To be suspicious of my niece's fab gcse results

[Noellefielding]

She got 9 As (6 A*s) and 3 Bs
I mean she's very bright and all that but I was around for a whole week in the middle of her exams and she wasn't working at all. Now I don't think she has a photographic memory and of course course work is included in some subjects. But when my contemps did O levels the ones who got results like this swatted til their eyes bled almost regardless of how clever they were.

It just seems odd to do so well without much evidence of swatting. DH says exams are loads easier. I don't know what to believe. Some of her papers looked easier than I remember mine!
No offence intended at all to anyone just genuinely curious.

And how do you know what her papers looked like?

Thankfully DS's aunties are just very pleased and very proud of him, knowing that from an early age he has worked hard at school...glad you aren't my DS's aunt......

I really don't know whether exams are easier or not. Surely someone can compare older and newer papers and let us know? Obviously adjusting for the fact that pupils are taught different things nowadays.

I did my GCSEs in 2004 and definitely did not have any maths questions along the lines of "write this number in words - 300,000". This must be a very low tier examination. I think you need to look at the questions for the higher paper and see if you can do them.

I also don't understand why people think that coursework means that GCSEs are easier. I am rubbish at coursework and always did worse in any subject that included it. I enjoyed exams and did well in them.

I think that sometimes it depends on which subjects you study and at what level as to whether or not they are easier or harder. I know that one (very clever) girl who had not studied classics at all for GCSE sat the exam for the sake of it - it was obviously not submitted to the exam board but the school held on to it - when it was marked (by the school) she got an A. Therefore it cannot have been that hard.

I know that at my husband's school they were encouraged to do an IT course that apparently counted as 4 GCSEs but looking at the difficulty and the amount of work that was required for it - it was much easier than one higher tier GCSE physics paper.

Can't you just be happy for your niece instead of seeking to undermine her achievement. Even i you are just doing it privately you are still belittling what she has done and I find that quite mean-spirited.
I don't know whether exams have got easier but I know pupils can only do the exams that are in front of them. I your nieces case she still achieved considerably better marks than most of her peers in all the exams she sat. I think that is something to be celebrated.

"I did my GCSEs in 2004 and definitely did not have any maths questions along the lines of "write this number in words - 300,000". This must be a very low tier examination. I think you need to look at the questions for the higher paper and see if you can do them."

The maths papers nowadays have tiered questions, if that makes sense. This is what the media fall upon and say "look at this question on a GCSE paper, shock, horror!"

Therefore, getting a question such as the above right will give you a G grade. For an F grade you need to get a harder question right. For a C grade, you need to answer coorectly questions that a primary school child most definitely wouldn't be able to do, such as drawing a straight line graph from an algebraic equation. For an A grade, you need to manipulate surds, put numbers into standard index form, calculate volumes of irregular shapes, and solve the same sort of algebra we did at school, amongst other things.

I have just put my home educated daughter through maths GCSE at foundation level (top grade available C) and we are now working towards higher for this year. At first I looked at the first questions on the paper and thought "this is easy". But as we went through I got a grip on how the sytem works, and realised that if she wanted a C, it was the hardest questions on the foundation paper she needed to get right.

The higher paper has harder questions (those aimed at A*, A and B grade students which foundation doesn't) and much less of the easy lower grade ones, but will still have a few you would think easy as a safety net so that those who fail can prove themselves capable of getting, say, a D grade, instead of a U.

I think a lot of GCSEs work this way. I read so much utter crap in the media and I wish they would just do a bit of research instead of picking the G grade questions, and quoting them to show how easy a GCSE is to get.

And by the way, not seeing her working means nothing. I did virtually nothing for my pretty impressive set of O levels, because I didn't need to. The few days before DD's GCSEs, you probably wouldn't have seen her doing anything either, because it is much more efficient to learn it before this late stage and give the brain a bit of resting time.

am overjoyed for my niece.
Have said so already.
am just asking the question.
lots of sense talked here, very informative, thank you very much.
She is very bright, she is at a very good school and as many have said, has clearly been very well prepared.
I'm very happy. I just wanted to know what people thought.

The current higher tier maths GCSE papers are embarrassing. They switched a few years ago in maths from a Foundation, Intermediate and Higher system to just Foundation and Higher so there is now a much broader range of students sitting at each tier, and correspondingly a much broader range of questions on the paper. As the exams have not got longer, the inclusion of easier questions on the paper means that there are now much fewer A and A* grade questions, so the papers look much easier overall. I feel sorry for the really bright candidates who are not really challenged at all.

That said, it is supposed to be harder to get an A* on these papers as candidates trip up on the easier questions that they haven't studied for years.

I never did any homework at school, never revised for any exams and always did fine. As and Bs all the way.

I remember pissing about for a whole year in sociology. flicking through the book just before the exam and walking away with a B.

And I took my exams 20 years ago.

Some people just have the sort of brain that can hold onto info even if they're not trying.

However - massive downside - I am bloody lazy! If I actually have to work at anything, instead of just being able to do it - I walk away because I can't be arsed to do anything that doesn't come easily.

musicposy, what's a surd?

just googled it, I have a maths degree and never knew they were called that :)

OP you visited before the tests and did not see her studying much maybe because she has worked very hard all year round and did not need to learn it all at the last minute? I think if as a family member you cannot be proud of her achievement and happy for her, it is a bit sad really.

Sorry, missed the bit were you said you were proud of her..

Ah the perennial "exams have got easier" thread?

As per usual, it's more complicated than that.

Only just caught this,how did you see her papers,my DS just took his gcse's and i never saw his papers....btw,are you saying she's lying about her results or that she cheated...like i said,have only really read the op but the tone is rather put down...'she's very clever and all that'

I got 7 A grades and 3 Bs in my GCSEs 5 years ago, the only ones actually revised for were the Oral exams for French and German because I had to memorise speeches.

My thinking was that if I hadn't managed to remember it in 11 years of schooling then I wasn't going to do it in a month of cramming.

Noblegiraffe - I didn't know they had got rid of the intemediate papers for maths. On that subject, I have never thought it was a good idea to limit what someone could get in an exam by not even giving them a chance to get above a B for example. I think there should be one exam for everyone with the questions getting harder as the exam goes on.

Perhaps the week you visited was her week off from studying.

I'd be very careful what you say or imply in front of her. My sister still hates the guts of a family friend who expressed surprise at the fact that my sister did better than his daughter, who always appeared to be swotting. That was about 20 years ago.

Just be happy for her.

Catherine: "I think there should be one exam for everyone with the questions getting harder as the exam goes on."

That would seem to be fair but actually it would be hugely demoralising to students at the lower end who would be sat in an exam hall for hours with a paper which is mostly inaccessible to them. Presenting them with the question 'factorise this quadratic' will not be opening up the possibility of getting a B to them because they still won't have the faintest idea what it means.

Lol, StealthPolarBear, I was about to tell you it is an irrational number (goes on forever) left in square or cube root form to make it an absolute accurate answer and also to make it possible to work with (as you can never otherwise write it accurately because the decimals never repeat).......

...but then I saw you had a maths degree and are a good step above me so....

..retreats quietly into the distance!

YABVU