5 "good" GCSE's HARD?

Every man and his dog knows that exams are getting easier, why complain? Do you really think little Jimmy's grade A in maths is going to affect his career? As long as you get B at maths and english, all is well.

Many job offers are based on experience, a degree and sometimes A levels (which are also getting easier slightly over time). Not really sure why the sour grapes...
 
Yeah at the end of the day GCSEs arent too bigger thing, but ill try to explain what i mean:

Exams aren't easier, they are just making the C easier, this isn't to say that getting the A was easier, you see?

They also make it stupidly easy at 5xC grades to get into college. College then make it so that getting a C here is easier too.

So although people coming out with A's at the end of A-level have worked hard and got the grades, people getting C's and other grades where the border for them have been lowered lets the newspapers then say "bah more decent ending grades, look at these silly easy papers".

Exams and applications for the next stage of education have been made easier in this sense, but this is not to say that the people who are coming oput with A's and B's from A-levels and with decent degress from respected Unis are less intelligent. it just means there are more people bumping around with C's from A-levels and maybe 2.1s or 2.2s from edge hill uni
 
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Strife212 said:
GCSE's are truely a laugh, I never did any revision or homework, and I was up untill 4am the night before my English GCSE grinding in World of Warcraft and got an A :/
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I did my GCSE's in 2000. I played games with no revision and passed all 11 GCSE's at the time. Grades A-C.

All I did was make sure my portfolios were A's/passes and then I only had to get 30% on the exam to get a C. I put the work in though.

I work in IT and I know someone who has got grades bigger then his arm and the funny thing is he can perform just as bad with the people who have no qualifications.

I think the education systems needs more and more work placement schemes and let people get experience rather than qualifications. I also think the people with qualifications just mean they stuck in at life that's all it shows.

I know a lot of people with degrees and they work in corner shops and have done for the last year when people without a degree are hard at work.

University is for lazy people who want to have a good time not study. University is not like how it used to be.

I think people who don't quit will get everywhere. Has nothing to do with exams except you can kinda cheat your way in. People who have qualifications most of them no jack **** to be fair. It's experience that does it.
 
lozzick said:
So although people coming out with A's at the end of A-level have worked hard and got the grades, people getting C's and other grades where the border for them have been lowered lets the newspapers then say "bah more decent ending grades, look at these silly easy papers".
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As far as I am aware there are no 'lower' A level papers and the grade bounderies have remained the same, so I'm not really sure where you are coming from.
 
Nitefly said:
As far as I am aware there are no 'lower' A level papers and the grade bounderies have remained the same, so I'm not really sure where you are coming from.
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Dude grade boundaries always change. And you are correct in thinking that there aren't tiered exams i beleive.
 
optitech-uk said:
University is for lazy people who want to have a good time not study. University is not like how it used to be.

I think people who don't quit will get everywhere. Has nothing to do with exams except you can kinda cheat your way in. People who have qualifications most of them no jack **** to be fair. It's experience that does it.
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... right.
 
lozzick said:
Yeah at the end of the day GCSEs arent too bigger thing, but ill try to explain what i mean:

Exams aren't easier, they are just making the C easier, this isn't to say that getting the A was easier, you see?
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I don't see why you're not understanding; when one set of questions (a paper) demands more from someone than another set, this makes the former set harder - i.e. a harder exam.
 
lozzick said:
Dude grade boundaries always change. And you are correct in thinking that there aren't tiered exams i beleive.
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No they don't. It remains -

80%+ A
70%+ B
60%+ C

etc.

They are now introducing new A* grades at A level for +90%.

Still, exams from ten years ago are harder than today. I don't really see an issue with that.
 
JimpsEd said:
I don't see why you're not understanding; when one set of questions (a paper) demands more from someone than another set, this makes the former set harder - i.e. a harder exam.
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Harder exam to get a C, yes.

And i always thought A-level exam boundaries change, like GCSE ones, and in that case, then calling 10% of an exam negligible is ignorant. But if you are 100% certain A-levels are fixed % then i apologise.

Anyway this is going to go in circles, i see people happy to pee on each other in this thread..like nightfly argues that exams are easier, but then any mention of that at Uni level and he seems a bit upset. I can understand, and thats why this argument will always remain.

The base of my argument is that, if you put an adult in school now, i think they would soon eat their own words.
 
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bam0 said:
and it's not as though I use most of it in my daily life either.
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LOl i agree with you on that. I like how people say 'exams 10 years ago were harder'. then the 40 year olds come along saying 'oh they were easier 20 years ago etc.
 
bam0 said:
Rubbish, I'm 28 now, just been looking at the paper that Radio 1 had their DJs do (http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse/qp-ms/AQA-33011H-W-QP-NOV07.PDF) and I'm pretty confident I could score an A on it, and it's not as though I use most of it in my daily life either.
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From having a glance through, question 9 is the only one which I could not answer (I would imagine I would get wrong). I would be quite frankly worried if any adult struggled (<50%) with that.
 
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Really bugs me people saying how exams are getting easier. Easier for you now after a few more years of education at school/life etc.

Grades are getting better not because exams are getting easier, but because teachers are becoming more qualified, more experienced, and pupils are learning more skills in the real world.

Anyone saying exams were much harder in my day is talking out of their arse, jumping on the 'back in my day' bandwagon. Get a life. Why can't people like this accept that people become more intelligent? Not disputing the fact that these may not be life skills they are learning, but the subjects themselves their grades are good.

Congratulations all who gained GCSE grades today.
 
I'm going to be honest with you, I just did my GCSEs and they were far from hard; my revision consisted entirely of reading the books/textbooks for a few hours the night before and in the car on the way to school. I'd say that if you have the natural pre-disposition to do well in accademic subjects, very little effort is needed tbh. I had no stress or anything while doing exams, I was a bit disapointed coming out of 2 exams, and a bit nervous going into one, but it was nothing major, and it all certainly ended well :)

Came out with all A*/As and a B, as well as an A grade AS level.

I'd definitely say exams are getting easier. (got my results today)
 
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Nitefly said:
No they don't. It remains -

80%+ A
70%+ B
60%+ C

etc.
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Not true.

UMS marks are calculated from the raw marks achieved by candidates, if the exam is easier then the candidate will need to achieve a high number of raw marks to achieve an A than if the exam is difficult.

UMS grade boundries always stay the same but aren't a true reflection of how well a candidate did in an exam, all they show is how well a candidate did compared to the rest of the people taking the exam.

"Real" grade boundries (using raw marks) will change depending on how well everyone sitting the exam did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Mark_Scheme
 
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