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Is the guardian ****ing serious!

Just had a look at the guardian website and they have an article for people that claim a-levels are easier now than they were in the past. The article states:

"Reckon A-levels were much harder back in your day? Well we've churned up some of the questions from the exam board AQA's Chemistry, Biology and Physics papers. Simply click on the box that contains the right answer and you'll be given a score at the end that you can share with your friends. Make sure you read the questions carefully. Don't cheat, you're not just letting yourself down, you're letting your school down."

The thing is the questions in each test are no where near comparable to the level of an a-level exam. For example the chemistry questions are so easy, even I who has never studied chemistry to any extent got 8/10! And the maths questions are laughable, some of them aren't even AS-level! I've never actually studied a-levels, I did the scottish equivelants, but i know for a fact that these these questions are ridiculous. What makes it worse is all this test has done is reinforce the idea that a-levels are somehow easier now than they were in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, it pisses me off when people claim it was 'harder' in their day!

Here's the link to the 'tests'.

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Reply 1
Avatar for MrNameless
MrNameless
2
Their Q&As are always a bit silly, I wouldn't be too offended. As someone pointed out to me the other day, someone taught to the 1983 curriculum who applied themselves just as hard would get almost exactly the same grade as someone on the 2013 syllabus. It's just different material, taught differently. But don't freak out over one article.
bahahha that was the stupidest article i've ever seen, the author is obviously a deluded fool, how about showing past papers.
Reply 3
Avatar for BAD AT MATHS
BAD AT MATHS
OP
12
Original post by MrNameless
Their Q&As are always a bit silly, I wouldn't be too offended. As someone pointed out to me the other day, someone taught to the 1983 curriculum who applied themselves just as hard would get almost exactly the same grade as someone on the 2013 syllabus. It's just different material, taught differently. But don't freak out over one article.


It's not really the article, it's this whole "let's have a go at students and young people" that has became a bit of a trend these days. I just hate this false sense of superiority some people in older generations have.
Reply 4
Avatar for Mockery
Mockery
17
10/10

By his reckoning I should have got A*s in my Maths and Science A-levels. I didn't :rolleyes:
Reply 5
Avatar for RtGOAT
RtGOAT
12
Original post by BAD AT MATHS
It's not really the article, it's this whole "let's have a go at students and young people" that has became a bit of a trend these days. I just hate this false sense of superiority some people in older generations have.


It makes them feel better about their Cs and Ds
Reply 6
Avatar for Hopple
Hopple
18
Things were harder back in the day, at least as far as maths and physics goes. Maths changed from 3 pure and 3 applied modules to 4 pure (same material as the previous 3) and 2 applied, and physics took out the maths component also leaving less to learn. But you're right, there's no point in implying kids these days don't deserve their grades. Yes there is a problem with too many getting the top grades making it difficult to distinguish between them, but that's not the kids' fault, so don't piss on their parade. Worse still, as you've said, is this article which misrepresents today's exams - in their maths and science 'tests' a monkey could guess to 50% success whereas you'll get very few, if any, multiple choice question in reality. Not seen an English A Level exam but I very much doubt they include a question on "Write down words that might or might not match these definitions".
I'm pretty sure exams were more difficult in the past. Those "tests" on The Guardian website obviously aren't going to prove anything though.
Original post by BAD AT MATHS
It's not really the article, it's this whole "let's have a go at students and young people" that has became a bit of a trend these days. I just hate this false sense of superiority some people in older generations have.


Completely agree.
What an awful piece of journalism. And the comments are just as bad.
(edited 10 years ago)
Original post by BAD AT MATHS
Just had a look at the guardian website and they have an article for people that claim a-levels are easier now than they were in the past. The article states:

"Reckon A-levels were much harder back in your day? Well we've churned up some of the questions from the exam board AQA's Chemistry, Biology and Physics papers. Simply click on the box that contains the right answer and you'll be given a score at the end that you can share with your friends. Make sure you read the questions carefully. Don't cheat, you're not just letting yourself down, you're letting your school down."

The thing is the questions in each test are no where near comparable to the level of an a-level exam. For example the chemistry questions are so easy, even I who has never studied chemistry to any extent got 8/10! And the maths questions are laughable, some of them aren't even AS-level! I've never actually studied a-levels, I did the scottish equivelants, but i know for a fact that these these questions are ridiculous. What makes it worse is all this test has done is reinforce the idea that a-levels are somehow easier now than they were in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, it pisses me off when people claim it was 'harder' in their day!

Here's the link to the 'tests'.


Why can't you just accept that student are getting better rather than exams are getting easier?
Original post by Lunch_Box
Why can't you just accept that student are getting better rather than exams are getting easier?


I'm pretty much saying that........

Or at least, I'm trying to say that a-levels today aren't exactly easy and this idea that it's a piss take now compared to 'back then' is a massive exageration.
Reply 12
Avatar for Hodan1996
Hodan1996
I hate when articles like this come out a couple days after we get our results, only makes you feel even worse about your results (good or bad)


Posted from TSR Mobile
This is ****ing stupid. All the comments are like 'I flunked all my exams in 1983 and I got 100% in the maths. Obviously would be an A* grade now. Exams are so easy now.' There is a reason you failed, just as there is when people completely fail subjects now- you're overly cocky and dumb.
Reply 14
Avatar for ubisoft
ubisoft
3
I got 10/10 and I'm in year 11 :colondollar:
Reply 15
Avatar for ladynova
ladynova
16
do they not understand that the physics multiple choice papers have some questions which require 6 steps to get the solution, lots of thinking, red herrings. If anything it is harder than the non multiple choice because it tries to trick you. And you can't pick up marks if you mess up one part of the working out nothing is carried over and each question no matter what the difficulty is one mark!
Original post by Lunch_Box
Why can't you just accept that student are getting better rather than exams are getting easier?


I think largely because of Occam's Razor.

In 1991 699041 A-level papers were sat and 11.9% of these received an A. (i.e. there were 83,000 A grade papers).

In 2013 850752 A-level papers were sat and 26.3% of these received an A or A*. (i.e there were 223,000 A grade papers).

So the entry cohort got considerably bigger, accommodating a townful of people who wouldn't even have stayed on for A-levels 20 years ago (about 50,000 extra candidates per year) but the percentage of A grades awarded more than doubled nonetheless.

There are two possibilities that might account for this. One is that something properly remarkable has happened in British education, a minor miracle that has seen a signifcant widening of access accompanied by a sustained and extraordinary improvement in outcomes. The other is that exams and/or marking might have gotten easier.
Reply 17
Avatar for Ben Kenobi
Ben Kenobi
Original post by BAD AT MATHS
Just had a look at the guardian website and they have an article for people that claim a-levels are easier now than they were in the past. The article states:

"Reckon A-levels were much harder back in your day? Well we've churned up some of the questions from the exam board AQA's Chemistry, Biology and Physics papers. Simply click on the box that contains the right answer and you'll be given a score at the end that you can share with your friends. Make sure you read the questions carefully. Don't cheat, you're not just letting yourself down, you're letting your school down."

The thing is the questions in each test are no where near comparable to the level of an a-level exam. For example the chemistry questions are so easy, even I who has never studied chemistry to any extent got 8/10! And the maths questions are laughable, some of them aren't even AS-level! I've never actually studied a-levels, I did the scottish equivelants, but i know for a fact that these these questions are ridiculous. What makes it worse is all this test has done is reinforce the idea that a-levels are somehow easier now than they were in the 70s and 80s. Honestly, it pisses me off when people claim it was 'harder' in their day!

Here's the link to the 'tests'.

I think it is stupid to provide the students with multiple choice instead of letting them work it out for themselves and enter the answer yourself. So not really good indication of A-level exams at all.
Reply 18
Avatar for Ben Kenobi
Ben Kenobi
Got full marks in maths and science quiz, but don't know English grammar definitions as haven't done it at A-Level and not my native language.
Yeah, I started a thread a few hours ago after seeing that page (http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2434503). Even more annoying is the fact that people seem to believe this ****!

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