ARmy Rumour SErvice

**Letterwritingman** · 19-08-2004, 22:43

One lad said on Sky News tonight that he thought A levels weren't getting any easier because he had had to revise a lot (or words to that effect) and that he had had to work hard for his FIVE Grade A's and ONE B...................which begs the questions "Were we Truly thicker 20 yrs ago when even taking 3 A levels was impressive, have teachers so improved that they are a different league to their predecessors or is it all a crock of slip sliding shite where these results count for very little indeed"?

**Disco** · 19-08-2004, 22:57

I believe there is a lot of coaching going on these days within schools.

Performance figures? or kids too lazy or not trusted to properly research and learn things for themselves??

Probably a lot of "multichoice mark with an X type exams" for electronic readers something we never had as kids.

**WhiteHorse** · 19-08-2004, 22:59

I was lucky to get 3 A levels a B and two Cs. Then again I dropped out and look where I am now!

**WhiteHorse** · 19-08-2004, 22:59

I was lucky to get 3 A levels a B and two Cs. Then again I dropped out and look where I am now!

19-08-2004, 23:03

Just flick through any essay a top stream student writes and your doubts will be removed.
My girl got two A's and a B and she's as switched on as they come.
Her mate was hoping to go to Oxford having got 11 A stars at GCSE but only achieved A,B,C at A level despite working hard.
Another really bright mate of hers who speaks four languages (self taught) only got D,D,E.
Anyone who gets an A grade at A level nowadays has had to put some work in.
Teaching being crap was the norm when I went to school,Now I reckon it's the exception.

**PartTimePongo** · 19-08-2004, 23:04

Of course the bloody exams have got easier.

How can you reconcile chronic teacher shortages, enlarged class sizes , employers complaining that the levels of Numeracy and Literacy have dropped, Universities complaining about the standards of new students and then announce "It's yet another bumper year for exam results, look how much cleverer our young people have got under Labour"

Maybe I'm just old, but when I first applied for a *Cough* Aircrew Commission back in 19*Cough*, the requirement was 5 O-Levels , Grade C and above , A-Levels or a Degree, so much the better"

Now it's a degree , full stop.

Oh yes, our kids really are getting brighter.

**Letterwritingman** · 19-08-2004, 23:10

The falsehood is compounded by Parents who enjoy telling everyone how many A's their offspring attained.............not having a go Sid but; who would not be proud to say RugRat got 3 straight A's and 2 B's.........only we know they mean next to nothing really......

**antphilip** · 19-08-2004, 23:14

I believe it may be in the style of exam also. If you look in the marking scheme it seems that subjects such as Eng lit and the such aren't marked on what you know about the content you're meant to have studied and rather your ability to spout out buzz words and proper essay formats.

**Letterwritingman** · 19-08-2004, 23:18

From the Telegraph this evening

The Confederation of British Industry said employers were less worried about A-level grade inflation than they were about the number of pupils leaving school unable to read or write. That was "the real education scandal", it said.

Why go on argueing about it..........standards have slipped

**OldChap** · 19-08-2004, 23:27

Standards have slipped. Exams were much harder when we were all younger. Our generation is much clever than the present A-Level students - far more intelligent and able to apply ourselves much better.

What's more - all those logarithms, working out without calculators, all those physics formulae, all that Shakespeare we read and appreciated (because we had so many more original points to make about it than today's kids do), and all that complex French grammar we learnt has been hugely useful since and we couldn't get through a day without it.

So we're still cleverer than our kids, we still know better than them about everything, and there's absolutely no reason to feel insecure about our academic abilities.