Are a levels harder than they were 20 years ago?

[llamajohn]

I took my a-levels in 2002. They weren't hard. Heck I didn't even complete my coursework in one (NEA now?) and still got an A. I did very little work in maths and got a A. Did the bare minimum in third choice, Chemistry and got a B.
My attendance was around 70%.

I'm guessing those days are gone??

Just wondering what it had to do with whether a levels are harder now?

AS levels are still taken in some schools in England as well.

Yes, getting an 'A' at A level in the 80s was much rarer. Bright kids got into good red brick (Russell Group) universities with Bs and Cs. I'm not sure whether the papers were more difficult or not, but the main difference between then and now is the teaching focus. They teach to test and leave much less to luck. In the old days you read the books, wrote essays for homework and then after 2 years went into the exam room hoping something you'd learnt would come up. Now it is highly strategic, the starting point for learning is the exam, they are drilled for 2 years on previous papers, so that kids talk about possible questions as '3 markers' or '4 markers'. They are put under much more pressure by their schools too.

I needed BBC at A level for my degree in the 1980s. My degree was definitely a lot harder than A levels, although the first year rapidly covered A level content for those that hadn’t studied it before.

Well I've gone on to get a degree, a PhD and a professional doctorate and my A'levels are definitely the hardest exams I ever sat. I only stopped having anxiety dreams about them 5 years ago. I sat mine in 1993.

I went to an excellent school and it was a big deal to get 3 A's. I did not. It does seem from the outside at least, that 3 A's is almost common now!

AS levels are still taken in some schools in England as well.

Do they count towards the final A level grade?

DD took AS levels in 2017, but they did not form part of the final A level grade. Her exam boards were AQA for geography and chemistry and Edexcel for biology.

I would like to know how posters categorically know that A levels are easier. Have they studied the current A level content for their subjects and looked at sample exam papers so that they can make an exact comparison?

I can't seem to tag the couple of A level teachers on MN who aren't on this thread to ask their views.

Could it be that grade boundaries are more lenient? That revision resources are much better? That students are taught more to the test?

I agree. I got rubbish A-level scores, found them very hard, but passed my MA with distinctions and found it much easier (and more interesting!) - but I was really not prepared for the exams in the way todays kids are and I think this is why they seem to do better, because they are much better prepared. I hadn't even see a past paper i don't think before i went into my A-levels and my biology teachers didn't have enough time to teach any of one large topic (which then came up as a high mark question). Today schools do all the can to prepare kids for exams, it seems like a very different approach to 30 years ago.

Hmm it's a difficult one. I did my original A levels in 1997 and got 2Bs and a C which I thought was pretty good.

Later I sat A level Law and got an A which I did find much easier but it might have been that I was older! And although I only did 1 (rather than 3) I was working full time .

But then looking over DS biology A level (which I also did) it seemed really difficult to me.

I did my A-levels in the late 90s and only the brightest students achieved A grades in all their subjects in my school. I seem to recall that three grade Bs was sufficient to get into Cambridge at that time. As someone else said, there wasn't a huge emphasis on the exams from the start and much of it seemed to be left to chance / luck on the day.

I did mine in 87 and I look back now and think it was insane how hard it was and the sheer amount of work we covered - I did Arts subjects. I wouldn't want my DC having to do that. It was way harder and more pressure than University and my PhD.
I still have stress dreams about my A levels. I invigilate now and there is less content covered but it is much more balanced I think. The grade boundaries are lower now so it must be harder sifting out the brightest I suppose.

I took mine in the 2000s and they were really hard then. I think GCSEs were easier, though. I remember there being a huge leap from GCSE to A Level. I did really well in GCSEs with very minimal revision, whereas I really had to cram for my A Levels to achieve results of the same standard.

I did my A levels around the same time as you. I still think they were the hardest thing I've done (relative to age/experience) and I have an Oxbridge degree, a LLM and three professional qualifications.

I agree with this, when I took mine you had to be exceptional to get all As, theres no way that 18 year olds have all become more intelligent than they were 40 years ago
Either the exams are less difficult or the grade boundaries are much lower

@llamajohn

nit the passed there used to be a forced distribution so only a % could get an A etc.

that meant if that number was higher the deficit pass work was higher.

that was definitely true for JMB exams.

so no it’s easier now to get a higher mark.

No.

In 2001 an A was the top grade. I was bright and worked pretty hard in a shit underprivileged northern city school for my AAAB. Got 2 medical school offers and could have chosen any path really.

I took my A levels in 1989 (Maths, Physics. chem) . They were the hardest exams I have ever done* and the physics and chemistry certainly had an overlap with what my nephew studied at university in those subjects 20 years later.

As were rare, Bs and Cs considered good.

In a world which had polytechnics and before the Russell Group was dreamt up, university entry requirements to a decent red brick in non-medical, non-veterinary subjects was Bs and Cs.

*I've gone on to do a lot more undergrad, post grad and professional exams.

My undergrad degree finals in 1987 were much harder than A levels. I did have about 15 papers to sit in quite a short space of time, which didn’t help, and several modules were new so no question spotting possible. My Masters degree exams were much more straightforward in comparison.

I did maths, physics, chemistry A levels in 1992 and found them much easier than my degree.

Yes, I think so. Certainly in my subject. I teach A Level MFL and I think it's far harder than when I did it (late 80s). For a start, you have to write literature essays in the foreign language. The rest of it is harder too though.

I've kept all my a level and degree stuff from the late 90s. I've also taught English A level for 20 years. English has become harder at gcse and A level, although this may not be reflected in grade boundaries. Having said that, students will all As or A*s are still rare in the schools I've taught in.

My English exams were all open book. Now on my spec, only 1 is. We did 8 texts, which is still the case.
The questions were more straightforward.
We didn't have to learn or read critical material and use it in essays. That was for my degree.

And teachers make students much more aware of what to do to achieve grades. I don't think we ever saw a mark scheme, let alone analyse the thing and work out where to try and tweak performance.

It's more a case that they have changed how grades are awarded.

Up until 1982 there were pre-determined percentages for how many of each grade were awarded eg, the top x% of candidates were given an A, the next y% of candidates were given a B etc.

That's a bit of an over simplification (it was a lot more complicated) but you get the idea.

After then it changed to "criterion referencing". What this means is that everybody who demonstrates sufficient knowledge or skill passes.

So, instead of it being a competitive exam (eg the top x% get an A) now it is more like exams for professional bodies, or even a driving test; anybody who displays sufficient knowledge will get the appropriate grade regardless of how many other people also manage to pass as well.

Again, it's a bit more complicated than that.

But there has definitely been grade inflation. Back in the 1980s around 9% of A levels were a Grade A and today the equivalent, A/A* is 25%.

The OP (I think) linked to some info showing that A star* *now accounts for about 8% of all A levels. So it seems like A star is the new A and A is the new B etc going on down.

But none of this answers the question are A Levels easier or harder today than in the past.

However, there was a study done in 2016 "Fifty years of A-level mathematics: have standards changed?" published in the British Educational Research Journal. This study looked at 66 exam papers from the 1964, 1968, 1996 and 2012 exams.

The result of this study was that the exams had got easier between the 1960s and 1996 but from 1996 to the 2012 there was no difference.

In 1996 the number of A passes had increased to about 15% and then by 2012 the number of A/A* passes had gone up to about 27%.

So, either people sitting A levels had got an awful lot more intelligent between 1996 and 2012 or there was some massive grade inflation going on.

In the mid 1970s, it was much less usual to take A levels, because school leaving age was 16 and people could go into work, such as nursing, with five O levels: we know numerous senior military types (now retired) who only have O levels. And as only 7-8% of 18 year olds went to university, free tuition was universal, with means-tested grants available. Harder? I don't know, but O levels were much harder than GCSE.

My English exams were all open book.

Goodness! My English O and A levels in the 1980s certainly weren’t.