AS levels may be abolished?

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Many people improve immensly with retakes, as they underestimate just how difficult and/or different A Levels are in comparison with previous exams. I don't see how abolishing exams in Year 12 is going to change things for the better. I'm not a huge fan of modular exams in GCSE, but with A Levels I think they help the student in showing where they are in terms of grades (as a lot of the time, predicted grades derived from your GCSEs are way out) and the university too. Personally I'd hate the thought of linear A Levels: I couldn't bear the thought of not knowing any of my grades until the end of Year 13! The pressure would be even worse!

Reply 41

freedomyak

Thankfully this won't affect anyone already doing A levels and I doubt it would have an impact on next years lower sixths either.

Reply 42

rafimax

There is also another problem with modules. Schools probably spend about 6 weeks building up to an exam period. This means that over the course of a 2 year sixth form, students will have spent 6 months in "exam mode", rather than learning new stuff. It is as a result of this that the breadth and depth of A levels has dropped hugely since the modular system was introduced. Students are spending well over a quarter of their sixth form revising and preparing for exams, meaning that they spend well over a quarter of sixth form not learning anything new. This is probably the main reason why Oxbridge etc. require students to go above and beyond A-levels during sixth form, with STEP, TSA, AEA, HAT, PAT, ELAT and so on. They do this because students come out of their A-levels simply not prepared for uni, because they haven't covered enough.

Reply 43

Jetmouse

That have huge exam tables on that article picture! D:

Reply 44

Doglamlico

Original post by Fallyness

What are your views? :smile:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9332500/A-level-modules-to-be-axed-in-major-exams-shake-up.html

AS-levels won't go - unis need something to judge you on before offering a place, that was the whole point of them when they were introduced.

Fair enough if January modules go - it really wouldn't make much difference. Sitting all my Maths modules in one go would be great - in fact, I'd probably get a far higher mark doing C1, C2, C3 and C4 all at the same time than individually.

Reply 45

moorbre

What about people who only want to do one year, just get As-levels....Also they are a good judgement for university and for ourselves. As-levels should not be scrapped!

Reply 46

Hobo389

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(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 47

placenta medicae talpae

Original post by moorbre

What about people who only want to do one year, just get As-levels....Also they are a good judgement for university and for ourselves. As-levels should not be scrapped!

Loads of people are going to be in this situation, now that Gove has also said that he wants everyone to do one extra year in school/college/internship/whatever.
I really don't know what they're all going to do in that extra year :dontknow:

Reply 48

moorbre

What about only allowing resits of the year you are in...e.g if you are taking A2 maths, you are no longer allowed to retake As maths modules, but you could have in the first year while you were studying As maths. With a lot of subjects especially maths the As modules are very easy once you have studied A2 maths

Reply 49

sclez1

Original post by tj hughes

The proble is though that too many people are getting As - more than can go to the very top universities. Hence, it is hard for these unis to distinguish between candidates at the top level. Whilst the A* grade has been recently brought in, we need to be careful that grade inflation will not lead to mass numbers of students getting A*s.

Whilst grades are relative, the grading system needs a sensitive enough scale to distinguish between candidates.

That's true, but I don't think the current system has gone too far yet. If it came to it, unis could have access to actual marks. Alternatively, I'm not against making exams harder. That's the way to increase their rigor - make the content more complicated, or make each module larger so there's more and harder stuff to learn. I'm not against increasing the rigor of exams, just against Gove's ideas of how to do it due to the policy's catastrophic negatives.

Reply 50

Ry_p94

Original post by helzz94

Anyone who genuinly screwed up their first set of exams, re-sat and got what they were actually predicted (or higher) will be completely against this. To be honest it's not like the re-sit exams are any easier than the first ones, and the students are actually putting themselves under more stress to improve their grade. With jobs becoming more scarce we need good qualifications. The individual does not care if there are now too many people getting As and will 'cheat' the system (although completely 'legally') as much as they can to do their best.

Of course the politicans and adults will be the ones complaining about it, they've done their exams. If no one were allowed to re-sit all it would prove would be that some people worked hard, others didn't, mostly because they didn't realise how big the gap was between GCSE and A Level. A Levels aren't just about natural intelligence, I know absolute geniuses who got C and Ds because they didn't realise how hard they'd have to work. The AS year gives you the chance to see the difference and push yourself next year.

Completely disagree with this proposal. It's easy if you didn't need to do re-sits or if you've finished your A Levels to say "Yes let's separate the weak from the strong properly". But anyone who genuinly relies on re-sits to get decent grades will be bewildered by this. Why can we not just produce a good set of exam results without someone somewhere throwing a strop and saying "Well they've clearly just become too easy."?

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I completely agree. Newspapers like the Telegraph talk about resit candidates like they're something unpleasant stuck to their shoes, but there really is nothing wrong with re doing a test you feel you could have done better on. Anyone can have an off day, or have mitigating circumstances which means the result of the test will not be representative of the candidates ability. I've spoken to doctors who resat their A levels and are just as competent as those who did not.

Abolishing AS levels just causes confusion to Universities, who will need to rely much more on GCSEs, which many people improve upon when they move from school to sixth form.

One education proposal I would support, though I've not heard of it being proposed, is having one exam board in order to standardise grades. For example my college does AQA maths and the neighbouring college does Edexcel maths. This year it turned out the AQA exam was horrendously difficult and the Edexcel exam was average, bordering on easy. It doesn't seem right that people will get higher grades because they did an easier test.

Reply 51

hannah1994

AS levels are a good idea - way too much rests on final A level exams if they were scrapped and it allows a 4th subject. I think all Jan modules should be scrapped and the new GCSE rule of if you resit, you have to take your resit grade should be introduced to A level.

Reply 52

placenta medicae talpae

Original post by moorbre

I see what you're saying, but it would mean that if someone wanted to retake one AS summer unit, they'd have to take a whole year out, because they wouldn't be allowed to start studying for (or at least taking the exams for) the A2 until they'd done that resit.
It could also be quite hard to implement: what if someone is studying independently, and registers to resit an AS module far in advance, but then three weeks before the exam submits a very late entry for an A2 module as well.

Reply 53

placenta medicae talpae

Original post by Ry_p94

It doesn't seem right that people will get higher grades because they did an easier test.

In theory, the scaling of marks should take care of exam difficulty, but in practice it doesn't work like that.
So I agree: but they have to be careful that ensuring that ensuring exams are of the same difficulty does not mean asking pretty similar questions all the time! :biggrin:

Reply 54

Hopple

It's the retakes that are the issue, not the AS exams themselves. Fair enough if you were ill the first time round, but being allowed to have more goes just because you're richer does go against everything the exams are supposed to test. Similarly for re-marks, though this can be sorted by insisting that any exam board that has had to change the mark of X% of requests has to then go through the whole lot for free.

Original post by emilie18

I really hate how they've described the modules as "bite-sized". Have they seen the specifications for AS and especially A2? There is a LOT of content to cover, across certain subjects the workload is huge.

That would be a problem with the subject itself, I think. If it can't reasonably be expected for a student to know the whole AS and A2, then really they're expecting everyone to forget what tehy've learnt as soon as they've done the exam.

Also the claim that students "can repeatedly re-sit to inflate their grade" makes it sound as though we have no limit on how many times we re-take. Of course there are limits, as mentioned above, unless you re-take an entire year at sixth form then you only have:
- 3 chances to resit Jan Y12 module,
- 2 chances for June Y12 module,
-1 chance to re-take Jan Y13
- and you are unable to resit a June Y13 module.

Even having just two attempts at it means you'll probably get higher than if you had sat it only once.

Most students won't have the time to take a re-sit because of the added pressure and workload - if they do then surely it's commendable that they are striving to achieve better and voluntarily doing a lot of extra hard work?

Perhaps, but I'd point out they didn't try as hard as they could have the first time round :tongue:

Reply 55

L'Evil Fish

If this comes into effect when will it occur? I'm in year ten now... And I'm sitting some AS exams early, will this make them void??? :/

Reply 56

username775070

Original post by shadab786ahmed

If this comes into effect when will it occur? I'm in year ten now... And I'm sitting some AS exams early, will this make them void??? :/

No, whenever they make major changes like this, they will announce it several years in advance. You will be fine :smile:

Reply 57

chaosdestro0

Original post by bax121

Maybe they should make an effort first time round?

I have screwed up exams because I have been ill and also because of nerves.
I retook and got 100%, I knew the material first time round but I was just ill.

Reply 58

Care-Free

i dont see anything wrong with re-sits, they're not just for people who didnt put enough effort in, i did my first ever re-sit last week because got a B when i want an A, i certainly wasn't lazy and getting a B isn't bad, there's nothing wrong with simply pushing ourselves to do better.
I do however disagree with the fact that students who got E's or below in my college dont have to pay for their resits. thats encouraging the laziness and punishing those of us who do well but want to do better.