General Chat

Here we go again with the A levels, and once again there is talk them being too easy. If there so easy then why should people study them in the first place? So annoying.

I can't remember them making a big fuss until the last few years. Anyone who manages to pass their A'levels deserces a pat on the back. Daniel have you just taken your GCSE's? Your tunr next week? Jane

My results next Thuesday. Then I shall be enroling for those oh so easy A level courses. Should be a doddle apparently.

We ll like you said here we go again,. so what we dont wanna hear it. The same every year so what get on with your lives if you fail then resit them it aint that hard surely

Hello Daniel, Yes, the usual rhubarb from people who should know better! I have no hesitation in saying that young folk nowadays have to work to a much higher standard than we ever had to, and I ended up with a uni degree in the 1970s! All credit to them, and they all deserve praise, not these spiteful polemics ! Good luck to everyone waiting for results this summer! Philip

Did anyone see that poor girl on SKY news this morning, she opened her results on air and didn't get the grades she wanted, she burst into tears, I felt so sorry for her I just wanted to give her a hug.

I found my GCSEs hard and didnt even pass enough of them (twice) to study A Levels...i think these people forget just how hard teenagers, and other people work to achieve these A levels, i agree with you totally Jane, i think saying that A levels are easy is just a kick in the teeth for all those people who have worked so hard!

If standards are not being devalued then the cause for the increasing proportion of candidates getting ever better grades lies with the fact that the exam questions are not reflecting increasing human knowledge. To use a sporting analogy, we do not need to know how many people can beat Roger Bannister's four minute mile but we do need to know who's fastest, second fastest, and so on. The present system does not give us that information.

Forty years since I did mine - no fuss about it in those days. It was just a letter that arrived in the post on some unheralded day. I happened to have gone fishing early that morning and I think my cousin delivered the letter to me at the lakeside. Equally, the school didn't open for O Level results - there was just a list of names (in the front door of the school) with a row of "O"s or "/"s beside each name - the official slip with the grades on arrived a few days later.

hope you get good results dan.we know you can do it.xxx

Kevin, do your replies have to be quite so rude?

My daughter got 3 C's and a B. She is over the moon just to have got 4 passes - she worked really hard and we,re all proud of her. Good luck to all waiting results - you all deserve a pat on the back!! Elaine x.

My niece had an A, B and C - had been hoping to study medicine but may have to rethink things. Joy

I am willing to stand corrected if I am wrong but I sat A levels some years apart and believe me they are most definitely not getting easier. Perhaps those people who are shouting that they are obviously getting easier should submit their B from last year for us to compare their A with from this year. Abigail

Hi Daniel, I feel so sorry for all the kids getting results today. they've worked so hard and it is just undermined by this constant complaining that the A levels are now easier. If they really are easier, surely it can't be that difficult to prove? And if they can't prove it, then they should just shut up! My little baby, my first charge (I'm a nanny), worked very hard, got her grades, and has been accepted at uni! I am incredibly proud, but a bit weepy too! Me and her Mum got all soppy about it--she's all grown up! I can't believe I am old enough to have been a nanny to a university student!

I wouldn't know much about Maths GCSE; I know i've failed that. I didn't enjoy the subject because it's useless. Why do I need to know how to draw box and whisker diagrams or ab x ie? Could someone reading this tell me if you have EVER needed algebra your life.

I didn't think anyone would need it. I've started a new thread about it.

I feel sorry for all those taking receiving their results today, they have had to work hard and then take an exam whis is nerve raking in itself, then listen to various people saying that they are getting easier. I took my a'levels in 1987, then took another some 7 years later, it was not easier at all. Good luck to all. Rebecca

I think one can come up with a similar dismissive answer about any subject. The worrying thing is that the number of people taking Maths, Physics, Chemistry, French, German, Geography etc A Levels is going down, while numbers taking certain other subjects is increasing. There is a practical limit to the number of psychologists, vicars, travel agents, sports centre managers, film directors etc that the country can usefully accommodate. Perhaps the lack of numeracy among the chattering classes means that they haven't realised this yet.