to think people should stop complaining that exams are too hard?

[grimupnorthLondon]

DD's school is awash with parents sending angry emails to GCSE exam boards because their kids thought the questions were too hard? There is widespread demanding that 'something must be done'.

I think I'm partly annoyed by the continuation of helicopter parenting, wanting to swoop when a child, even in late teens, faces any challenge. But also there seems to be no understanding of the fact that some things just ARE difficult. If you don't 'get' physics, or you don't 'get' poetry, why should the exam be adapted so that you can pass it? Some people will do less well than others in academic areas (my DD is a very middle of the road performer), but may of course have amazing practical or social skills that will open up other opportunities for them.

In the case of some of the exams being complained about, I know from DD's experience that the teaching was very good and they covered the appropriate syllabus material so it is not a question of the school not preparing them.

Can't we just accept that sometimes things are difficult? That they need to be so that everyone is "stretched" to achieve at their own best level?

[FutureGadgetsLab]

London this is anecdotal but I've known some real idiots excell in exams. I really don't think they tell you much.

[noblegiraffe]

The media picks up on stuff like Hannah's sweets, drunk rats, John's uncle, and the kids tweet memes about them because they are catchy questions.

You don't see 'find whether the equation of the line goes through the point (0,10)' going viral.

[kali110]

Totally agree op.
I never got physics butwas fantastic at chemistry and biology.
I completely failed physics so it took my a&c grades down below to a d and e.
I didn't cry that the questions were too hard ( yes they were but not to others)i was just happy i came out with a pass
Some people will get some subjects but not others. I have always been fantastic at every subject except for maths ( there lying the problem with physics!) yet my best friend is a math genius.

[noblegiraffe]

John's uncle got a shout out in the huffpost.
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/edexcel-maths-exam-causes-student-dismay-over-lack-of-whole-numbers_uk_573c6830e4b058ab71e60ebb

The problem with the edexcel c1 exam was apparently expecting a-level maths students to be able to multiply fractions.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

SaltyMyDear
I totally agree. The exam is equally hard for everyone,so how is unfair?

That isn't entirely true though.

[urbanfox1337]

agree, hate this socialist culture where 'everyone is equal at the bottom'.

[stillenacht1]

It's hardly surprising this happens with so much 'student voice' in schools, so much spoonfeeding, so much denigration of teachers.. All this breeds lack of independent thought in students and an entitled attitude

[RufusTheReindeer]

noble

My 6th form child has just done that exam (i think)

Speaking to my friends their childrenfound it very difficult and are now concerned for their results

Ds1 is unphased...thats either because i have told him not to stress because its a subject he is dropping or as he has never got higher than a U in any test for it...it cant get any worse

[musicposy]

noblegiraffe with all due respect, it was more than multiplying fractions. I took that C1 exam as a mature student (I'm redoing my maths and further maths A level to get up to date again as I teach) and there's not much I can't do in the way of mental maths. I can cube fractions and large numbers in my head, do long division with many decimals very quickly and factorise hard quadratics in a flash. But the paper was ridiculous. There were just so many fractions, minus signs and surds in every question that it took away from the actual aim of the paper, I think. I'm not sure it will differentiate well between the most and least able, actually. What it was asking was not that difficult and I didn't find a single question that made me think about how to approach it - which past papers have had and a challenging paper should have. Instead they tried to make it hard by putting in numbers which needed either a calculator or extra time, or at least extra working out space (there was very little and you weren't allowed to answer anywhere but the small space). I also think it made it luck of the draw because even for a very able candidate, the chances of screwing up a minus sign once you've cubed it, stuck it into an equation, put it through a load of brackets and then factorised it were really high in the time constraints - making it way too hit and miss for my liking. I thought it was a hideous paper and I'm predicted a tip top A grade (there's no A* on AS). I'm pretty certain I'll have done well, but that didn't stop me thinking it was a very badly set paper.

I teach and from the chalk face, I can see why students are getting cross. Exams are getting harder and harder every year due to media and political pressure - you only need to go through ten years of any past papers to see it. And contrary to popular belief, grade boundaries are not getting lower. If you look at the maths AS over the last 10 years, the 2006 paper is ridiculously easy compared to the 2015, with no difference in boundaries.

In an attempt to make their papers harder, exam boards seem to be introducing more and more bizarre ways to differentiate - which don't always differentiate the right students.

I think the problem with questions line Hannah's sweets was that many otherwise able students who could have factorised the quadratic in a second, panicked over the way it was worded and didn't show what they could do. DD2 is strong on maths and science, much less so on the complexities of language. DD2 was one if those last year who came out of that exam and cried - she almost had a panic attack in the paper. The irony is she got her A* (and I think she did actually solve it from what she said) but refused to do maths A level, despite loving maths, because she said she was never putting herself through that again. I've heard this from so many other students too. They learn their subject well, revise hard, and then are faced with an exam that seems to bear very little relevance to what they've learnt. I think it's a failing of our education system if we are losing our brightest and best students through these bizarre ways to supposedly drive up standards.

[noblegiraffe]

music I don't teach Edexcel but the Edexcel teachers I follow on Twitter all thought it was a standard paper with one or two tricky questions and the student outcry was overblown.

I've just looked at the paper and solutions and the questions all seem fairly straightforward. The discriminant question even tells you it's a discriminant question! (Compare to the OCR C1 paper with a 7 mark discriminant question with no scaffolding).

[musicposy]

It was an AQA paper everyone is talking about, not edexcel.

[musicposy]

The GCSE last year was Edexcel, however.

[musicposy]

And you'll read I would agree that the AQA that everyone is out crying about was very straightforward. My gripe was that they made it hard with ridiculous numbers rather than by making you think for yourself and that does not discriminate well between the very bright and the just-good-at-arithmetic.

[noblegiraffe]

music read my post and the link. It refers to Edexcel. No idea what the problem with the AQA paper was, I didn't hear any complaints about it.

[musicposy]

Apologies, I didn't look at the link because I'd read so much about the AQA.
Interesting they are saying the same thing!

[ArgyMargy]

YA sooooooo NBU

Don't even get me started.

[noblegiraffe]

music OCR's C1 was awful this year too, unlike past papers, but they didn't go for weird numbers and surds, they went for horrible questions.

I wonder why all the exam boards did this? Maybe testing the waters for the new A-level. We saw it at GCSE too, when a spec change was imminent, the last paper of the old spec had new-spec type questions.

[jonsnowssocks]

We should scrap all exams and just give the kids a shiny trophy instead

YANBU at all.

[Piemernator]

Some students are going to fail because they are incapable, some due to being lazy and some because they get too worked up taking exams. I always feel very sorry for the ones who get too stressed taking exams and their nerves get the better of them.

People need to accept that their DC are not good at everything and that's it. I worked in higher education for 25 years and the increase in parental interference was marked. I am really very glad I don't have to endure the parental whining anymore.

[Whathaveilost]

Ive just spoken to DS2 about how the exams are going and what do people think so far.
He reckons they are ok and that the only minor problem he has had is to do with him and not the exam questions.
He did tell me about the biology one asking about what is an independent company, and what benefits there are but it was me that was surprised at that one because I remember my GCSE biology paper being about labelling parts of a plant,, menstrual cycles and photosynthesis!

I don't know about exams being harder or easier than in the past, I haven't done the course or seen any papers to compare, that's not my business. I just hope the kids the best outcome they deserve.