B & C A level grades were ‘RG’ worthy in 80s? What’s changed

[Peverellshire]

Why are required A level grades so high now? Is it easier to get an A or A star now compared to early to mid 80s? Well A star wasn’t a ‘thing’ back then but…

In past B,C,C and certainly A,B,B enough to get on relatively prestigious courses at top universities, so what’s changed?

Something that I found interesting was I took my A-levels in 1994. For practice I did all sorts of A-level papers back for over a decade, and although they clearly became easier the first year of GCSEs (which I think was in 1988) I could still do them.
My dbro was 4 years younger than me, and he was totally lost at my era papers. I remember looking at his papers and they spoonfed them through the work.
So for mine it would say:
"Solve the integration..."
His would say:
"Do this
Do this
Do this
Then using the above prove integration = answer."
So he never needed to actually think about which method to use-he was told which method, and also given the answer, which does make it easier in a lot of ways.
I'm sure that if he'd had to do my papers then he would have learnt how to work out which method to use, but because he didn't need to he'd never thought about it. But it did mean it was easier to learn through rote.
Also I had a friend who was doing A-level the same time as me and he could do all the methods, but just struggled to work out which method to do. He was going for a B/C, whereas I think if he'd done the later papers he'd have romped an A.
They'd also reduced the syllabus too.

That's my memory of it, although Noblegiraffe may correct me as I'm sure her knowledge of it is better than my memory!

So between 1965 and 1990 between 7.5% to 10 % got Grade A at A Level. In 2021 44.3%of grades were A or A*, 36 % in 2022, 25% in 2019 and back to 26% in 2023.

The problem with Grade inflation is that it really disadvantages the bright but poorer and less well connected students the most.

If more and more people get grade A then how do Universities differentiate between candidates to give offers to? The answer is that they look beyond grades at extra curricular activities that demonstrate a strong interest or commitment to the subject. So for example if want to study say Finance have you done any related work placements.

Clearly students from wealthier and well connected backgrounds are more easily / can afford such extra curricular / placements which seriously disadvantages bright but poorer students without such connections.

Grade inflation chart

I got offers of BBC from both Lancaster and Manchester in the late 90s.

(Still bitterly regret that I went with Lancaster over Manchester!)

I think kids are a lot more spoon fed now.when I was doing A levels there was no Internet, no revision texts no easy access to past papers

DH got AAB at A Level and got into every one of the RG universities he applied to in the 80s. I got BBC and was accepted on to Law at a RG uni (conditional offer was BBB but I got in anyway).

I have seen my mum‘s school certificate papers, which is what you did before O levels and A levels AND degree, because she did the same subjects as me. This was back at the beginning of the 1960s. The standard was way higher than for me in the late 80s and - looking at what my DC have to do - the standard the was way higher than what is required now. there has definitely been a huge dumbing down.

Really 60s? My mum was one of the first years to do O levels, in about 1952

Introduced in 1951.

Maybe Mum is playing fast and loose with her age?

Or she's got CSEs (Certificate of Secondary Education)...

I got into Exter on an unconditional offer back in 1988. My actual results were BCC (or maybe BBC - I can't remember). Certainly a lot worse than my kids have had to attain.

She’s Scottish, so maybe the system was different? OR I maybe am mid remembering and the difference was they didn’t get ABC grades at that stageWhen I have a moment, I will dig out the papers, which I still have and check.

Oh yes, just checked she did do O levels what I was thinking of was the fact they didn’t get grades in those days – the ABC system was introduced until 1975 much later than I thought. It was my grandmother who did school certificate

No A* back then. Polys still existed which took more vocational students and those with lower passes. Entry was A level based, not IB or level 3 btecs, Access courses etc.

It's grade inflation.

"In 1982 the A grade was awarded to only 8.9% of entrants. By 2012 26.6% of students were achieving A or A* grades. "

It has definately changed - I went to University in 1966 (to what was then a newly created University of Bath) with 4 A levels obtained over 2 years as I started work and did an additional A level on my own time.
As a result I had a B, C. D. E in A Levels. This was enough to get me through clearing with offers from Sheffield and Bath to do a social sciences degree over 4 years which included work experience..

Interestingly only one student in my year on the course was awarded a First - he became a professor.

Mid 80s about 12% of A level grades were As. This year 25% were A or above.

lots of data here
http://www.bstubbs.co.uk/a-lev.htm

It’s a bit like the proposed changes to the UCAS Personal Statement - questions that lead the candidate through the desired process in order to create answers that are easier to assess using an objective scoring system, rather than permitting any form of risk or originality in the answers. I think the longer questions now are also more formulaic, making the marking scheme behind the question more transparent, and there is a far more forgiving approach to spelling, punctuation and grammar in most subjects.

What students need now in order to do well is a good memory, a lot of training in exam technique, and good knowledge of the marking scheme, not genuine ability in the subject concerned or flexibility of thought. In fact, it is positively disadvantageous to come up with an answer that is too original and interesting for the marking scheme. Students now seem to have a forensic knowledge of what is expected for each bit of the overall mark - it’s like going through a tick box exercise. That is not the way I was taught, nor the way I would have wanted to be taught subjects I was genuinely interested in.

I think kids are taught better, work harder and access to the Internet helps. We had ancient not brilliantly written text books and no Internet.

It's not only that fewer people got A grades in A levels. It's that far fewer people took A levels, or went to uni. I got ABB in 1988 and had my pick of RG unis to study psychology. Was offered Sheffield, York, Manchester and Edinburgh. Not a chance with those grades now. But then half my year left school at 16.

In my day the standard RG offer was BBB/BBC, Oxbridge was AAB unless you did the exam in which case 2 Es were required. You could get into medical school on BBC.

I think there was considerably less national hoo ha every year in the past about badly worded exam questions, and students were far more likely to be criticised for their poor interpretation of a more obscure question than the exam board for its choice of wording. The entire nation now gets to hear if there is unhappiness about GCSE, A-level and even primary SATs questions and results, because so many more children are affected by them. I’m sure challenging the grade awarded used to be much more of a rarity, and so lower grades were more readily accepted (by the universities, too, not just the students).

My brother got an offer of one E only for a maths degree at an RG uni in the 80s. The E didn’t even have to be in maths! 😂

And, of course, so many more teachers are also affected by bad student results, now, as they are judged by their students’ results, too, in ways they weren’t in past decades when school qualifications weren’t needed in the same way by the majority of students.

Whilst I agree, there are indeed a lot more resources available these days online, that's not the full reason.

When I was at school in the 80s, we had past papers, revision guides, text books, etc. Most teachers would give us a copy of the syllabus at the start so we could use it to tick off what we were learning and use it to help with revision planning etc. I don't recall any significant lack of resources back then. But the scope of the syllabus and the difficulty was harder back then, I have no doubt at all. I remember learning the parts of the eye, heart, etc in biology, and having to label maybe 10+ parts of each organ. When my son did it a few years ago, he only had to label the 5 major parts and didn't learn the others at all. Same with labelling a leaf. There were things that were part of my A Level Maths that my son didn't do at A level 30 years later. In fact the two areas which I struggled most with in A Level maths, he did in his second year of his Uni Maths degree!

Yes, a lot of resources are available online, but most were also available in paper form, 30 years ago, either provided by the teachers or you could borrow them from the library.

I've no doubt at all that exams have been dumbed down. An A grade today simply doesn't mean the same as a A grade in, say, 1980.

I agree. I couldn't believe all the hysteria about (I think it was) the Hannah's sweets Maths question a few years ago. The way people were complaining about it, I thought it must have been something incredibly difficult, if not impossible. But, when I actually saw the question, I couldn't believe the fuss. It was pretty simple, just two different areas of Maths rolled into a single question, you do the first bit using one set of rules and then take the answers and use them in a different set of rules. The complaints seemed to be that the pupils hadn't seen a question like that before - duh! No wonder so many are getting top marks if all they're doing is remembering how to answer common questions that keep cropping up. Maths needs some thinking outside the box, not just remembering how to answer a question, and the Hannah's sweets question was an ideal type of question to sort the wheat from the chaff, i.e. between those who could think mathematically for a solution, against those who were just taught to answer questions. Perfectly valid I thought. But since there was so much criticism, the exam boards are probably too scared to do that again!