Are exams getting easier?

Of course the school had access to past papers, it was one of the top independent schools in the country with one of the largest Oxbridge intakes each year. We were taught properly, not simply to pass an exam that was the point I was making.

ANYONE can get an A by doing as you claim 'millions of past papers' that's kind of the point, it used be called cheating!

How is hard work ever cheating. Why does it matter if the questions you do as practice are a skillfully designed piece of 'prep' in a top independent school or a past paper. If it is cheating if you do any other work than doing 'prep', paying attention in class, and maybe rereading your class notes, that does not make for a very independent student ?

Don't get me wrong I am very jealous of those who go to top private schools, I just resent the idea that doing past papers is cheating. It is one of the few ways you have to revise if , like me, you have no homework, all I have a is textbooks and past papers ?

I don't personally see the problem with being thought to pass an exam - as long as you understand all the things you regurgitate.

Most idiotic thing I've ever read. Also, there is no way anyone could get an A in some of the recent AQA further maths exams. No way. Much harder than any old papers I've attempted.

Not sure if you meant to reply to me or diggy.

I know this is a reoccurring question but I thought I would state my views. I do think to an extent GCSEs have become easier over the years but have A-level exams? The reason I ask is because I tried an A-level Chemistry paper from 1972 today. I actually got an A and I thought it was pretty easy. I know this isn't representative of all exams. Also people (generally geriatrics) always say how, "exams were harder", in their day but I did an exam from, "their day", and it was pretty easy.

So what are your thoughts?

Most idiotic thing I've ever read. Many people will have 100% in those exams.

Most idiotic thing I've ever read. AQA is pretty average. And
http://store.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/AQA-A-LEVEL-STATS-JUNE11.PDF

50% of Further Mathematicians got an A in 2011 (this is higher than other subjects because few people who are are bad at maths take FM and a lot of people who take FM are very good at maths).

Sorry but you are wrong. Ever since the A* grade has come in, maths papers have got a lot harder. I'm doing further maths on AQA and the equivalent of FP2 papers for around 2000-2004 that out teacher has given us are hilariously easy compared to papers from about 2010. I've got 100% raw in every one I've tried with no problem. I do agree that it is stupid giving students the substitutions, but even if they didn't it wouldn't make much difference as the substitutions are ridiculously obvious and teachers would show you how to spot them better. Also, they often don't give substitutions in further maths anyway. Different challenging questions are coming up lately to separate the good mathematicians.

Maths, but it's the easier bits of further maths (summing series, not hard) and not all of normal maths.
So approximately the same level of difficulty to normal maths.
Also you have choice. admitedly 8/10 is nto much choice, but some are a lot easier than others. The logs question on jan 72? could take like 4 minutes whereas you could spend around 20 (180/8) minutes on each question

Further more back then, people didn't do FM,
they did pure and applied if they did 2 a-levels. Therefore there is inevitably more pure in normal a-level maths as they did no stats or mechanics, or decisions

Maybe A level maths/further maths is just easy then? I admit i do edexcel, which is consistantly easy and more a case of "if you make a mistake you lose your A*" but in edexcel i've not noticed anything harder on them. If only they were as hard as Solomon papers (which are just really awkward questions, not much more difficult but require more thought) then it would be a much better differentiater of ability

Come on, there's an FP3 Vectors question in it (1968 Q7), FP3 ellipeses (Q5), De Moivre's theorem FP2 (1972 Q4). I can go on if i looked carefully but cba. Also, you isolated one question out, I can tell a lot of them are quite long and require more thought than your standard C3/C4/FP2/FP3 paper. They're a level between current a level and STEP imo

Until very recently (last 3 or so papers) AQA, like Edexcel, has been extremely formulaic. However, too many papers are now out so AQA have been making papers very hard now the A* has come out. In the last last 10 years you've basically needed to get full raw to get full UMS in maths papers. But in recent FP4 and FP2 AQA papers you've been able to drop 9 - 10 marks and still get 100% UMS. This is despite the fact that people are trying much harder to get over 90% than before as they have the incentive to get A*s. If this doesn't prove maths papers - at least AQA ones - have been getting harder recently I don't know what will.

Just looked at FP4 AQA June 2011... dont see tbh, although a whole paper on matrices and vectors is pretty nasty in itself, but it doesnt look like anything out of place

Please don't talk about GCSE in here, we all know what a doss that was lol. pretty much A*s without revision

Come on, there's an FP3 Vectors question in it (1968 Q7), FP3 ellipeses (Q5), De Moivre's theorem FP2 (1972 Q4). I can go on if i looked carefully but cba. Also, you isolated one question out, I can tell a lot of them are quite long and require more thought than your standard C3/C4/FP2/FP3 paper. They're a level between current a level and STEP imo

Clearly not for everyone...

I think the chance to resit improves grades quite a lot, because some people basically treat the first time as a practice and if you bomb it, you can fork up and try again. I'm not sure the actual papers have gotten easier though.

I bet if they bring back the whole 'One exam at the end of the year and that's it' policy, results will get worse and they can stop crying that exams are easier.

I think in general gcse's could be passed with common sense. The maths paper was literally 20 mins work + 1 hour 10 mins sleep...

But hey, you soon realise gcse's don't really count for much if you're thinking of going into higher ed. ?

I agree they can be passed relatively easily, but that isn't what you said, you claimed A*'s with pretty much no revision. Not revising and getting a C is different to getting an A*. You may have been exaggerating though, but it doesn't always transfer well over TSR, in fact I've heard people make that very claim



I realised that a few years back when I sat GCSEs.