AQA/OCR Exam Statistics: Highest A*% = Modern Hebrew, Further Maths, Bengali...what?!

http://store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/AQA-A-LEVEL-STATS-JUNE10.PDF

AQA A-level exam results for June 2010.

Languages such as Persian and Gujarati on OCR have very high % A*, but i'm assuming only people who speak and read/write the language fluenty score this.

Fair enough that Modern Hebrew and Bengali have low entries but Further Maths has over 10% higher rate than Maths...

Further Maths is also higher than Maths in OCR.

Also, Pure Mathematics (i'm assuming C1, C2, C3, C4, FP1, FP2) has less than 1% of people scoring an A* grade in AQA and not a single person in OCR, surely Pure Mathematics is 'easier' than Further Mathematics, no?

I'd rather do C1, C2, C3, C4, FP1, FP2 than (C1-C4, M1, S1) PLUS (FP1, FP2, FP3, FP4 M2, M3), so why is this?

All the art courses are pretty high, well above or around 10% of candidates achieving an A* grade. Also the same in OCR. Any particular reason? Is it generally 'easier'?

Critical Thinking is the lowest (0.8%) which seems reasonable since it's not even considered a subject by most universities hence students may not bother.

The Maths value seemed a bit low to me, though. OCR was ~10% higher than AQA in Maths, yet OCR is considered to be a 'harder' exam board than AQA... what's going on?!

http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/admin/ocr_47971_admin_results_stats_gq_jun_2010.pdf

Thoughts?

Reply 1

Pheylan

further maths is understandable - the people who take it are usually good at maths