Why have an exam where more than half the students get the best possible grade?

georges said:
Cambridge will be asking people to submit their marks voluntarily which bypasses the variance in marks per grade. Those that don't submit will, I assume, be treated as though they scored a low A.
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Mmmm. When I did A-levels I wasn't told how many marks I got, although I guess things may have changed over the years.
 
Yeah, you get totals and individual module marks and grades.


For AS and A level you need 240/300 (so for the entire a level, 480/300 for the A).
 
Firstly, sorry, haven't had time to read the whole thread.
I did my A-levels a year ago. I did maths, and there was no way I would be able to do further maths - that was reserved for the top students, and they would put just as much time into it as any other student!
Are you saying that only the top x% of those intelligent students that excel at maths and go on to study FS should recieve an A?
Because I know they would all easily get an A in most other subjects. Just because the base of students that take a subject recieve an A, why belittle it?
 
Oh, and people should pick on degrees, not A levels. My A levels were twice as hard as my degree (at least - and that's honestly serious) - and I'm doing a decent degree at a decnt uni.
I never had it so hard as my A2s.
 
Only the really good Maths students tend stick at further Maths. I gave it up as I found it too difficult (was extra lessons on top of the 4 subjects I was already doing).

No wonder the results are good in this subject, only the brightest students who have the aptitude for A levels do it.

I still managed to get a 1st in engineering so I am hardly crap at maths
 
the fact still remains, exams are getting easier is irrelevent even if true. The exams should be a method of differentiating between individuals. If too many are getting top marks, this is increasingly difficult. The subjects should therefore be made more difficult or the boundaries higher.
 
Cobra said:
Oh, and people should pick on degrees, not A levels. My A levels were twice as hard as my degree (at least - and that's honestly serious) - and I'm doing a decent degree at a decnt uni.
I never had it so hard as my A2s.
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I'm doing art at loughborough and i can assure you the level of work and amount involved is easily OVER twice as much as in my A-levels.

It really does depend on the course.




Though my I.T. teacher explained to me they make the tests "slightly" harder every couple of years and every year they look at all the results, and if a certain percentage of students don't make top grades etc they class it as being too hard of an exam and drop the grade boundaries slightly to compensate. I'd have thought thats a pretty good way of sorting it out to be fair.

If loads of people pass, move the grade boundaries up and if loads of people fail, move them down.
 
I haven't read the whole thread, but when I was at college if you underperformed they chucked you off the course, that may be a reason as to why many performed well - the stragglers were simply set aside so the institution would look better, having a higher % getting good grades.
 
Big surprise, students chose subjects at A-Level they are good at. If i had taken English, Philosophy and History at A-Level i would have got straight Es, and then the media would love me.

I find it ironic how when half of all pupils failing their GCSEs (Involuntary) the media complains, yet when lots of people do well at A-Levels (voluntary) the media still complains.

STUDENTS DONT TAKE A-LEVELS TO FAIL

Bunch of drama queens
 
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Clinkz said:
Big surprise, students chose subjects at A-Level they are good at. If i had taken English, Philosophy and History at A-Level i would have got straight Es, and then the media would love me.

I find it ironic how when half of all pupils failing their GCSEs (Involuntary) the media complains, yet when lots of people do well at A-Levels (voluntary) the media still complains.

Bunch of drama queens.
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Since when were the media ever positive about anything?
 
The Pat said:
Since when were the media ever positive about anything?
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Well a little bit of money and the right political backing goes a long long way ;)

Out of interest, how has the fallout from the A-Levels been in the dumbed down (TV) news broadcasts today. I only read the news online without the talk to you like your 5 years old and incapable of thought while inserting snide comments into your mind presenters, and there has been very little complaining as far as i can see.
 
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Haircut said:
56.8% of people acheived an A grade in further maths?
What's the point of having this exam if getting an A tells you that you may not even be in the top half of people who sat it?
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Because it tells a university that you've covered the material in the A level, so that the courses can assume you know what a hyperbolic substitution is, or how to solve linear differential equations.

In fact, Further Maths isn't 'designed' to be harder than the Maths A-level - it's just supposed to cover more ground. In practice it is harder, because you can't do a lot of the topics in FM without being fluent at calculus, trig manipulation, etc. In other words, you really need to be an 'A' grade student at normal maths to really have much chance with FM.

I took my FM A-level over 20 years ago; in my class 75% of people (3 of 4) got a grade A. (We'd all taken A-level Maths a year earlier). So it's not like this is a new situation. Having looked at the current exams, they don't cover as much material as our exams did, but to be honest I'd say they are actually harder. (Basically because you have to answer every question now; in my day you could pick and choose, which made a big difference).

To recap, FM is only taken by "the best of the best", but it is not really designed to differentiate between them - merely to give them the chance to learn additional maths that will help them in their degree. If you want to really challenge the best, there are other exams: the obvious one being AEA Maths (11% distinction rate, 70% fail rate).
 
What I don't understand is if exams are no easier then x amount of years ago and more students are getting A grades why are Universities running remedial maths and english courses for first year students?
 
There's nothing wrong with, or suprising about students who obviously excel at maths, suceeding in further maths. If they weren't capable they simply wouldn't of done it.
 
DaveF said:
Because it tells a university that you've covered the material in the A level, so that the courses can assume you know what a hyperbolic substitution is, or how to solve linear differential equations.

In fact, Further Maths isn't 'designed' to be harder than the Maths A-level - it's just supposed to cover more ground. In practice it is harder, because you can't do a lot of the topics in FM without being fluent at calculus, trig manipulation, etc. In other words, you really need to be an 'A' grade student at normal maths to really have much chance with FM.

I took my FM A-level over 20 years ago; in my class 75% of people (3 of 4) got a grade A. (We'd all taken A-level Maths a year earlier). So it's not like this is a new situation. Having looked at the current exams, they don't cover as much material as our exams did, but to be honest I'd say they are actually harder. (Basically because you have to answer every question now; in my day you could pick and choose, which made a big difference).

To recap, FM is only taken by "the best of the best", but it is not really designed to differentiate between them - merely to give them the chance to learn additional maths that will help them in their degree. If you want to really challenge the best, there are other exams: the obvious one being AEA Maths (11% distinction rate, 70% fail rate).
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I see your point, but then why bother with grading the exam at all in that case? Surely the whole point of assigning a grade is to differentiate the abilities of the students, and when the majority get the top grade I fail to see how this is being done adequately.

I never got the opportunity to take further maths (thanks to my school :rolleyes: ) so can't say if it is a hard exam, but IMO this point is moot.
If it were art where most people got an A then the argument could be used that it's just people who are good at art taking the exam.
I still say that regardless of the abilities of the people taking the exam it should be graded so as to adequately differentiate the candidates.
 
These exams aren’t really meant to differentiate candidates. There are further exams such as step or other types of entrance/interview tests to do this.

If you look at the syllabus of A-level papers and what the grades correspond to it is based on what the student knows and can apply. If every student knows, and can correctly apply, everything on the syllabus then they all will get an A.

In North America it is different and the scores do differentiate between candidates as they give pencentile scores.
 
Surely though this is Maths, if you get the right answer using the right method then you get a mark, otherwise you don't.

An 'A' grade will correspond with a certain percentage of marks, e.g. 80%, if 56% of people taking the paper got 'A's then they must all have answered 80% of the questions correctly, what's the problem?

If more people got 'A's than last year it's because the standard of teaching and/or students has improved, they can't adjust the grade boundaries as said because that would render comparisons of grades useless.
 
haha.. ha.. haahhahaa.. hah!

hahaha..

_44061937_alfredartley203.jpg


Self confessed 'Boffin' who got 7As in the A-levels. "I was expecting it".

Why is it that something stereotypical images ring so true??

My god.. haha..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6949438.stm
 
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