What did you get for your A Levels (if you did them)? (Trigger warning - a levels 💐🫂)

DH did General Studies in 1993! Alongside more academic A levels. It was basically designed to keep you in school, but gave him the extra UCAS points he needed for his first choice uni, when he dropped a mark on Chemistry.

ABC (this was long before the A was split to include A*) for Psychology, Business Studies, Biology.
I got 100% in Psychology I later found out, so that was a nice surprise. I credit a really good teacher and it was the subject I was most interested in.

Thanks for the info. It sounds like the question wasn't to test if you'd been studying victorian civil engineering. I recon it was to test how you work something out, or make educated observations. A bit like the qustions university of job applicants get to test how articulate or logical you are. Like, how do you find a needle in a haystack, what would your super power be and why, etc. They're not looking for a 'right' answer, as such.

I'd guess that a victorian piledriver would be a huge, steam-powered macine. The victorians didn't have electricity or hydraulics, so they would have used steam power to raise the hammer of the driver up the rig and then release the pressure to let it drop rapidly onto the item being driven in the earth. Similar to steam hammers in foundaries. It would have been operated by a fraction of the workforce previously needed to operate a manual piledrivers, allowing the victorians to build bridges and steel buildings rapidly.

I love questions like that. I'd get massively marked down on my spelling tho, which has always been awful ☹️

It was popular up untill the 90s at least i never did it but i know loads of people who did my understanding was it was pot luck what you got asked

Kicked out at end of AS year

Went back to Uni in my 30s, gained PhD and lectured for a couple of decades

I always tell disaffected or disappointed students that some people need some life experience before their real academic interests amd strengths become apparent

Google confirms that in the 1970s, General Studies A-level was a popular complementary subject designed to broaden sixth-form education, often taken alongside three specialized A-levels to bridge the gap between arts and sciences.

In reality, it was an A level that no-one took seriously and no-one revised for. One of the questions was to explain how a Victorian pile driver worked. I hadn't a clue (and still don't).

One D and two E's.

Still got my PhD though.

Wow amazing work ethic! So pleased for you it all paid off. I really think I underestimated how much work it takes to get good grades. You totally deserved those As!

I studied really hard to get my A levels. I was still shocked at getting As though. My parents always told me I wasn’t very bright, but pretty. And a man would marry me, so I wouldn’t need to work.

AAAA maths, biology, chemistry, physics. No A*’s available back then

BDE in 2005. I didn’t put enough work in, could have done way better. Never mind!

BBB in Physics, Chemistry and Biology, which in 1983 was enough for Medical School.

ABBC Communication Studies, Sociology, English Language, Media Studies

AAB Psychology, chemistry, biology in 2006. Definitely the most stressful time of my life. Uni in comparison was a breeze and I came out with a first.

It’s a long time ago (1970) but BBBD.

ACD in the 1970s - I just scraped into my first choice university which was one of the better ones at the time!
Ended up just missing a 2.1 in the days when that was a major achievement and a first was almost unheard of
It’s never held me back - exams aren’t everything - I’m fairly well known and well thought of in my field and am very proud of my career and personal achievements

I got a CDE for my A-levels, but I only sat about a third of the exams in the end because I was horribly ill with glandular fever. I needed BCC for my top choice uni so thought I would have to resit everything. But then I had the best phonecall to say that in light of my medical reasons my top choice uni would honour the offer based on my
mock grades. The relief was indescribable!

AAB maths with mechanics, economics and physics

A* didn't exist back then and tbh I did very little work for them. An eidetic memory is a huge help when it comes to exams

EEN - my secondary schooling was blighted by industrial action and my dad’s deteriorating physical and mental health.
Went to a Polytechnic. Got a 2:1. Got an MSc with distinction from a (now) Russell Group uni, followed by a PhD. Will feel inadequate until I retire. I have to try very hard everyday not to pass on my anxieties to my teen DC.

Astar Astar (it keeps bolding when I use asterisks !) A A - Chemistry, Maths, Further Maths and Physics

I sailed through my GCSEs and A levels and never really learned to study.

I then went on to uni on an integrated masters course (chemistry), found it incredibly hard - both the studying and the independent living, had a big mental health wobble, thoroughly screwed up my third year exams and was 'required to graduate' early with a 2:2 instead of progressing to the masters year.

(With hindsight, the undiagnosed ASD and ADHD may have had something to do with it ...)

AAB chemistry, RE and biology. I had an ABB offer for medicine at UCL. This was in 2001. 25 yrs ago. O dear.

General studies D
History E
French E
English lit U

🙈

I re-read our main texts. But with English Lit which then meant 9 or 10 texts, Chaucer x 1, Shakespeare x 3, Victorian x 1, early 20c novels x 2, poetry and greats: Austen, Wilfred Owen and Robert Frost, plus French, which in 1974 had four adult books/plays set, preparation was key.

My A levels in 1974 were probably more demanding academically than first year university now.

Very little work tbh but I am great at exams and awful at coursework. The only subject I really revised for was Politics, which was my ‘worst’ subject (I still got an A but it was a middling one). Even at Oxford, I did best when I could wing it.

Not much at all, exams were always easy for me