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?

Yes of course qualifications are easier now. I did o levels, cses, 16+ and although not a very clever student academically (then) I tried hardand got good grades.

I now run a successful business and consider myself to be emotionally intelligent.

I am currently doing a foundation degree with a view to topping it up with honours.

I was flabbergasted how easy it is. You only need 40% per assignment to pass. I am a high achiever so aim higher than this, but most on the course dont seem to do much get their 40% and seem happy that they are going to "get a degree".

My son is doing GCSEs at the moment. His school does not bother with maths GCSE, but instead does the iGCSE (the international alternative, offered to schools abroad that until recently still did O level and used much to the gvt's disgust by British schools as a more challenging alternative to GCSEs).

My friend's daughter who is good at maths and in the same year at a different school did her maths GCSE last year, and is now in year 11 studying the AS course. She and my son are essentially doing the same thing at the same level, bar a couple of topics that she has begun. The level for AS and iGCSE seems pretty similar.

What does that say about GCSE?

And yes, I am routinely horrified by the low percentages needed to get good grades in my son's work. He is a lazy toerag and I have to keep reminding him that an A* means less than the learning he takes from it.

My son did iGCSE mathematics last year. They were on track to finish the course by Easter, so the teacher thought she'd enter them for 2 AS modules. They did precisely 3 weeks on the AS modules, and DS got an A in them. He'll be finishing up the full A-level in a few weeks (end of Year 12).

I think that school qualifications are getting easier, but certainly at the university I teach at first class degrees are just as hard to come by as ever.

I believe only about 10-15% of the students I teach get a 1st - which would be about the same proportion as when I got my undergraduate degree in the mid 1990s. Even though we have a modular system with lots of coursework, it requires the student to produce consistantly outstanding work over two years - and I personally think this is harder than the system I experienced, where everything went on a week of Finals.

I did a O level maths in 1983
I did gcse maths twenty years later.
I did AS maths 4 years ago.
So I KNOW

O level is the same as AS today. No question in my mind.

Now I am ay uni. Working at about A level satandard of 20-30 years ago- when it was hard to do a levels and a degree really meant something. What a shame it has all been dumbed down.

Oh another point that can be seen by all with a bit of internet searching. My youngest is doing KS2 sats soon. I was printing off past papers for her. Had to do a internet search for the grade boundaries.

to get level 4 in 1998= 52%
to get level 4 in 1999= 52%
to get level 4 in 2000= 50%
to get level 4 in 2001= 49%
to get level 4 in 2002= 49%
to get level 4 in 2003= 45%

are you seeing a pattern?

to get level 5 in 1998= 80%
to get level 5 in 1999= 80%
to get level 5 in 2000= 79%
to get level 5 in 2001= 79%
to get level 5 in 2002= 78%
to get level 5 in 2003= 76%

Do not know the more recent years.
Teachers will tell you it is the quality of the education that has improved. HaHaHaHa.
How could any one ever believe that? I would say my daughter is similar ability to myself at her age 30 years earlier. She has not been taught half as much as I was, and we were given lots of other skills like sewing and cooking. Plenty of sports like weekly swimming and almost daily rounders matches seeminly on a whim of a wonderful, skilled teacher. My daughter's headteacher freely admitted stopping swimming lessons due to the lack of time in school hours. Something is seriously wrong. As the quality of education continues to improve, HaHahaHaha, kids will end up with no knowledge at all-just certificates.

I am not an old fart and did my GCSEs and A Levels in the 90's. We used O Level papers to practice on and they were much harder.

A few years after I did my exams, they overhauled the system to make them even easier. I took a few more language GCSEs under the new system "for fun". Even compared to what I had done a few years earlier the level was so much lower. I could not believe that I was allowed a dictionary in the exam or to prepare a speech for my oral. What the fuck is that testing?! Nothing.

I got straight A*s for the language GSCEs I did "later in life" but I do not value them at all and consider them meaningless.

I was born in 1965 and took my O-levels and CSEs in 1981. However, as I was so 'brilliant'(!) at English Language, myself and five other pupils from my year were chosen, as an experiment, to sit the paper at the age of 15 in 1980. Not being of an academic bent and finding school in general stupefyingly boring, I didn't bother revising but managed to wing it on the creative writing section, 'passing' by gaining a C grade. All my fellow guinea pigs scored the same, apart from one lad who managed a B. This lot (apart from me, I was rubbish at everything except English), were the creme-de-la-creme of my high-achieving school back then and it was almost unheard of for anyone to get a grade A in any O-level subject. Is it easier for our kids today? Having looked at the kind of things our two lads (twins, about to take their GSCEs) have been doing, I would say yes, most definitely. However, this isn't their fault and whatever grades they achieve, we'll know they've done their best and we'll be proud of them. They're not academic either, they're practical young men and both have got college places for trades (electrical and mechanical) starting in September. Incidentally, the two most useful things I ever learned in secondary school, without a shadow of a doubt, were cookery (I was cooking the Sunday roast at home at 14 from scratch, including pudding), and typing! I'm a 95 wpm 'old school' copy typist, thanks to the superb tuition and grounding I received at school. It's stood me in good stead and earned me an honest living since the age of 17 until my recent retirement. An interesting thread, this one - it's been intriguing and enlightening reading all your posts!

There are 2 levels of Papers at GCSE. Foundation and higher. To get an A star. you have to get &6% on a higher paper. I don't think they are easier just differnt. I get very cross with people saying things are easier these days. It is unfair to all the young people who work hard and discredits them.

Well, my dh was reading the paper one day,circa 2002, and they published an A level maths question. He raised his eyebrows, disappeared into the attic and came down with his O level maths paper (taken in 1976) and the questions were the same for his 1976 O level as for the 2002 A level. QED.

As a teacher and a marker for a well known exam board, yes, the exams have got easier, or at least we have to mark positively. When I did my O levels in 1982, we were marked down for spelling mistakes; now we just ignore them as long as we can make sense of what is being said (I mark RE), and just withhold the three marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar if we are not happy with the standard the candidate reaches.

At least with the O level/ CSE distinction, one knew there were differences in approach. The GCSE just muddles this up, and interestingly, if the GCSE grades are all so valid, then why is the measure of how school is doing the A-C passes; and why do employers want A-Cs?

starlight are you sure Oxford do media studies? I'd be very surpised - and it's not listed here

I'm pretty sure that Oxford don't do media studies.

pedant moment - sorry, doesn't!

Last week in the Times they had an article about GCSEs. In order to give some idea as to whether they are getting easier on consecutive days they had:

• Maths GCSE in 1988 and 2008
• Physics GCSE in 1988 and 2008
• French GCSE in 1988 and 2008

Now the only one of these I feel I know well enough to give an opinion on is Maths.

I took my O levels in 1978 and I would say that as far as I can remember (I don't still have the papers and it is a long time ago!) the 1988 GCSE was definitely easier than my O level from 10 years earlier.

BUT here is the surprising thing. There is no doubt in my mind that the 2008 Maths paper was harder that the 1988 paper. Not massively so but noticeably. There were one or two questions that I had to think about quite hard whereas the 1988 was really spoonfeeding.

I saw that too. What is WASN'T comparing was the GCSE exam with the old GCE 'O' level and CSE. It did appear to me too that the 2008 French GCSE was not particularly easier than the 1988 GCSE, just worded differently.

Being old enough to have done 'O' levels and with DCs having done GCSEs recently, I would say the French is definitely much easier now. For instance in the oral they know what they are going to be asked in advance so can practice it to perfection, no chance of being asked random questions on any subject.

I can remember talking to a physics tutor at UMIST 2 or 3 years ago, who said they had to introduce exta lectures for new students, simply because a good A level pass no longer brought the students up to a high enough standard to manage the First year work they were being given.

Generally I think the universities are aware that first year courses have to step down a bit.

I have noticed some slight improvement in most of the undergraduate students coming in lately. It's a few years since I last had to explain that a verb is a "doing word". That was standard for 10 years ago.

Let's be thankful for small mercies!

I graduated from Oxford in 2007. I was certainly not spoonfed whilst I was there - essays were set and you went away to get on with them.

I struggled massively in my first year. I coasted all the way through school - I did no work for GCSEs (6 A*s & 4As) and almost no work for A levels (4 As). University came as a shock to the system simply because, for the first time, it was difficult.

I now teach in a well-known public school. Although it isn't very academically selective, the percentage of children achieving straight A/A*s is sky high. It seems that the exams have become easier even than in 2001, when I sat them, and they weren't especially challenging then.

Absolutely missmiss. I really don't see what is the point of 'dumbing down' exams. It does absolutely no-one any favours, least of all those who get all A*s etc and then find it very hard at university. Exams should be made harder if anything.

At the other end of teh scale, those who get to 'pass' who otherwise wouldn't, have a useless qualification which no-one accepts in reality.

56% for A English Lit? That's very low, I thought As were 70ish and above (am hoping it is 56%, DS doing his GCSEs right now).
I did my O'levels in the 70s so struggle to remember exactly, but my gut feel is that the content of the GCSEs is not dissimilar level to our O'levels BUT they are spoonfed a lot more; we didn't have access to revision guides,which meant if you hadn't made good notes during the year to revise from you'd had it; they are better prepared for things like language orals (they know what's coming and learn it parrot fashion, rather than answering any question you might get thrown at you); and coursework allows them to improve their grade and takes the pressure off exams.

bumping, would someone come back and explain how 56% = A*????? This is not in-line with anything I've heard from DS or his school

I've just found the thresholds for the OCR board for English lit - from what I can see to get an A* last year you needed to get 180 out of 200 or 90%

Sorry can't do links but this should get you to the page I looked at:
www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/GCSE/English_Literature/documents.html#Mark_schemes_2005

There's an issue in later life about examination standards and the effect they have on ordinarily bright children. It arises when they come up against professional exams after university. Pupils find it inconceivable that they could fail exams, and simply don't appreciate that (possibly for the first time in their lives) they have to work really hard just to pass.

I have in mind a final year student I am currently mentoring, heaven help me (and him for that matter). He breezed through school and university with minimal work and is having the rudest of awakenings now, two fails already and two resits required.

IMO the examination system as it is currently structured means that pupils just don't get used to working properly and it isn't doing them any favours.

thanks magent & margot. Couldn't believe A* = 56%, tho wish that was the case for DS (not the future of this country tho!)