What a farce. 55% gets you an A grade in Maths!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49347539
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What a farce. 55% gets you an A grade in Maths!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49347539
A certain percentage of people get each grade. A isn't the highest anymore either. The exam was probably solid!Originally Posted by Gofer Blue
Yes. I bet there were many unhappy people after the exam all thinking they'd blown their uni place.
As a person who took the test. It is solid. Don’t comment unless you have tried the paper. It is a lot harder than back in your day
Whatever the degree of difficulty was "back in my day" (mid 1960's) all I know is that to get one A grade at A level was quite an achievement and to get three A's was almost unheard of! You would have been looking at a 90%+ mark in each subject. I am not denigrating the achievement of today's youngsters at all, as it is not their fault that the standards have been dumbed down over the years and finally the education authorities have realised that something had to be done. Unfortunately it may be that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction and the exams are now so difficult that they have to reduce the pass mark to compensate! Hence my comment, what a farce.
If anyone should be annoyed, it's me who got an average of over 95% in my Maths A level. I've now only got an A instead of the A*. I really don't care, also this "standards have been dumbed down" is rubbish, look at what young people are achieving now. If an exam board writes a paper that is outside of the curriculum (which has happened) it is deeply upfair to judge someone on it.
If anyone should be annoyed, it's me who got an average of over 95% in my Maths A level. I've now only got an A instead of the A*
If that is what has happened here, then I absolutely agree, that is just crazy. Is that how they make an exam harder? Once again, what a farce!
How do you know it is harder. Has basic mathematics changed noticably in the last several hundred years?
But shirley 51% should be a minimum pass mark in any written examination. If something like 53% is an A whats a bare pass FFS, 20%?
You could almost get that by accident!
I agree It just doesn’t add up
They use, wait for it, maths, to work out the boundaries. This way, a certain number of people get an A, B, C, D etc. That way, if an exam is unreasonably difficult, it doesn't impact those doing the exam. Also, with the number of past papers being available online, exams vary a great deal more than they did 10 or so years ago because they need to.
Mind you, there's people in this thread whining about the younger generation being thick, while making multiple basic punctuation and grammar mistakes. You couldn't make it up
They use, wait for it, maths, to work out the boundaries. This way, a certain number of people get an A, B, C, D etc. That way, if an exam is unreasonably difficult, it doesn't impact those doing the exam. Also, with the number of past papers being available online, exams vary a great deal more than they did 10 or so years ago because they need to.
Mind you, there's people in this thread whining about the younger generation being thick, while making multiple basic punctuation and grammar mistakes. You couldn't make it up
Indeed. It's a bit like how City used to work out away ticket eligibility prior to dumbing it down for Reading.
If you can't understand how grading on a curve works and makes sense maybe exams aren't for you anyway?
If someone gets an A for 53% it's because the highest mark on the exam would have been in the 50s because the exam had questions that were harder or outside of the curriculum. It's to limit variation of difficulty between the different exam boards.
It doesn't mean it's getting easier to pass, the same percentage of people would have passed and got the same grades as any other year. That's how grading on a curve works.
Have you taken the papers that people sat back in our day?
If so did you sit them without the use of a scientific calculator? Did you use log books?
Good luck with your results
"Exam boards set grade boundaries once all the results are in.
They take into account the predicted achievement levels of the cohort taking the exam and the difficulty of the paper, in an attempt to keep standards the same from year to year."
The English word cohort comes from the Latin word cohors, which meant "an enclosed area" or "a pen or courtyard enclosing a group of cattle or poultry."
It’s always been like that and I’m university too. Everything is graded on a curve, if an exam is easy you could get 85% and still get a C.
It just depends how many people score in a certain range.
When subjected to a bell curve, it helps if the majority of your fellow students are bellends!
To me that is just plain bonkers. If I got 85% in an exam I would expect at least a B grade, regardless of what % others get or how many others got 85% too! Others in this thread must be of similar (or close to) vintage as me as they are more or less saying what I stated earlier: "back in my day" to get one A grade was pretty good, to get three A's was very rare.
I understand that things have gone full circle now in that the final exam is what counts (i.e. not modular course work), which is how it should be. If I had had the opportunity to be assessed by course work rather than a final exam I would have got three A's as I would have been able to forget vast chunks of the curriculum and move on to the next section - what a marvellous idea!
Very true, spent many an exam praying everyone did worse
I remember being sure I’d got 100% on an exam once and got a B, which meant rather than being the genius I thought I was it was actually piss easy.
How is that even possible? How do you get an A?!Very true, spent many an exam praying everyone did worse
I remember being sure I’d got 100% on an exam once and got a B, which meant rather than being the genius I thought I was it was actually piss easy.
It would happen if 20 percent of the cohorts got a higher mark. If the exam was easy, you would need to be in the top 20 percent to get an A.
For example, say you scored 98% and 20 percent of the class got 99% or more, then you would get a B!
I see, I was more wondering how you could get 100% in an exam and get a B but I now realise he might have just thought he'd got 100%
As you say, Rudy probably dropped the odd mark and as it was easy, his UMS mark dropped. I needed 90+ in some of my exams to get an A but again, that wasn't reported in the papers cos kIdS hAvE gOt It ToO gOoD tHeSe DaYs is a quick win to sell papers.I see, I was more wondering how you could get 100% in an exam and get a B but I now realise he might have just thought he'd got 100%
^^^^ 20 percent is an arbitrary number, it's whatever the examiner decides the grading bands should be.
How times have changed. In my day even those who got 3 good A levels couldn't get a University place even though relatively few managed to get 3 A levels. There was a huge shortage of University places which enabled only around 2% of the school population to attend. By contrast you only needed 5 O' levels to secure a place at a Teachers Training College which would never happen today. Jobs for school leavers were plentiful.
When you think back it's amazing that we used to get paid to go to University in the form of a grant but today kids have to mortgage their futures to get a degree and many find they can't find a job with career prospects afterwards. Basically there are too many people with degrees chasing too few decent jobs making it difficult for employers to sort the wheat from the chaff. It's much harder for kids today but I hope those who decide to go to University on the back of today's results study for a degree that is of use to them in helping to secure a job afterwards.
This.
It's been an absolute mare for around 10 years of so. We take on 3 graduates / year and none of our 2017 intake lasted past Christmas. These are the ones who have got through the interviewing process & aptitude tests!
So many with text book answers who crumble when faced with reality. We're taking a different approach this year and have offered apprenticeships to students with degrees, based on the intent to add practical knowledge to the theory gained at University.
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