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Thread: A level grade "boundaries" leak

  1. #26

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Vindec View Post
    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
    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.

  2. #27

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Des Parrot View Post
    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.
    Maybe it’s the recruitment process, I’ve had 2 different graduates working for me changing every 8 weeks and all have been hard working and really smart.

    I think the company I work for does have a very strict recruitment process for grads though. I probably wouldn’t have got in that way

  3. #28

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by rudy gestede View Post
    Maybe it’s the recruitment process
    That was of course the predictable response. I'd summarise the issue as follows, in admin. jobs, such as purchasing, finance, HR etc. there is some latitude / freedom regarding working practises, graduates in these areas tend to last the course. However, the manufacturing / technical graduates really struggle with the strict working times, dynamics of problem solving, intensity of manufacturing environment but the over-riding problem is leaving Uni. with very limited practical skills. Our prime feeder University is Warwick, acknowledged as the leading Automotive University in the UK, probably less than 5% of their applicants pass the aptitude tests.

  4. #29

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Croesy Blue View Post
    It's still 3 or 4 A levels. Why does everyone fall into this trap of the new generation is stupid and mine wasn't, do you not remember peple saying this when you were younger too? How have you not cottoned on that it's all nostalgic bollocks?
    I humbly disagree I think education has been watered down to enhance and hide problem's, the exam passes are greater due to that process as it provides a pat on the back of government.

    Not nostalgia just realism.

    Bloody hell the way this thread is going we will be cheeringthe recent Tory government policies .

    Hilarious.

  5. #30
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    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by CardiffCitySince1927 View Post
    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
    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!

  6. #31

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    It seems modern education is more about memorising and step processing the student through at the sacrfice of deeper details .

    Quantity v quality perhaps.

    This quote might help from a university education expert :

    ""The thing to remember is that 40 or 50 years ago, the syllabus was about two pages long,” .

    “Today the content is about 20 pages.

    ""What we have sacrificed in the move from O-levels to GCSEs is depth for breadth."

    “So our children know a lot more science but they don’t know it in as great a depth as someone who might have done O-level biology, chemistry or physics.”

    I do agree though the race for qualification is harder now than in my day.

  7. #32

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by rudy gestede View Post
    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.
    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!

  8. #33
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    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by xsnaggle View Post
    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

  9. #34
    CardiffCitySince1927
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    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Look don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have to use log books to work out the answers mid exams but we have the hardest life through the school system yet.

    The percentage of mental health illness are deplorable within the school system and the austerity plan applied by the government has reduced the pastoral services within schools to basically nothing in a time when it is arguably needed the most. I understand that in the previous generations mentak health isn’t as recognised as it is today with many remaining undiagnosed throughout their lives.

    The difference between our generations is the volume of content and the depth. The syllabus (or spec as it is known today) for the A-Level maths is a 49 paged long document covering everything we could be expected to pull out at a moments notice under the intense strain of the exam (https://www.wjec.co.uk/qualification...rom-2017-e.pdf). I have no clue about how long yours was however I am told (by my maths teacher) that it was shorter by a lot - although one could take that as bias or nostalgia reducing the load.

    The main difference is how we revise. I am told that people just used to do past papers, buy books and write out the specification persistently. Now we have an ability to access websites such as Quizlet or for GCSE students GCSEpod which help teach people topics consistently. Teachers are also contact able at almost any time through emails as we can fire them off and recieve them as we work. However, just because we have internet when we revise it also can prevent some from revising as many possess the fear of missing out on social media apps like snapchat or instagram. This isn’t necessarily their fault as they are inherently made to be addictive by the previous generation without thinking about consequences or without the step in of the government. However, specifically with this Maths A-Level as it was new, means there is not enough (only 1 per exam we did) so we couldn’t use the primary and most common method of revising: loads of past papers. Thus further lowering the percentage.

    The pressure is also more immense us students too as there is only a certain amount of university places available which access are at inflated rates. Whereas you could have gone to medical school with 2 Bs and 1 C, now you’d be laughed off the application process. We are also forced to take more tests (such as the BMat or UCAT) at our own cost during the period where students are gearing up to start revising for the vital end of year exams. But this isn’t our main worry, most students who leave university are unable to find a job in their preferred area.

    This is why they are so low. Without that, genuinely 100 children will be able an A* or A within Wales and therefore nearly half wouldn’t get into university. I don’t know the specific % but we are taught that it is something similar to this:
    A* - top 5%; A - top 10% after that; B - next 15%; C - next 40%; D - next 10%; E - next 8%; F - next 5%; G - next 4%; U - last 3%.

  10. #35

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by xsnaggle View Post
    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!
    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 .

  11. #36

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro de la Rosa View Post
    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.

  12. #37

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by xsnaggle View Post
    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!
    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.

  13. #38

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by xsnaggle View Post
    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!
    It must take a special kind of stupidity to get annoyed about something you don’t understand.

    We are now at “old man yells at cloud” levels of faux outrage.

    The same people who call people snowflakes for getting annoyed at racism are spitting about bell curve grading.

  14. #39

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by rudy gestede View Post
    It must take a special kind of stupidy to get annoyed about something you don’t understand.

    We are now at “old man yells at cloud” levels of faux outrage.

    The same people who call people snowflakes for getting annoyed at racism are spitting about bell curve grading.
    Let's be honest the man is a complete bell curve.

  15. #40

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_on_a_curve

    At least read this before crying about it.

  16. #41

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Having done it more than once, writing an exam is difficult to do. It's especially hard to be so exact that 51%= pass.

  17. #42

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by lardy View Post
    Having done it more than once, writing an exam is difficult to do. It's especially hard to be so exact that 51%= pass.
    I did ACCA and the pass rates were absolutely mental. For the harder exams they'd go from low 20s to high 50s from sitting to sitting. They're not graded on a curve, it's a strict 50 mark pass/fail and it is absolutely nuts how easy/difficult they can be.

  18. #43

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro de la Rosa View Post
    I did ACCA and the pass rates were absolutely mental. For the harder exams they'd go from low 20s to high 50s from sitting to sitting. They're not graded on a curve, it's a strict 50 mark pass/fail and it is absolutely nuts how easy/difficult they can be.
    That's why the curves are usually needed, it's hard to write exams that are 100% comparable in difficulty year after year.

  19. #44

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Croesy Blue View Post
    That's why the curves are usually needed, it's hard to write exams that are 100% comparable in difficulty year after year.
    Tell me about it, the night before an exam I did a past paper and walked it. Turned over my exam, and got a cool 28, and less than 25% people passed. It doesn't help it's 2 questions, so if you can't do one, you're absolutely f**ked. Passed it next time though

  20. #45

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro de la Rosa View Post
    Tell me about it, the night before an exam I did a past paper and walked it. Turned over my exam, and got a cool 28, and less than 25% people passed. It doesn't help it's 2 questions, so if you can't do one, you're absolutely f**ked. Passed it next time though
    I really do not miss exams. Nothing worse than doing tons of revision then turning over the paper and knowng **** all.

  21. #46

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by Pedro de la Rosa View Post
    Tell me about it, the night before an exam I did a past paper and walked it. Turned over my exam, and got a cool 28, and less than 25% people passed. It doesn't help it's 2 questions, so if you can't do one, you're absolutely f**ked. Passed it next time though
    Did you have the answers for the past paper?

  22. #47

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Quote Originally Posted by lardy View Post
    Having done it more than once, writing an exam is difficult to do. It's especially hard to be so exact that 51%= pass.

    You know they're not talking about pub quizzes don't you ?

  23. #48

    Re: A level grade "boundaries" leak

    Well all I can say is that I am glad I did my A levels when I did!

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