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??

There were no open book exams in the 70s. And for English A level in 1974, we studied a Chaucer text, three Shakespeare plays, TS Eliot, Robert Frost and Wilfred Owen, Jane Austen (Emma), Katherine Mansfield (short stories), Arnold Bennett (Old Wives' Tale) plus one or two that elude me now, so perhaps not that surprising that extensive quotations didn't have to be committed to memory!

Well I'd love all of you to take an A level now.
I think they are just as hard. I think as more people go to uni they've had to make entrance to top unis based on higher grades - therefore people have to get those grades. If you think you could get an A star now in History or math or most other A levels with only 70% attendance and not completing your coursework you are delusional or have an extremely high IQ. Most kids I know who did well worked incredibly hard. I don't know anyone who coasted to an A.

Did mine in 1987. I reckon they’re the hardest exams I’ve ever done.

Remember you need to also factor in that back in the day only around 20% went on to do A levels whereas since the insistence that people stay in education or training until 18 then this has distorted the figures somewhat in the same way that fewer people went to uni and now around 50% do ( and many shouldn't!)

I don't think you can compare easily, because it depends who is taking them, what else is going on in school, at home and in the world, and what the education system is like.

More people take A levels now meaning an entirely different pool, teaching is so different and everyone's lives are different these days.

Most kids I know who did well worked incredibly hard. I don't know anyone who coasted to an A.

Well said @mondaytosunday

Also the content of some courses will be updated as the subject evolves. All the sciences for example have content now that hadn't even been discovered/was cutting edge in the 1980s!

So true. DNA wasn't a topic when I was at school

I think the hard bit was the lack of resources 40 years ago - you only had your notes and the text book really and although we had a few past papers - no answers online to go through them and know where you had gone wrong or right. My children think I'm not that bright as I got BBC... but amazed I got in a top Uni with that!

I did mine in 1989. I was predicted AAA and given an EE offer by Oxford (because that's how it worked back then!). I therefore didn't do that much revision, but still managed to get ABB. Obviously impossible to compare, but very able dd did her A Levels last year, revised way more than me and got BBB.

I agree with you. I bunked most of my second year and got ABC.

Well, yes my degree was quite easy too.

Well, I'm glad that you lot found your degrees so easy!

I did a degree in Statistics, Computing & Operational Research back in the mid 1980s and I found it incredibly hard work indeed.

Nowadays, the MORSE or, especially, MMORSE degree from Warwick is one of the main places that we look to recruit new graduates from. When speaking to recent graduates they found that course generally quite challenging indeed.

the hard bit was the lack of resources 40 years ago - you only had your notes and the text book really and although we had a few past papers - no answers online

This. There are only so many ways to ask questions on the content. Also the marking schemes clearly indicate expected answers. To get a high grade now kids should be memorising past paper answers as well as content.

It is the new-content questions that should separate out the higher-level students, but these get harder to make unique the longer the exam has been around. Plus all the resources on the internet explaining the answers.

These were just not available before the internet. To get to higher grades, students had to really understand and be able to show their understanding.

A similar thing happened with a boy at our school. This was about six years earlier than yourself. (I was only good enough to go to a university in London)

How much all of the following played into things I don't know, but I suspect that this was a very early example of a "contextual offer".

We lived in a "New Town" in the east of England. The school was an ex-secondary modern and we had been the first ever comprehensive intake (the year above us had sat the 11+ exam but it was scrapped before we took it).

His family came from the north east and were proper Geordies. (It was almost unnerving the first time I went back to his home and he reverted to a Geordie accent when he was speaking to his mum - he had a very neutral accent at school).

He also played rugby for the County Under 18 side and just before his interview with Cambridge University he broke his arm playing rugby.

So, predicted very good results, going to an ex-Secondary Modern, playing rugby for the County, it all added up to getting an unconditional offer - in other words EE.

He went on to become a very successful commercial lawyer indeed.

I did mine in 2003, I now teach/tutor biology and chemistry and some of the content is much more intricate than when I did mine, especially the maths bits of chemistry and the and the photosynthesis/respiration bits of biology. I had to learn a fair bit before I could teach it for both, and I've got a biology degree.

There are more 'top grades' not but they're only competing with their own cohort for Uni places so it's a bit meaningless, you can't get into a Russel Group science degree with BBC like I did anymore! The students I work with all seem to work a lot harder than I ever did.

Which board?
I didn’t know anyone ( mid 80s) who got more than one A who did Oxford/cambridge/london boards

But loads who did joint northern

So, predicted very good results, going to an ex-Secondary Modern, playing rugby for the County, it all added up to getting an unconditional offer - in other words EE.

That was the standard offer if you passed the entrance exam in the 4th term of Sixth Form and the interview. There was also the ‘7th term’ for those taking the entrance exam after A levels rather than in the 4th term.

It was a very different system and nothing like a modern contextual offer.

I sat mine in the late 70s. No one I knew got more than one A, and an ABB was seen as incredible,

because I am 67, I'd be quite happy to resit my A levels to prove that I was worthy of the grades I was awarded in 1974. Provided it was the same curriculum, same books and same parameters, given five weeks of revision to re-read the texts (maybe 10 weeks for my French) and I'd bet that my results would still be similar. I doubt that I would score as highly on the S level paper these days. And I am already terrified of the Chaucer.

2002 was actually a hard year because we were the Guinea pig year for a few things including first year of the AS and A levels. The maths was made too hard and the next year they actually redid some of the curriculum, they basically messed it up somewhat when they split bits up for AS and A2. I also remember some of the subjects didn’t have the text books completed yet. I re did one of my AS exams when the book actually came out!

As a long-time teacher of two A level subjects, I'd say they became easier in the early 2000s when they were modular.
They are now harder, mainly because they are more content heavy and in most subjects entirely, or almost entirely, exam based.
Students definitely work harder on average than they did when I was doing A levels in the 1980s but of course there are many individual exceptions to that.
Mark schemes are far more accessible than they used to be so yes, students are taught how to succeed rather than just being taught the subject.
Not everyone gets A grades of course. Certainly no A grade for whoever said that upthread!

I did OCR in 1974, in English, French and History, and got A with Merit in the S paper for English, D for French, and A for History. Went to Bristol (where I was asked for BBB) and did not apply for Oxbridge because Balliol did not admit women. A year later, the rules were changed.

They must be easier now. Students are getting better results than ever, and teens today are not more intelligent than they were a generation or two ago!!

I did humanities a levels around the same time. We did coursework, were taught to the exam paper (that isn’t new at all) and I found them easy too. My degree felt incredibly hard in comparison and it wasn’t until the until the second year that I felt I had a handle on it. I was one of only 2 to get a first.