Dumbing down of A levels?

It's not maths that's the 'easiest' A-level to get an A or A * in, it is Further Maths. A higher percentage of students sitting Further Maths get the top grades than all other subjects.

I think that concluding from this that Further Maths is an easy A-level would be an error.

Further maths is usually taken by those who need "more maths" larry and STEP by those who need even more.

Also agree with webwiz - I dossed through my A levels, because if you can get an A by dossing, there's very little motivation to do extra work to get a near-perfect result - you didn't even get a % score back, so there was absolutelu no visible difference between an 81% paper and a 99% one.

"I suspect that anybody who claims to be absolutely rubbish at maths yet gets an A* at A-level is measuring themselves on a different scale to one normally employed to assess maths ability at 18."

I think that is an interesting point. I suspect that just about anyone capable of doing a hard science degree (maths, physics, chemistry et al) at a Russell Group uni would be able to get an A* in current A level maths. So, is an A level meant to be a preparation for that kind of degree or a more general qualification? If the former, it is way too easy. If it is just "a bit more maths" to help with social science stats or with life in general, maybe it is set at the right level. Maybe we should have 2 maths papers taken by 18 year olds, one specifically aimed at science degrees and the other more general.

Yellowstone - Hmm. Do you think more universities will begin to make more A offers? I talked to someone at a party over christmas who's involved in universities admissions for a uni that already uses the A grade and apparently so far they aren't that impressed with the A* as a selection tool.

Maths is statistically the easiest A level to gain an A in (in terms of percentages gaining A) I believe. I do think achieving 90% ant C3 +C4 (the A criterion) is achieveable by moderately good mathematicians who are prepared to work very hard indeed to thoroughly learn the material and do lots of past papers (and there are lots available). But I don't think people who are genuinely 'rubbish at maths' could do it (perceiving oneself to be 'rubbish at maths' is something else though, and this can easily happen to really quite good mathematicians who become aquainted with an exceptional mathematician). And I think to get less than an A at maths A level and achieve a top grade at STEP must be almost vanishingly unlikely without some severe extenuating circumstances - virtually everyone on the maths tripos at Cambridge these days has A* maths, a B is very much an anomoly.

I think DD2 ended up in a similar situation with her Maths A level - she needed something ridiculously low in the final paper to get an A but because she needed the A* she had to work to get a high score.

She is pretty good at Maths though

That's true about apparent stalling noble, but we're talking about changes in the last 20-30 years, so the Flynn effect would still be a factor to some extent

. I was really taking issue with SQ's comment; as gelatinous says, intelligence is not entirely genetically pre-determined at birth and hence changes in its expression do not have to take place over geological time periods.

That's what I meant webwiz. Plenty of students knew they could notch up an A grade at A2 with very low marks because of their AS cache. The A has changed that and will change it further as more and more universities start making A offers.

I'm impressed too yellowstone

I think the point that the A is there to aim at has a huge influence as well. DD1 took A levels before the A was introduced and she had high enough marks in previous modules and coursework to only need about 40% in the final exam to get an A. She could have pushed herself to work really hard but what for?

Well I'm endlessly impressed by the A* kids and I've got fairly high standards....

Dilys the Flynn Effect seems to have stalled in the west in the last decade or so. I suspect there is only so much improved nutrition, access to education and increased parental interest can do.

I suspect that anybody who claims to be absolutely rubbish at maths yet gets an A* at A-level is measuring themselves on a different scale to one normally employed to assess maths ability at 18.

I suspect that he is comparing himself against the very best mathematicians, instead of a national cross-section of his peers.

Also universities handed out plenty of matriculation offers back then, so it wasn't the end of the world if you didn't hit the top grades. You could shine. Whereas now you're pretty much dead if you don't get the grades. Which is stupid. Lots of really VERY bright people don't get A*s, just as lots of less than impressive people get them.

the achieving of

That's generalising a little too much from the particular MrsJAP!!!! And I'm not sure how to interpret the Cambridge B grade....

At our school, which would rate as 'academic', the As in the past two years have definitely gone to the high achievers and though some very bright students have missed the A, it hasn't worked the other way round.

As for the students achieving straight runs of A*s (three or more), they have almost all been the Oxford or Cambridge offerees.

My fourth DC in almost the same number of years is taking his A2s this year and the achieving an A* is a very tough call, whereas for bright students with good AS results under their belt, achieving an A grade at A2 prior to 2010 was for many a walk in the park.

" We don't evolve that quickly!" We don't necessarily need to evolve quickly if ability to learn is something set/enabled in early childhood. They say 'rich' kids are 5months ahead of poor kids on average at age 4 report here probably due to'a richer learning environment' rather than any innate abilities. It doesn't seem a stretch to me to believe that on average children these days generally have 'richer learning environments' than children did a generation ago. My dc have had more toys etc. than I ever did as a child and there seems to be much less of a 'children being seen and not heard' mentality about these days too. So our intellect doesn't have to have evolved, it may well just be being better nurtured these days.

Happygardening I think you said yourself that your premise may be false - it depends on your DH's memory as opposed to recorded data (though I'm sure that exists). That apart, I would bet on the fact that the London day schools are now far more selective than they were thirty years ago - the loss of the grammar system may well be a factor in that. It's also possible that St Paul's boys now sit more science A2's than they did back then - the A*'s flow more freely/ predictably than in Arts.

I agree with Letchlady that very different expectations are put on students these days. I spent my lower sixth having the time of my life not taking exams. Once year 10 starts we put kids on a four year treadmill (or worse if GCSEs start in year 9) where they are constantly assessed. It may all be in bitesized chunks but its not something I personally would want to go through.

And yes the A* at A level is difficult to get. DD2 has one in Maths and she had to go into the final maths exam knowing she could only drop a few marks or lose her university place. I was a nervous wreck never mind her.

My DS1 got an A* in A level Maths and he freely admits to being absolutely rubbish at maths.

One boy who left in 2010 got a B at A level maths but managed the top grade in the STEP exams and is now at Cambridge studying for the Maths Tripos. And the boys who got the A*s in A level were certainly not always the brightest.

SQ if you are going to flatly state that "across the board human beings aren't getting cleverer!!!" then you do need to explain away the Flynn effect, which appears to demonstrate, on the basis of enormous amounts of well-attested worldwide experiments, that they really are, and at an evolutionarily improbable rate.

However, it's probably not enough to explain the change in grades, so I assume that better teaching, teaching to the test, and a race to the bottom amongst exam boards also play a part.

I think there are so many reasons why grades have gone up - grade inflation may well be a part of it, but I think there are other factors too.

One service my exam board now offers is a results plus service, where at the touch of a button I can look and see exactly how well my students did in their exams - I can see the actual marks they got for every question. If a student doesn't do well, then we'll look at their results, develop an action plan to combat the problem (was it timings, a bad question, not answering the part b question properly etc) and then they resit the exam in the Jan. this is a world apart from my experience where I dossed for 18 months, then in the January of my second year said 'oh shit', panicked and then revised like mad for the exams. Students are not allowed to doss like they did in my day. 4 months after arriving at college, they are now sitting exams. I don't think I had completed any homework myself .

I also agree with other reasons that other posters have put forward; today the exams place less emphasis on fact memorisation and more emphasis on analysis (for my subject at least), so the way students are taught has changed accordingly. Long gone are the days of just note taking in lessons, or worse the close exercises I spent hours doing as my teachers droned on!