GSCEs - how many get all A grades?

[tatt]

Anyone tell me where I can find figures for the percentage who get all A grades or higher?

[NotanOtter]

50% of all exams from independant

40% from selective schools
25 of cohort ( think 26.4)

scrub the above

too many

[NotanOtter]

sorry think that is A level

[UnquietDad]

If we carry on as we are, everyone will have As for everything in about 10 years' time, thus eliminating the need for exams at all - everyone can have a certificate at the end of the school year to say how great they all are.

[NotanOtter]

jsut watching newsnight

i have teens doing gcse and a level they are not stressed and do not work anything like as hard as we did

no where near

they score much much higher

[UnquietDad]

I'm amazed, frankly, that our parents' generation ever located their arses and distinguished them from their elbows, let alone passed Schools Certificate. They must have all been thick as pigshit. As for our grandparents, they must have left school knowing less than when they went in.

Of course they're bloody easier.

[NotanOtter]

someone on newsnight just said a C at gcse english now was essentially an E 20 years ago

i am hollering in agreement at the TV

at the upper end of the scale -brighter kids are being lost in the fuzz

i am glad a level A * is coming in

[UnquietDad]

Isn't there A* already?

[UnquietDad]

Oh sorry, "A-level A", not "a level A". Got you.

[NotanOtter]

good job i am not doing my english language A level eh?

[RustyBear]

DD's school were trialling A* in a few subjects last year (none that she did)and I thought it was coming in this year, but maybe it's still on trial.

[NotanOtter]

it's in this year rusty

ds will be in the first year...nervous but more taxing

[UnquietDad]

I wasn't picking holes in your grammar, NotanOtter, I was explaining my own misunderstanding!

[NotanOtter]

cambridge offers will all be A*AA

[NotanOtter]

UQ i was jesting

in my day english a level meant lit!!!

[UnquietDad]

I think Oxbridge will go back to having its own entrance exam. I did the Oxford entrance exam and found it a lot harder than my A-Levels ever were.

[NotanOtter]

yes UQD i wonder that they have not already

the 3 A 's candidates must span a huge ability range now

[Lilymaid]

I remember the classic Oxford entrance general paper question: "How do Martians know that we are playing games". You had 45 minutes (of a 4 question 3 hour paper) to work that one through.
A* ought to encourage a lot of clever lazy types to work a little harder - it is too easy to get an A.

[NotanOtter]

agree lilymaid

[tethersend]

Wasn't there that question (can't remember where from; think Oxbridge entrance exam of some sort?):

Q: Is this a question?

To which a student responded:

Yes, if this is an answer.

[RustyBear]

I remember someone telling me she had the question "Why do people leave umbrellas in public conveniences?" for her Oxford Entrance.

She wrote an inspired piece about the relaxed state of mind induced by bodily functions, only to discover when talking it over with other candidates afterwards that the question had actually said "public conveyances"

She did not get offered a place...

[1dilemma]

lol lilymaid I love those kind of questions great range of possible answers and my 6 yr old could get so into that one!

[NotanOtter]

allegedly they do not do any of those obscure mind bending questions even at interview these days

they have to concentrate so hard on finding out who really is clever enough to be there

[RustyBear]

DS's friend was asked for the 'approximate value of pi' at his Oxford interview.

He gave it - to 50 places...

[senua]

OP: one of NAGTY's definitions of Giftedness used to be 'eight or more A/A* at GCSE'. This was in the days when Giftedness was defined as 5%.
HTH

[2kidzandi]

Is there such a large difference between public conveyances and public conveniences?