What percentage of people get A's in all their National 5 exams?

Awty

Just curious...

Guesstimates welcome :smile:

(edited 8 years ago)

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Reply 1

MartinDUFC

Don't know exact figures but last year at our school 40% of people got all A's at nat 5 level so that number might be close to the overall average

Reply 2

Awty

Original post by MartinDUFC

Don't know exact figures but last year at our school 40% of people got all A's at nat 5 level so that number might be close to the overall average

Thanks for the info :smile:

40% though!?! That's insane! Your school must be incredible. On average only about 10-15% of people get an A in a each subject. So times that by 7 subjects and I was thinking maybe 7% of people get A's in all their subjects.

Reply 3

username1283138

About 20% in my school.
Nationally, I think much higher than that. Maybe 35-45%?
This year, a lot of people who sat the higher exams got straight As(check out the exam discussion thread), so I'm guessing the number of people who achieved straight As in nat 5 is much higher.

Reply 4

ps1265A

The real answer is here...

Look at this normal distribution curve:

Imagine the x axis were the grades going FROM "U" to "A*". The aim is to roughly fulfill the shape of this curve. So the grade which is achieved by most is in the D/C region! Only a small percentage get the really high or really high grades. That should help contextualize hopefully :smile:

Reply 5

1420787

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/Attainment_Statistics_(August)_2015.xls

This will show you the percentage of pupils who got each grade as both an overall and subject by subject. It shows that 37.5% of N5 results were A's.

To know what percentage of pupils got all A's is unknowable without having access to the full set of data that the SQA has. They will perhaps give out that figure later, or it might be obtainable via a FOI request. Similar FOI requests may have already been made.

But common sense tells us that the answer must be less than 37.5%.

The answer is not to take 37.5% to the power of n, where n is the number of subjects taken, either. This is because given that a candidate achieves an A in any given subject, he is more likely to have gained A's in other subjects too.

Reply 6

1420787

Original post by ps1265A

The real answer is here...

Look at this normal distribution curve:

The normal distribution likely describes the approximate spread of performances for any given subject. But it makes no judgement on what percentage of people will be awarded any given grade by the SQA.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 7

ps1265A

Original post by offhegoes

Yes, I was referring to subject!

Reply 8

1420787

Original post by ps1265A

Yes, I was referring to subject!

Yes but that question was on proportion of pupils gaining A's, and unless I'm missing something the normal distribution doesn't help us here?

Reply 9

wordshark

It depends on how many nat 5s you sat. According to the sqa national statistics report 2014 8% achieved 6As, 4% achieved 7As, 2% achieved 8As and 19 people achieved more than 8As.

Reply 10

wordshark

The thing you have to remember about this forum is that the people who comment on it tend to have a great interest in their school performance and education. Consequently, you'll find people on here tend to be from "good schools" or at the very least achieve "good grades" and therein the problem lies with using this forum as an indicator of nation wide performance. Looking at some threads it appears that every other person is a straight A student whereas in reality a very small proportion of scottish students ever achieve straight As.

Reply 11

ps1265A

Original post by offhegoes

Yes but that question was on proportion of pupils gaining A's, and unless I'm missing something the normal distribution doesn't help us here?

If we look at the trend by subject, it should help picture what it would look like by overall grades. Achieving all As is definitely at one extreme and I'd say that it's a minority that achieve it against the whole population.

Reply 12

rhiifuu

Original post by wordshark

It depends on how many nat 5s you sat. According to the sqa national statistics report 2014 8% achieved 6As, 4% achieved 7As, 2% achieved 8As and 19 people achieved more than 8As.

I'm going to tell my best friend this. She achieved 8A's for her National 5 examinations. I'm so proud :biggrin:

Reply 13

Awty

The statistics wordshark posted sound closer to what I was expecting. It sounds a bit weird if you put it into actual numbers though. For instance their is about 75 s4 students in my year taking seven national 5's (maybe less, maybe more). So only three people achieved all seven A's???

Reply 14

wordshark

Original post by Awty

There is massive amount of variance between schools. In some none will achieve straight As whereas some private schools will have 50%+ achieving straight As. These statistics can only reliably used on a national basis. In my school it would suggest that roughly 15 students achieved straight As when in actual fact I know the number is a lot smaller.

Reply 15

Roryd9

Actually I put in an FOI regarding this last year. 1.7% of all 4th year pupils got 8As (2014). Not sure I believe this, as 15% of my year did, but go figure.

Reply 16

wordshark

Original post by Roryd9

Actually I put in an FOI regarding this last year. 1.7% of all 4th year pupils got 8As (2014). Not sure I believe this, as 15% of my year did, but go figure.

The sqa statistics I posted are not confined to just 4th years.

Reply 17

Roryd9

Original post by wordshark

The sqa statistics I posted are not confined to just 4th years.

Not very accurate/ useful then are they :wink:

Reply 18

langlitz

People who think 40% of everyone who sat nat5s got all A's are deluded private school morons. It probably closer to 15%

Reply 19

Ecasx

Original post by wordshark

It depends on how many nat 5s you sat. According to the sqa national statistics report 2014 8% achieved 6As, 4% achieved 7As, 2% achieved 8As and 19 people achieved more than 8As.