to think that you need to get more than 50% to PASS something?

[prettybird]

The reports of the GCSE results and of the 5 year old who "passed" GCSE Maths with an F reminded me of this. All she has proven is that she has covered some of the curriculum and got the majority of the exam wrong

I know I'm being a grumpy old woman - but is it any wonder that employers perceive that exams are being "dumbed down"?

aliceliddell: that experiment did happen. There were cohorts of pupils in the late 1970s and 1980s who sat both GCE O level and CSE exams. This was a specific part of the preparation for roll out of GCSEs and was to ensure that O level A-C and e equivalent CSE grade 1 did actually dovetail as expected.

So at roll out of GCSES, you could say that it was equivalent (and the "lower tier" maths paper was essentially the old CSE paper, but the qualification at the end - if a grade C looked exactly the same as the higher tier paper, which was essentially the same as the old O level).

I know this because I was one of those who had to sit double papers in some subjects to ensure it all worked.

But it's a long time since roll out, and I think marking schedules have changed and the old equivalences may no longer be valid. Not least because O levels used to have "bell curve" marking (eg top 10% getting an A, not everyone over a certain score).

My cousin took both O levels and CSEs and likes to say he has 20 O levels as got all grade 1 CSEs and Cs at O level! [Back in the dark ages].

vicki, I'm not sure what your point is? You can't ask your calculator to calculate the speed of sound for you, you need to enter the correct calculation (the formula for speed, btw, is not provided and they are expected to know it, very few formulae are provided).

Currently students sit a non-calculator and a calculator paper. On the non-calc paper they would be asked to calculate percentages by hand, to show that they understand the method, on the calculator paper they would be asked to calculate more complicated percentages, e.g. compound interest to show that they can use their calculator to do percentages as well.

Back in the dark ages too I got an E in O Level Maths. Did a re-sit and got a U!

Take it that's still a fail then

I, too, was that lucky teenager who got to do 2 exams. Didn't realise it was prep for the roll out, just thought they let us do CSE too if we were idle gits. The levels of GCSE make it slightly pointless, surely?
I meant things like English, Chemistry, Maths where the content hasn't changed and the exam structure could be adapted to make them equivalent and control for the variables iykwim?

Whispers ... grade 4 CSE maths.. The shame...[You did better than me Mandy2003].

So 2Boys isn't a grade 4 CSE equivalent to a grade D GCSE? A pass then?!

Ha ha mandy... Nobody let me feel I had done well with my grade 4!
F maybe?

ooh, ooh .. did I 'beat you mandy?

No you got an E first...

vicki what's wrong with retaking exams until you improve?

Also I don't think professional accountancy exams are quite the same as GCSEs and A levels - I did them straight after uni and found the volume of work was ridiculous, whereas at school/college and uni I had to use my brain a bit more.

CSE Grade 2! I later taught Statistics a bit at a University. Don't tell Michael Gove. On second thoughts - tell him.

The shame of Ungraded though - I imagined the examiner falling to the floor in some sort of seizure with the horror of marking it!

I actually remember being able to answer about 1 question in one of the Maths exams, then spending the rest of the time working out how many punched holes there were in the total number of tiles in the suspended ceiling!

Maths has changed massively, alice, like I said, because of calculators.

That said, I do think maths GCSE has become easier since it started, but not because of calculators - they just introduce a different set of skills. The current maths GCSE for top grade students is an utter embarrassment since they scrapped the intermediate tier and is not helped by the modular system.

I think an F is pretty good for a 5 year old, given that many of them can't even read or write or add up! Not so great at 16 of course...

I did think an F was a fail though, I thought when I did mine I think A-E was the pass range. Was a while ago though, and I admit I only really thought in terms of As and Bs myself!

Well done alice

I thought about pretending to faint in my maths exam.. nightmare.
Still add on my fingers..

I don't think you could easily do an experiment now comparing modern GCSE and the old O level papers either - or at least it wouldn't tell you anything useful. I would expect most students would do badly if given an O level paper now - but then I also think if you could go back in time and give a current GCSE paper to teenagers 30 years ago, they'd also struggle, because the syllabus is different, and the format and the style of questions has changed.

I'm not saying things haven't got easier, I suspect in some ways they have, but it would not be such a simple thing to test as some people seem to imagine.

You do balance equations in GCSE chemistry.

I found an O level Biology paper from 1984 when I was clearing out my department. Honestly, apart from a question that asked the candidate to "draw and label the ventral surface of an earthworm", my top set (ie the O level equivalent) could answer the questions without much difficulty. They did wonder where the stuff on genetic engineering and cloning was - until I reminded them of the timeline we looked at. Then they told me how lucky I was to have taken my exams when nobody knew anything

The point of GCSEs I thought was to find out how much you know. So if you get a score of 20% then you're demonstrating that you've successfully understood 20% of the curriculum; unlike taking your driving test, it's not (unless you truly bomb out) a matter of pass or fail.

I don't see anything wrong with that tbh.

lolol Becky

Mind, they might have a point...

From my perspective as somebody who is unfortunate enough to be involved in recruitment for my firm, I now find GSCE and A level grades all pretty useless.

I need to know how they did vs the rest of their cohort. I'd much prefer a system where I was given their percentile rank or at least knew that an A grade was top 10% or something. Currently, given that everybody seems to get A or B grade, the information value is negligible.

or my method fluffy, i just go on how good looking someone is before hiring. grades schmades

I thought you had to get 80% for an A* - I'm sure that's how it used to be . And 70% for an A, 60 for a B etc.

It's really strange to me that the boundaries change for different subjects and different years, I guess it's done to try to keep things fair and consistent across the board, but seems a bit odd nonetheless.