touch sensitive interactive smart board could they? And the power of the internet, pod casts etc. - Thats the real reason why exams are getting better, because year after year they will be a increase in intelligence and any mistakes that occurred in the previous year would be solved by the next.
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GCSES are getting easier sorry and to be honest im amazed you had to put that much revision in :/. A levels too are also getting easier. I did the last year to do the OCR physics syllabus where we had 3 pages of formulae to know, the next year up dont have to remember a single formulate. Even the teachers them selves all say its far easier. Not to menchen the vast number of topics we had to learn for ours.

Also teaching is not getting better it is deteriorating fast. The good teachers are the old teachers. I had a physics teacher you didn't even know the speed of light :/
 
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Kreeeee said:
Only mildly harder but the big difference is that you get to miss out M2 or S2 which is a really stupid decision for any one with authority to make!
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I guess I never noticed this, I did both of those. What I didn't do was FP3/4 which I guess people who used to do further maths had to do before, yes?
 
Greebo said:
Taking your Spanish as an example, pupils are no longer deducted marks for the misspelling of words in foreign language GCSE exams. I mean if you can't even spell the foreign words correctly, what good is an A* if you then actually use that language (written) in a job later?

"Silver Plates" and "Murky Buckets" would probably still get you full marks in a French exam :rolleyes:
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This isn't true at all. It's far easier to lose marks than it is to get them. I'm taking GCSE French, as an A* student with the highest marks in Maths, Engineering, IT, Chemistry, Biology and Physics in my school, and French is damn hard. I know I'm bad at it, but I'm bad at English and I'm still scraping an A in that so far. In French, I'm currently at a C/D, yet I don't make that many mistakes in my exams. I made 3 mistakes in my last written exam, and a bucket-load in my speaking exam, yet somehow, I had a lower percentage in the written exam than the oral one. I can appreciate them being more lenient with a speaking exam, seeing as how it's harder to speak fluently with no preparation than it is to write and be able to correct yourself, but my French speaking is awful.

However, I cannot comment on whether exams are easier now than they used to be. People change, teaching methods change, papers change, you cannot compare them.
 
I think maths has been made too easy. Maths has been culled to allow non mathematical brains to do it.

I do further maths and the way i see it is that it should be the maths a level. But possibly make it more A level style formatted paper and not so degree like with the whole 4 question thing so its more forgiving.

It's like physics has an advanced physics course as well. Physics a level allows people that totaly suck at maths to claim they can do physics. Which really should not be the case. Physics is very mathematically based. The maths was taken out just so people could do better in a subject they were no good at.

Then again maybe this is because physics teachers are so shockingly awful in a lot of state schools. My physics teachers couldn't do gcse maths like simultaneous equations :/. Nor did they know how to take logs of numbers, which was in our exams.

Infact if they don't have the mark scheme to an a level paper they genearly cant do the questions. They should be fired.
 
8igdave said:
I do further maths and the way i see it is that it should be the maths a level. But possibly make it more A level style formatted paper and not so degree like with the whole 4 question thing so its more forgiving.
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I disagree. Having 2 separate A levels for Maths and Further is a good thing as it allows a lot more modules to be taken and a lot more ground to be covered, which is a necessity for people going into applied maths courses like engineering.

It's like physics has an advanced physics course as well. Physics a level allows people that totaly suck at maths to claim they can do physics. Which really should not be the case. Physics is very mathematically based. The maths was taken out just so people could do better in a subject they were no good at.
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That's probably because the vast majority of physicists do maths as well (at least at my school, maybe one person didn't). Having the physics course very mathematically based would end up with people doing the exact same material twice in both maths and physics.
 
Killerkebab said:
I guess I never noticed this, I did both of those. What I didn't do was FP3/4 which I guess people who used to do further maths had to do before, yes?
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We did P1-3, S1, M1 and S2/M2. Now you do C1-4 (similar to P1-3), S1, M1.

Further maths was generally P4-6, M3, S3, S2/M2 at my school
 
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I didn't fare well in my GCSEs or my A-Levels, not compared to the grades today's school pupils are getting or what my friends got:

GCSEs; 6x C, 2x B 2x D
A-Levels: CDD

I did still manage to get to university although Computer Science wasn't for me. I even funded a year of it out of my own pocket in the hope that that would make me put my head down and work harder.

So now, I'm going from one Customer/Technical Support job to another. The employers don't give a **** about my qualifications - just my experience.

There aren't even any real jobs you can go into with just A-Levels - believe me I have tried. They just want experience and more experience. Unless you have a degree...but they'll still want some sort of experience.

At the end of the day, I can't comment on the difficulty of today's exams.

Going to school makes you learn a bit more about certain subjects and builds your character. It does play a large part in determining what kind of person you'll become, what job you may get, what kind of manager you'll become and what kind of worker you'll be. How well you manage stress, manage a work load, manage time constraints.

Remember that time you got picked on for being a loner and you were a chicken, didn't do anything except maybe tell a teacher (as I did) had your self-esteem and self-confidence battered and so on but still soldiered on.

The experiences in school count for a lot and the qualifications you earn a fair bit too. But there is only one chance to go through school and you are the only one who can really forge how successful you'll be and how hard you'll work.

At the end of the day, you do make your own luck and if you can get good qualifications then go to college or uni but most of all show true grit and determination, you can go further than your qualifications allow.

So I guess I'm trying to say qualifications are not the be all and end all. But it makes a good foundation for the rest of your life.
 
Nitefly said:
How are you going to define relevant in terms of 'pure' maths? None of it has much use to real world applications.

I was taking P2 and P3 at the time C1 and C2 were starting in the year below at my school. The hardest material in C2 was the easiest material from P2, and the hardest content from P3 had been dropped according to our teachers, who found the move to C1-4 perplexing.

Not only are they easier, but it also meant you no longer had to do M2 or S2.

You are going to have a very tough time convincing us that the change made no difference to the difficulty of the course.
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I did C1-4 and M1 and M2. :confused:
 
Title: 'No wonder A-Levels mean and are worth squat'

Oh really... well I'm pretty sure 4 As will get you into almost all universities doing most courses... worth squat????
 
ordinaryjoe said:
Title: 'No wonder A-Levels mean and are worth squat'

Oh really... well I'm pretty sure 4 As will get you into almost all universities doing most courses... worth squat????
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but then again most folks i know claim that there degree hasnt really got them anywhere..

i work along side folks who are 25/28 and have degrees etc. they earn the same and do the same job as me.
 
djinuk205 said:
but then again most folks i know claim that there degree hasnt really got them anywhere..

i work along side folks who are 25/28 and have degrees etc. they earn the same and do the same job as me.
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Well it depends on what course and what career they are doing. If their job is related to their degree (and they did a decent degree), it is pretty likely that in another 10 years, they will be earning a fair bit more than you (although far from certain).
 
you would imagine, They all did degrees in engineering etc, however im only 21 and they have been there for many years..

to be honest the market is flooded now with people with degrees and i think experiance is taking a hold in most jobs over papers.
 
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