Was there a big difference in academic standard between O-Levels and CSEs?

[Warburtons2]

I did GCSEs just for the record but I’m interested to know people’s reflections on this and how were people selected to do the exams?

I was always in the top set. I went on to do a degree as a mature student. We wasn't given the option of anything other than CSEs. Our school was one of the worst in Liverpool and later closed. There was no suggestion of us doing A levels or University. Most of the people who went there underachieved.
I was shocked when my DD was behind at school, because of dyslexia, how in Kent and other places a pupil would get intervention at 14 months behind, but in Liverpool it was 2 years eight months. We don't all have access to the same education.

I was part of a pilot scheme for my year and took an exam they were going to call the 16+ in Chemistry. This was 1979. We didn't do anything different for it. I did traditional O levels for everything else being an academic child. 😄
I remember queuing up for my results and being given a separate envelope first. This had a CSE grade 1 for chemistry in it. I do remember thinking "oh no, I only got a cse, I must have fails for the others which were all o'levels". I then got a separate piece of paper with the O levels on, which included an A in chemistry - so I got a cse and an O level grade.
I took 2 x AOs in the lower sixth so actually ended up with 11 x O levels and that CSE, not common in those days.
I was at a heavily streamed comprehensive school and some of my friends took a mixture of CSE and O level classes. You were streamed for virtually every subject so you could be in the right place for your own strengths without having to be good at everything. It worked well.

Yes, IMO they must be considerably easier. So many people getting strings of As was very rare.

I did O levels at a very good girls’ grammar school. To get an A (or a 1 as it was then) you generally had to be pretty good at a subject and work hard at it.
IIRC the only girl in our entire year (of around 90) who got all As was a very gifted one who was a year younger than everybody else anyway, who’d passed the 11 plus at 10.

The only school exam she ever failed was the pre O level compulsory music one, because despite the super- brain she was tone deaf!

The only A I got was in French, which I took early. I was very good at it (I was only ever good at languages) and worked hard at it - just wish I could say the same for some other subjects. It took me two goes to just pass O level maths.

@Seashor

PaperMonster, you’re the only other person I’ve come across with an O A level!!

I also have one !

One girl in my year got 8 As & another 6. I remember the gasp in the assembly when it was announced. This was at a school where no-one did CSEs. It was unheard of to get such fantastic results. I got one A, went on to get BCC at A level & studied a science subject at a uni where you now need A A A.

1986 was probably when I did my AO. I was at college.

I did 16+ maths at school and got a grade 2. So College said I could only do A levels if I did maths again. So I did the 16+ again and got a grade 3.

When GCSEs came in a couple of years later I sat the maths exam without attending classes and got a grade C!! All the equations and formulae I previously couldn’t remember were actually printed in the exam booklet, so I could work things out!!

From what I recall in the late seventies there was a significant difference. Some of the pupils in my class who did seven or eight O levels but had one subject they struggled in (often Maths) were put in for CSE as a grade 1 had just become recognised as equivalent to an O level. If I recall correctly, they all got a CSE grade 1.

At the (posh) boys school over the road, if you failed an O level twice you took a different board O level. We all started with Cambridge board.

And at A level there was a quota system, so regardless of your actual mark, only the top 3% in the whole country (may have got that number wrong, but it was very small) got a Grade A. It really meant something special.

@sluj

I was part of a pilot scheme for my year and took an exam they were going to call the 16+ in Chemistry. This was 1979. We didn't do anything different for it. I did traditional O levels for everything else being an academic child. 😄 I remember queuing up for my results and being given a separate envelope first. This had a CSE grade 1 for chemistry in it. I do remember thinking "oh no, I only got a cse, I must have fails for the others which were all o'levels". I then got a separate piece of paper with the O levels on, which included an A in chemistry - so I got a cse and an O level grade. I took 2 x AOs in the lower sixth so actually ended up with 11 x O levels and that CSE, not common in those days. I was at a heavily streamed comprehensive school and some of my friends took a mixture of CSE and O level classes. You were streamed for virtually every subject so you could be in the right place for your own strengths without having to be good at everything. It worked well.

I did the 16+ biology so got a 1 and an A. It was a different board to the others so I ended up with 3 certificates - 2 for biology and the remaining 6As and a B on the other. I was slightly irked to not have all the o levels on one certificate. I was in the transition year between the school being grammar and comp, had all the people who'd passed 11+ in the area plus a similar sized cohort from a local catchment. This meant there was an unusual degree of flexibility with quite a few who'd failed the 11+ being moved to the gce sets in the 3rd year (yr9). Those who were weaker at maths did the CSE - it was a 'modern maths' syllabus which included some things that the O level didn't such as matrices. (Iirc my 2 maths A levels, separate pure and applied maths, didn't cover them either despite their usefulness... they're one of the bits of maths I still use all the time now though a hell of a lot easier in code than on paper.)

I did AO levels too @Seashor. It think the A stands for Alternative. The top sets took maths, English and French a year early then took AO levels the year after.

I've also got another defunct qualification - an S-level (Scholarship-level). Totally pointless as they were meant for people applying for scholarships to university back in the days before grants, which were replaced with student loans whilst I was at college, so scholarships were a long distant memory.

I have
O levels
CSEs
AO level
A levels
+

Example
I have
O level sociology
CSE social studies
A level sociology
All 3 are completely different & one exam to pass at the very end of your studies

1xAO for General Studies
Just straight to exam
I passed

I have had to supply all my original certificates to my employers, including my degree

Even though, I have moved multiple times

I took O levels English literature & language a year early
My partner took O level maths a year early
All good passes

Was there a big difference

YES

Maths were never my strong point. I was one of the last years to do CSE/O level for Maths only. CSE was much easier. The questions were straight forward whereas for O level you had to interpret the question to work out what topic was being tested, if that makes sense.

Did me no good. I failed the O level with a D and got a 2 in the CSE. I was furious. I resat the O level only and got a B.

AO was Advanced Ordinary.

I stand corrected, it does mean Alternative.
My teacher lied

@chesirecat99

I did AO levels too *@Seashor*. It think the A stands for Alternative. The top sets took maths, English and French a year early then took AO levels the year after.

I've also got another defunct qualification - an S-level (Scholarship-level). Totally pointless as they were meant for people applying for scholarships to university back in the days before grants, which were replaced with student loans whilst I was at college, so scholarships were a long distant memory.

I have two S levels. By 1979, when I took them, the S stood for Special level. At my school, we got a bit of extra tuition to help with preparations. The JMB rules were that you could only take two S levels, and they had to be subjects you were taking A level exams in in the same sitting. Results available were 1 (good pass), 2 (pass) or Fail.

The Latin paper involved translation and probably comprehension. We didn't have another set text to prepare or I wouldn't have wanted to do it.

The English paper included a long list of essay titles you had to choose from, answering with reference to texts that weren't on the A level syllabus that year. I dimly recall writing at some length about Tom Stoppard because I'd seen several of his plays at Leeds Playhouse over the preceding year. I imagine the other question was comprehension.

I had a conditional offer that included my S level Latin, so not useless if I'd got the stipulated grade 1 , but as things turned out I got a 2.

I have an S Level too - Economics. I took mine in 1981 and got a merit. You had to be taking the A level to take the S level.
I also got an O for my A level French as I was awful at it and should probably never have taken it at A level

Does anyone remember taking an additional O level in English Lit?

We did the traditional paper with the set texts ( Lord of The Flies etc) then in the lower sixth those of us who were taking A level Eng Lit took a completely random paper of unseen texts. I remember it had a lot of quotes you were asked to identify then a poetry and prose criticism. It was odd but enjoyable.
One of the quotes was

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”

This was Wales 1980.

My Biology teacher didn’t think I’d pass the O level so I was entered for the CSE as well. In the O level you had to hand draw a diagram of the heart, name all its parts and write a reasonably long paragraph/page of its functions.

In the CSE the heart was already drawn and you just had to label a couple of major parts like the aorta. No essay required.

I got a C in the O level and a Grade 1 in the CSE.

Oh, yes, I'd forgotten they were renamed as Special Levels, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.

I don't think anywhere required them for conditional offers by the time I did them as not all schools could offer the extra off syllabus teaching. It was mostly Oxbridge candidates who took them who had already had to prepare for the 4th term entrance exam or STEP papers so might as well get an extra piece of paper for their work It was also a bonus qualification for anyone applying or reapplying post A-level to set them apart from other straight A candidates.

I took biology. The S level was essay based, unlike the A-level. I can still remember the questions I answered too - What is a parasite?; Discuss communication in both animals and plants; Why has no species evolved to have wheels?; Do animals lie?.

I have no idea how I managed to pull off a Distinction (1) despite having done no revision because I had unconditional offers for university As you say, the questions were all outside of the A-level syllabus and there was no set S-level syllabus to follow. You were expected to have read around the subject. I think the other grade was called Merit (2) and a fail was Unclassified (U). A bit weird to have 2 ways of stating the grade, they weren't sub-classifications within the grade