posted
Although the government would claim otherwise, it seems that GCSEs are still getting easier. *Grades are on the up yet again, and it seems that these days, even a *six year old can get a B!
Are kids getting more stupid (despite getting better grades)? What will this mean for future generations?
Also, why not post your GCSE year results for us to consider?
Passed or Fail: 1994 2x A (French, Maths) 6x B (Double Science, Double English, D&C, German) 2x C (Geography, Psychology)
posted
1981 (n.b. It was a lot harder in those days.)
2 O Levels English Lang B French B
6 CSEs Really worth mentioning grades (I don't on my CV)
1 RSA Typewriting
The exams must've been really, really hard in Victorian times though, when a lot of people never even learned to read or write. No wonder they've made it so much easier now.
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Are kids getting more stupid (despite getting better grades)?
I don't get your logic - what are you basing the 'kids getting more stupid' end of this on? The fact of better grades? Oughtn't you to demonstrate exactly how standards are slipping before you draw that conclusion?
So far as I can tell, it's adults in this country that are getting more stupid (drinking, working and eating themselves into an early grave; whinging like hell even as their quality of life inexorably improves; running up astronomical levels of credit card debt; spending most of their leisure time shopping).
Never mind kids, most of the people who buy, say, The Daily Mail, The Express and The Sun are adults - as are the readership of most of the celebrity mags. Rather than tipping a bucket of shite on the achievements of kids who've just gone through their A Levels or GCSEs, such adults should rather look at the unrestrained stupidity and shortsightedness of their own generation, the fucking thick twats.
posted
Christ, that story makes for depressing reading
quote: Another young winner this year was Samantha Osaretin Imafidon, who at seven, passed GCSEs in maths and statistics, with D and C grades respectively.
Her family is challenging the maths result because it expected her to do better.
*vomits*
I don't know how people could possibly be getting any stupider. You only have to read the BBC Have Your Say section to realise how God-defeatingly stupid the general populace is. Most people are dumb as shit. Most people you hear espousing this crap about exams being too easy blah blah blah are just pig ignorant plebs with little idea about how to form an independent thought.
I mean: fuck. The papers run this story every year because there's nothing else to say in August, but people still lap it up, get huffy about it, bleat, moan, and with any luck, keel over and fucking die.
1994 A* - French, English Literature, English Language A - German, Geography, Drama B - Balanced Science, Maths, History
quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: Are kids getting more stupid (despite getting better grades)?
I don't get your logic - what are you basing the 'kids getting more stupid' end of this on? The fact of better grades? Oughtn't you to demonstrate exactly how standards are slipping before you draw that conclusion?
I didn't draw any conclusion, ben. I asked a question.
quote: So far as I can tell, it's adults in this country that are getting more stupid (drinking, working and eating themselves into an early grave; whinging like hell even as their quality of life inexorably improves; running up astronomical levels of credit card debt; spending most of their leisure time shopping).
Never mind kids, most of the people who buy, say, The Daily Mail, The Express and The Sun are adults - as are the readership of most of the celebrity mags. Rather than tipping a bucket of shite on the achievements of kids who've just gone through their A Levels or GCSEs, such adults should rather look at the unrestrained stupidity and shortsightedness of their own generation, the fucking thick twats.
Perhaps you've forgotten where adults come from... Posts: 14015
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
posted
I can understand the argument that hey it's coursework these days and grades are measuring different types of skills. I deeply resent this. I strongly believe in a system geared towards last-minute panic-cramming and minimal use of long-term memory. I don't want these more balanced individuals pissing all over my hardearned results.
O-Levels yeah I is proper ol' innit
A Maths A Biology A Physic A Chemistry A Latin A French A Eng Lang B Eng Lit CSE1 Music
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posted
Perhaps people like the comforting deja vu familiarity of these two Thursdays every August? Or are just TOO FUCKING STUPID TO NOTICE the repeated footage while the news editors use these days to go on holiday.
Every year it's:
TV News: Live morning coverage of students at a posh school looking nervous, opening envelopes, squeaks and titters, ooh I got As! I didn't expect that! Some "industry expert" brought in to state that literacy and numeracy standards are slipping.
Papers: Pictures in the papers of girls (always girls) at a posh school standing in groups looking happy. Headlines: Are exams getting easier?
Metro letters page: "I went to the University of Life!"
BBC Have Your Say: "I am a fucking idiot who shouldn't be allowed near the internet."
A: English Language, French, Geography B: Maths, Double Science C: English Lit*, Art, Drama, Home Economics(lol)
* I'd forgotten I got a poor grade in the subject I went on to study at Uni. I spend much of GCSE English whining that I hated The Merchant of Venice and Come To Mecca (boring short stories about multi-cultural life somewhere a long way away from Dorset) and did my long literature project on two quite shit books- a Ruth Rendell and some shlocky thriller about a haunted cathedral.
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quote:Among them is six-year-old Armaan Genomal, who achieved a grade B and is thought to be the youngest to pass a GCSE this year.
Armaan, who could read at the age of two, says he wants to be an inventor.
Hmm. What are the odds this little chap'll be boarding a Tube with a rucksack packed full of fiery nail death in ten years' time?
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: BBC Have Your Say: "I am a fucking idiot who shouldn't be allowed near the internet."
quote:I took my GCSEs in 1995 and I should never have passed my Physics paper, let alone get a 'B'. I answered one page of questions. I would also like to point out that one only needs to read the comments above to realise that the standard of grammar and spelling in this country is low. Tanya, London
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: BBC Have Your Say: "I am a fucking idiot who shouldn't be allowed near the internet."
"I sat my GCSEs in 1999, and I passed all of them. When I went to university two years later, I had no idea how to handle money, write cheques, pay bills etc as no one had ever shown me. GCSEs should cover these basic living skills instead of algebra and similar skills that I've never used, or never will use, again in my life since GCSEs" Emma, Cardiff, UK
This is my favourite from the Have Your Say on the BBC site. Perhaps Emma from Cardiff would like a course on how to chew her fucking food, too. Honestly. Not knowing how to pay a bill. Jesus ChristPosts: 13758
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posted
Didn't boffins do an experiment a while ago which concluded that the A levels of today are of equivalent difficulty to the O levels of yore? Thusly, today's O levels must be like old 11+.
I can't help but think they're getting easier, or at least easier to pass. How else can years of underspending in schools, diets of turkey twizzlers and a lack of moral fibre created by reality TV result in higher grades?
I myself got two As, six Bs and three Cs, and as we know I am a genius, which just goes to show.
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quote:I am only 15 and have taken my French GCSE a year early and have just received my results today. I did much better than expected, I received a grade A for my speaking, listening and writing, and I received a grade B for my reading. This overall amounts to a fantastic and very pleasing grade A for my French GCSE, taken a year early. I am extremely pleased and so are my friends and family. Emily Rose Dickens, Northampton, England
A troubling thought just crossed my mind - what if 90% of Have Your Say contributions were actually piss-takes?
That would be even worse than the whole Father Christmas thing. Posts: 8657
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posted
I'm sorry but I've been filled with the shame of knowing that exams are probably easier and if they'd have just put me back a year or ten I could have got the straight A's I was predicted. I'm not sure entirely. I notice when playing online games that the use of 733tspaxx amongst the kids is rife. Most of the time it's impossible to even communicate with them:
xI-pwn-n00bzx: sorc tele Mikee Tellor: I don't have the skill xI-pwn-n00bzx: lolz u n00b Mikee Tellor: I chose not to have it xI-pwn-n00bzx: ur mama Mikee Tellor: Nah, she plays as a barbarian BOWA-Zon: lol DX-Th3W0RKZ: lol killed-bill: ^ ^ xI-pwn-n00bzx: OMGN00B!!
quote:The handwriting, most of the time, resembled that of a five-year-old toddler or a drunk (grotesquely simple or an illegible scrawl). A lack of basic punctuation, such as full stops, commas, capital letters etc, was commonplace. There were countless inarticulate, immature sentences, which did not make any sense to the reader.
The use of text language (such as u instead of you), swearing and inappropriate language and opinions were also prevalent. Spelling was often based on how a word sounds (for example, 'wimmin' instead of women, suggesting that many pupils had had very little reading experience. Furthermore, responses to questions often betrayed either, at best, a total lack of knowledge or interest in the subject or, at worst, a startling stupidity and ignorance. For example, the basic question: What is sexism? regularly received responses such as "being addicted to sex", "a husband not wanting to have sex with his wife" and "being picked on for your sexuality".
Inarticulate or just inappropriate answers (eg "I don't no [sic], I don't no, I don't know", "only the smarties no the answer to that", "the planet would have blown up a long time ago if it hadn't been for conversation [sic] groups") caused much hilarity amongst the exam markers, albeit not out of any malice, but rather in the case that if you didn't laugh it would have been far too depressing.
posted
I remember once reading that the nationwide average grade achieved at GCSE level was an F. That was a good few years ago, but can that really have been true?
posted
Actually, I've just remembered my friends a teacher and constantly complains that at age 11 cannot write sentences that make sense. A made up example would be:
quote: First, there was the explicit policy and encouragement of 'positive marking'. This was the first time I had heard this phrase but when it was explained to me in my examiner's training I was horrified that this was an official marking policy. In a nutshell, examiners are told that candidates should not be marked down or have marks taken off for incorrect answers and should only be awarded marks for what they have answered correctly. In practice, this meant that a student could write a whole A4 page of inarticulate nonsense or incorrect statements and yet, if there was a couple of sentences in that response which were correct, the student would be awarded the full mark for that particular question.
posted
Balanced Science? Design and Realisation? Never mind if they are easier or harder, GCSEs sound weird.
I mostly agree with VPs excellent summation of the annual news frenzy. The first lecture I attended for my MA (in Education) was all about how exam boards/schools/the media/academics/politicans can manipulate exam statistics to make them show what they want them to show. When you add in the changes in curriculum/course structure/marking systems/grade boundaries I think it is probably nigh on impossible for anyone but a genius statistician (EugeneBB) to prove anything beyond reasonable doubt.
posted
I actually empathise with Emma of the "I'm a maths genius but I don't know how to pay my bills" fame. Not that I'm a maths genius.
But I do think that Visa and Mastercard may have been secretly sponsoring the maths curriculum for years in a bid to ensure that no one would ever understand how APR works. Ditto stocks and shares. But why would I need to know that as a poor serf in hock to the credit agencies?
I feel very sorry for the kids taking their GCSEs and A Levels at the moment as the annual dumbing down stories get wheeled out. Realistically speaking they're only competing with each other for University entrance/first jobs. Though I understand that differentiating between students for the purposes of University entrance is becoming a problem. They're not actually competing with anyone who took their A Levels 10 or more years ago and yet much of the media vitriol seems to stem from jealousy.
My GCSEs were taken in 1991, before the advent of A*s and in the days when Computer Science was considered a soft option for remedial classes.
A x 7 - (English Lang, English Lit, French, German, Geography, Chemistry, Textiles)
B x 2 - (Maths, Art)
I've not discussed my GCSE results in years but now everyone will know that my sewing is better than my drawing. At least I didn't do CDT.
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posted
I'd have thought that the single most disturbing point about that article is that it seemingly confirms something I'd heard previously, that they no longer mark kids down for poor spelling, grammar and punctuation. Quite how anyone can hope to claim that this is anything other than the schools and education chiefs shirking responsibility for teaching such basic skills is beyond me quite frankly. I'm sure the justification would be something along the lines of not wanting to disadvantage children who knew the subject of the exam and just struggled to express themselves in the written form, but if that's the case you have to seriously question what in the name of fuck English teachers actually do to justify their salaries these days.
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posted
I was the last of the old O-level lot, the class of '87. And I do think the higher grades have become easier to achieve; I am not going to get involved in the cut and thrust of this debate however, but will simply present as evidence the fact that when I was doing work experience in the Student Awards section at Harrow council there were at least two dozen individuals with a Grade A in English Language who couldn't even spell 'College' properly. I had to read their application forms.
Oh, my grades.
Grade A - Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography. Grade B - English Language, Computer Science, Public Affairs. Grade C - French, Physics.
I got a grade E in English Clit but this was because the books were incredibly dull. The Mayor of Casterbridge, ffs. I once fell asleep during a lesson, so tedious was it. This was made up by my getting a CSE 1. It was the only subject in which I was double-entered (fnar.)
In hindsight this was all bollocks anyway. The curious options system at my school meant that I had to choose one of the humanities, and chose Geography over History only because the latter involved lots of tedious tales involving fat sixteenth-century monarchs and no interesting Nazi stuff. I managed to convince the HoD at my sixth-form college that I could do the Contemporary History course at A-Level without the required O-level, wrote an essay to prove the point and went on to get an A. I got tired of Maths and the sciences and left them behind altogether - so the A-grades I got in Maths, Chem and Bio were pretty pointless, really.
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posted
But but but. Since you're two of the youngest forumites and you got the shittest results, that debunks the whole theory of exams getting easier! Mine were Scottish and therefore don't count, and anyway, they haven't got me anywhere, so they seem pretty worthless now. At least I can spell and punctuate, I guess, and have a reasonable understanding of grammar. If you ignore the but but but. Or 'but but but'. But inverted comas are for pensioners. Commas, even. Comas too, actually. What time is it? I should be in bed.
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quote:Originally posted by Modge: Balanced Science? Design and Realisation? Never mind if they are easier or harder, GCSEs sound weird.
Balanced Science - preferable, surely, to the hubristic, Creation-molesting follies of its unbalanced cousin, terrifyingly embodied by our own Damo666?
Design and Realisation - fyi Modge Mr Littlefair thought my 'Kitchen Mate' multipurpose acrylic utensil for old people and the arthritic was "[an] improvement on [your] last effort, at least."Posts: 8657
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quote:Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler: But but but. Since you're two of the youngest forumites and you got the shittest results, that debunks the whole theory of exams getting easier!
Sadly it just means that despite the exams getting easier, we're still made of pure thick.
quote:Originally posted by ben: Design and Realisation
My form tutor told us that Design & Realisation was for "the thickies who want to play with hammers" and Design & Communication was for "the ones who want do drawings with rulers".
I got a B for D&C and (after no design-related A-levels) went on to a degree in Product Design. Worryingly, my first two modules at Uni covered the same syllabus as the GCSE!
quote:Originally posted by Modge: Balanced Science? Design and Realisation? Never mind if they are easier or harder, GCSEs sound weird.
I went to the same school as Thorn and did the same Science GCSE as him, but don't recall it being called "Balanced Science". Although we studied Biology, Physics and Chemistry separately, they lumped the three grades together to make two grades. Now I think about it, this was a sneaky way of making you do 11 subjects instead of 10.
OJ, I'm afraid you can't legitimately express any sympathy for Emma, Cardiff. The woman states that she is confused by the acts of writing cheques and paying bills. You know, cheques, those slips of paper with clearly labelled boxes for "payee", "amount", "date" etc. And utility bills, with the "how to pay" instructions on the back. If she's finding these challenging, then I fear for what life holds in store for her.
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posted
The fact that Samuelnorton, a man with no clear understanding of how to use language, acheived a 'B' grade in 1987 surely debunks the notion that the older system is harder.
I always find myself feeling quite relieved when I read stories about the illiteracy of the young. The more people that can't write properly, the more my own skills increase in value.
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