What did you get for your A Levels (if you did them)? (Trigger warning - a levels 💐🫂)

[hotmumshit]

BBB - eng lit, sociology and history

Was so sad, I wanted aab

💐💐 for those of us who get mild ptsd whenever results day rolls around

We've done about the same, a level grades aside! I'm a sahm and carer for asd daughter now 😄

You shouldve seen me at uni, banging on about feminism and how i'd be a working mum with a career outside of kids! 😩🙈

AAAB, before A star's came in. The B in history rankled me, as it's the only one subject I truly put the effort in for. I'm proud of the A in English lit though, I did it in just a year at night school! Weirdly, I didn't find A levels that hard. For me gcse s seemed a lot harder!

AA - English literature and RE.

This was 1985 so I was allowed to only do two A levels, I’d started history but didn’t much like it so I dropped it.

I'm also pretty lazy despite being fairly bright, i just managed to ace my GCSEs with minimal effort, but i knew i'd never get myself through a-levels or a degree. I was motiveated to earn and work in a job actually achieving something real tho. I think that a lot of people are.

The educational system needs to change and give more vocational qualification options for people like this. Get them out there earning and succeeding in professions that don't actually need a degree course to learn.

Even employers are saying this.

A English
A Latin
B French
C General Studies

This was in 1978.

I said i'd NEVER work in an office. What am i?.. an accountant 😂

AABB. Got into the uni I wanted but dropped out. I wasn’t ready. Later did OU and got into the MA of my dreams as a result! It’s not the be all and end all.

What are general studies?

B, C, D - History, Eng Lit, Geography in 1991.
Sad really but my results were considered fairly good for a WC kid at a Northern sink estate comp 🤷

Snap! Same grades, same year. Mine were in English, History and French.

AAAAA maths, further maths, physics, German and general studies. No A* back in the day. Was way more than I needed for my uni offer and has not really made any impact on my life as my degree is what has taken me to where I am.

4 A's (English lit, history, biology, German). Officially needed 3 B's for my course ( although needed at least AAB predicted to even get an interview for my course) so was very happy with that.

Predicted AAB, and got BCE. Felt like a disaster.

Went to a random university through clearing; changed my subject after my first year. Got a BA hons 2:1, then did a postgrad in a different subject. Had a career change a few years later and got an MSc. I’ve had an amazing career, and every bit of all of those experiences has been useful. We learn less from our successes than we do from how we cope with our failures.

Good luck to everyone receiving their results today.

3 As in Maths, French, Latin in early 80s when it was rare. I was looking for something the other day and found the newspaper cutting, there were 5 at my school who got 3As and we were photographed and put in the local paper, they put our full names and the names of the street we lived in, unthinkable today!

They were. It was a very different world!

At my red brick university in 1979 the Dean of the Arts Faculty gave an introductory speech to the EnglIsh Department and told us that probably (120 undergrads) one or in good year 2 of us might get Firsts. He was right 2 out of 120 did.

Very different times!

I did history and social biology. I didn't actually ever find out the results (I was working outside the area – this was 1981 when you could only collect from the school). So obviously I must have A's. 😂

I got an N too! (I say it stands for, "not a lot" 🤣). That was for Psychology.. I only revised what I thought would be on the exam... but thought wrong. Luckily, the uni course I wanted was undersubscribed that year, so I got in with a B & C in my other subjects. (They'd originally wanted BBC).

BBB
Went on to do a masters degree but still remember the effort required,the pressure I put myself under and the stress of my A-levels!

AAD then possibly a B in general studies, can’t actually remember. The D was chemistry, I got an A on one paper and an F on the other. I remember sitting in that exam guessing the answers as I just didn’t get it.

I was always going to take a year out and it was the best thing ever. No stress over that D and I applied the next year with my grades, 3 universities accepted me, 3 rejected me and I just chose my favourite. More importantly that extra year really gave me a chance to think about what course I wanted to do and it was right for me. So anyone who doesn’t quite get what they need, all really isn’t lost.

The exam boards got rid of it ages ago! It was a "general-knowledge and thinking/writing skills" paper, where you had questions testing vocabulary and logic, and then had to write some random essays on odd topics. A lot of schools used to enter everyone for it to boost their exam stats, and uni offers would normally say "excluding General Studies."

Predicted 3 As ( pre * days), lost a parent
suddenly the week before 1st exam, did exams anyway and got 3 B’s.
Genuinely don’t remember a thing about the exams, not being there, not sitting them, nothing. Was dazed and fully expected to fail and re-sit.
The Bs were enough to still go on my chosen course at Uni and as then1st to uni in the family everyone was very happy…

4 As in the mid-80s, including coming very high up in the maths A level, resulting in a green piece of paper with Highly Commended written on it. The person who came top got £25.

A A B in 1989. My brother got AAAA the following year, the show-off.

Sounds interesting. Did students stop taking it seriously and focus on their other subjects?

Actually, I'd make a case for General Studies (the paper I did) being the most important test of my education.

It was a Joint Matriculation Board General Studies paper from the 70s. There was no specific teaching for it - you just went in and showed what you could, or couldn't do, after your secondary school education.

The paper required you to:

• Do some maths (O level standard)
• Translate from one language (German, French, Latin, Italian, Spanish, Greek) a good A4 length piece.
• Write one or more essays on a general theme. I remember I chose something like 'The 19th Century ended in 1914 - discuss'.

I really enjoyed that paper, I think it probably played more into Arts/Humanities knowledge but I do think everyone who leaves school having got as far as A levels should be able to do maths to a reasonable standard and know at least one foreign language to GCSE.

I know there were other types of Gen Studies, and some actually had a taught syllabus. They are probably not very rigorous, but the JMB one was challenging and the fact that you couldn't be specifically taught for it - it was about broader things - was important.