Dumbed down national exams? What do older people think?

[Lucia39]

To get an A* pass for GCSE English Literature now requires a mere 56%!

How do those old enough to have taken 'O' levels feel about this?

Is the Government right and are 16-18 year olds getting brighter year on year? Or have the powers-that-be simply dumbed down the GCSEs and 'A' levels thereby allowing candidates who would have failed 'O' levels (i.e. not gained a grade C) to now believe they are actually competent in their subjects?

sorry 'an A level WITH it'

I just want to point out to everyone that GCSEs have to distinguish between a G and a U, as well as an A and an A*, and that questions reported int he media tend not to be the ones that do the latter. However, try the exam board website to see some actual past papers at both Foundation and Higher levels. And then go for it! I'm certain you could. Studying so much easier now, after years of practice, than it was at 16 I find

I make a point when I go for interviews of pointing out I did my A'Levels before they came free with a packet of Frosties
It's a shame because the kids themselves know they haven't earnt A* they aren't as stupid as the system thinks they are.
But imagine if your kid failed now, you'd die.

I think all this stuff about O levels and CSE is a bit of a distraction

I think it was a barrier to be put in the CSE stream at a school and merging the two exams was probably the right way to go about things

But to then dumb down the exams, introduce an A* (effectively admitting A didn't mean much any more), make the percentages needed lower etc, etc all adds up to a meaningless system. As many have said universities and employers know a load of A grades mean nothign any more and have to implement their own tests to weed out the top applicants, it's a huge waste of time and money.

Why should students be awarded a grade if they've not reached a required standard? My bil is a professor and is asked to give even the worst students some marks for "trying". Why? Trying is meaningless if you fail to get a grip on whatever subject you're trying to master. Why not accept you're no good at that subject? Isn't that a valuable lesson to learn?

And if people 20 years ago achieved mediocre qualifications then tough. Whey should they breeze into top jobs? There aren't enough top jobs to go around, there has to be some way of weeding out candidates.

I agree, I am doing an OU degree and the Maths section of the first assignment was worth 60 points, I could then pick up an additional 20 points, over 1/3 of extra marks for describing how I intended to plan my work for the next assignment. So I could fail the Maths which is what the degree is about and scrape a pass by writing about actions I probably won't actually put into practice how wrong is that ?

I think the trouble is the govt has tried to make things 'fairer' which is comendable in a way, but just doesn't work.

The 'old days' weren't all brilliant. Many children who failed the 11+ felt 'failures' when they weren't and 'rich but thick' children were crammed and given places at Oxbridge because their father went there or whatever. But it has gone too far the other way.

I actually think if they made exams HARDER it would be fairer in the long run. Those really bright students would get the top grades, and it would stop the mediocre ones getting them, getting lower grades would be the norm and therefore not such a stigma. Only the very brightest would go to university and then a degree would go back to being a worthwhile qualification.

There are always going to be children who aren't as bright as others, making them think that the dumbed down exams in dumbed down subjects are going to get them to a 'top' university and then, by default, a good job is untruthful and unfair.

I did the 11+ and went to grammar. I did O levels

I think there is certainly some 'dumbing down', no doubt. BUT ... dh and I look at the work the dc's do at primary, and it is way ahead of what we did at that age. At secondary some stuff seems a bit easier, but other stuff harder/much as we remember.

There is a lot in the media (and mnet) about current state education and GCSEs 'teaching to the test' and not providing a 'broad education'. Well, my recollection of grammar was that it was ALL about teaching to the test - quite frankly I got a broader education from watching Blue Peter Special Assignments than I ever did from school. I LOVED eng lit but only got a B. My DH, who is VERY good at learning 'to the test' got an 'A' for spouting key quotes about Tennyson et al, he admits he never properly read the poems and though I wouldn't say he's exactly a literary philistine, he's not far off

I would hate to see a return to the 11+ and to the O Level/CSE split, but I would like to see decent standards. And an end to schools persuading kids its a good idea to do Media studies.

That would assume that all the schools taught to a similar standard though...

I took my GCSEs the first year they came out and in my maths class, I was put into the foundation group. The highest grade you could get was a D on that paper. I had to beg to be allowed in the middle group which I think gave up a B grade.

I have resat some of my GCSEs since then but I had mixed reactions to some of the syllabuses - I found English Language very tedious but I loved the Literature course that ran on the next night. My tutor openly admitted he'd chosen that exam board for his classes as it was 100% coursework .

An A* is in English Lit is only 56%? If I recall back to the dim days of 1981 you had to get roughly 45% to get a C at O level and we had none of thisget your bf/gf/mum/dad to do it coursework m'larky to help boast the marks up and the only way you'd see a paper prior to sitting it was if you broke into the Heads office the night before. But we did have multi choice papers were if you made a pretty pattern you could boast your marks as did my best friend!

Bugger my crossing out didn't work!

I did my o'levels in 1979 and we were told at the time that only the top 15% in the country passed 5 o'levels.

A D was a failure then but only by 5% and teachers tended to ask for recounts for a D.

I know in german we could do no preparation for oral, we had no idea of what we were going to be asked. The same for the written work. No dictionaries were allowed, I believe gcse students are allowed to take them into the exam now, but correct me if I am wrong.

For english literature we were not allowed to have any access to the books we studied and were expected to be able to quote from the poems and books.

I thinking of demanding that all my O and A levels should be upgraded to A* across the board...

I'm. Bloody hell, just lost my star there!

Yes, for languages they know what they are going to be asked and the more with it with cheating able ones take a piece of paper with the answers written on it and hold it on their lap while they are recorded for the oral. My v lazy DS1 couldn't even be arsed to do that, hence the C grade he got (still a pass) whilst not being able to understand or speak any French as far as I am concerned.

My v.v.v. bad O level French is streets ahead of him.

Quite a few seem to think things have got far too easy and I have to agree.

I don't think that selecting at 11 was fair but this 'everyone's a winner' mentality is doing young people no favours.

When we consider how Britain regularly performs against our European and Asian neighbours it doesn't augur well for the future.

Oh just one question, what do the following stand for?

DH
DS
DC
DD

dear husband,son, children, daughter.

Good job that wasn't a question in an exam....

I think the individual exams are easier than O levels/ A levels were in my day but now kids have to put up with a long drawn out assessment over both years of the course. When I did my O levels I just started working at about Easter time just before I took them, my DD2 has already been taking exams and completing coursework for the last two years. It is a constant low level pressure: "get this piece of coursework done", "revise for this module exam", "Oh dear that module result wasn't quite good enough you need to resit it".
For my DD2 her 11 GCSEs will need 29 separate exams and goodness knows how many hours of coursework. Then went you get into the sixth form instead of boys/party/enjoy learning something more difficult its "get working you've got exams in jan".
As a person who likes the pressure of the exam at the end I would have been driven insane by the current system as is my DD1 who hates any coursework.

I just don't think you can compare two exam systems that are completely different.

I understand that modules are being considered at GCSE. This will mean that, just like the present 'A' level system, pupils will be able to resit several times until they get the right answer (i.e. the required grade).

I wonder what sort of mentality this is giving kids for their working lives?
The "Oh if I mess up I can just do it again" approach doesn't quite pan out in the real world.

Given the present economic crisis employers will be even less tolerant of incompetent employees so if they mess up at work they won't receive the sort of "positive feedback" that they have become accustomed to at school it will be "Goodbye and don't come back!"

Perhaps it is time that the offensive four letter 'F' word was re-introduced back into schools - FAIL!

bagsforlife - thank you for the elucidation.

Heavens! How much more schmaltzy is it going to get? I take it that these terms are yet further examples of the various linguistic "delights" that have originated on the "other side of the pond"?

I don't know. It seems such a harsh thing to say about today's pupils. But when I got 2 As and a B at A level I was in the top 5% in my school - a reasonably academic private girl's school. And by god I worked for it! It wasn't common for anyone to get those sort of scores. Now it seems that it is.

When I was doing O-levels we were told that they took the top x% and awarded the top grade, the next x% got the next grade etc. So there was no set mark which meant you passed/failed; it was entirely dependent on how good the pupils were that year. This, in my view back then, was quite ridiculous as it could mean that an A in 1971 could equal a fail in 1969.

I think we were the first year of CSEs, which were completely frowned upon by my school (one of the first comprehensives) and those taking CSEs were told they would have to get a grade 1 for an employer to even bother looking at them. Helpful place

These days I wouldn't mind coursework, but I would have failed utterly in everything if I had had to rely on it when I was that age. I was fine with an exam at the end and coasting all the way through the 2 years.

A friend was teaching in a private school; he told me he wasn't allowed to mark down for grammar or spelling. I'm not sure I think that is a good idea, except in special cases such as dyslexia.

Yes, I agree it is very harsh on today's pupils. It is not their fault. They have to work within the system in place which does no one any favours.

Top students aren't being stretched, mediocre students are getting inflated grades, not v bright students are being told their qualifications are worth more than they actually are.