Has difficulty of A-levels declined?

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earlgrey92

There is much fuss as to whether A-levels are 'easier' than the previous generation. My physics teacher thinks they have based on the type of questions in the physics exam. He says that questions are broken down into chunks, and that you have information in the exam such as formula sheets which they did not have.

However, that being said, the introduction of AS-level in 2001 makes a strong case that a-levels are harder because you have less time to learn. Before 2001 a pupil could waste time in year 12, and still come out of year 13 with an A because he may have done a few weeks of work. But now, this AS-level gives no respite.

So what do you people think?

Good point made.

Reply 21

letsdothetimewarpagain

I think that it is impssible to say as the things that are taught now are different from 40 years ago

Reply 22

bj_945

It has got a lot easier. Its just purely the number of people with As has increased. The standard of the papers has become easier but theyd solve the problem if they just made 5% of grades As, rather than 20%.

It seems simple enough to me.

Peace out x

Reply 23

oo_Lucinda_oo

Ultimately, does it matter? The University entry requirements have shot up in recognition of this so it hardly makes a difference. If anything, it's now worse, as AAA candidates have no real way of improving and distinguishing themselves from other applicants, and plenty get rejected.

yes

I think it certainly has got easier, I found my A-Levels fairly straightforward, and not often stressful, I took Maths, English, French, Japanese and General Studies, but I found I still had a fair enough amount of free time. The main way in which the exams have become easier have been their setup - with questions in a similar format to classwork, and often students can be taught to some extent the best way to answer. The fact that the rate of high grades used to be much lower is proof alone. However, it may not necessarily be a case of easier content necessarily, but simply being easier to achieve high grades. I don't know whether in the past the exams were marked similarly, but uniform marks mean that one's raw percentage now tends to be less than the uniform mark which counts towards the 'percentage' of the A-level mark. For example, to get 80/100 in an exam, it doesn't actually mean getting 80%, rather a percentage which is equivalent to 80/100 (e.g. 68%), with this conversion based on how difficult the exam was, which in turn is measured by the average mark. When viewed like this, getting 80% overall (which is equivalent to an A) is not as difficult as it sounds - i.e. you do not have to get an average of 80% in every exam.

Reply 26

London271

Well, the content in todays AS/A Levels is different from the old A Levels so it may seem hard to us as we have not learnt the different content. Also I think people are doing better now as we have the internet for revision website, revision guides written for the spec we are doing and forums such as TSR to ask Questions. We are also spoon feed a lot!

Reply 27

daruishraz

Economist1

For Maths and Further Maths...certainly.
For History...definitely not.

Yup, certainly. My father was having a look through my Mathematics AS book (Core 1 and 2) and he was suprised when he said there is nothing in the AS-level, compared to when he did his semi-university (mechanical engineering) degree and MSC about 25-30 years ago!!! I also then got lectured that I must get an A :p:

I also had a look at the really old Maths books, the old ones lying around in the cupboard! It really was harder years ago, however.

Reply 28

Kaddybong

No we're getting smarter. Much smarter than we were a few years back.

Reply 29

-Matt

The new music syllabus is a lot easier: your performance for AS only has to be grade 5 standard, which was the standard for gcse before they changed it. I'm doing the old syllabus though, so I have to write essays on Bach, Haydn and Schubert without the scores and I'm performing at grade 8 standard.

Anywho... Yes, in some cases they are getting easier.

Reply 30

Fojji

They are definitely a lot easier, and I'm not sure the claim that students are getting smarter holds much weight. I'm a mature student studying A-levels in a classroom with 17 year olds and the general level of intelligence and scientific understanding is sickening.

I've studied in two different colleges for my A-levels. One for the AS and another for the A2, and both colleges were of very different socio-economic backgrounds. In both cases many of the students who got seven or more A*s were struggling with the most basic concepts. For example, although many of them had done triple science at GCSE, they were unable to work out how many electrons an element has in its outer shell from the periodic table. Nor how to rearrange the simplest of equations.

While this isn't a very scientific study :wink:

, and (at least I hope) not representative of the entire country - It does seem to me to represent the shocking decline in standards in this country.

Reply 31

Advanced Subsidiary

For the good subjects they are harder, for the crap subjects they are easy. I think you know which subjects I'm talking about.

Reply 32

watermelon sugar

the new newww a levels, that have come in this year, i'd say are easier :/ looking at the work my sister's doing in her AS chemistry and physics, a huge chunk of the chem i'd covered at GCSE and her physics is just so slowww and gentle. i think she's on different exam boards, but i really wouldn't think a different exam board would be that different in the difficulty.