Is the guardian ****ing serious!

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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.

I know it was 50/50 you could get 10/10 on pure guess work.

Reply 21

Ben Kenobi

Original post by John Stuart Mill

I know it was 50/50 you could get 10/10 on pure guess work.

I did not have to guess. Just estimated the maths questions.

Reply 22

garfeeled

this is ridiculous.
First it's a test with a 50% chance to guess correctly. Secondly the two answers are vastly different, the multiple choice questions you do get at a level (at least in physics) have answers that are rather similar. Take the differentiation questions i only needed to differentiate the first part because the two answers were so different. A than physics questions were ridiculous. On three occasions i was asked how man proton are in a certain element. That is a gcse question. The simplest form of that question on a a-level would be the first question of a unit 1 paper and would would ask the quark composition of a proton and then the number of protons and that would only be worth one mark.

Reply 23

aspirinpharmacist

We never did the muscle stuff at school, but then I did Advanced Higher, and never took Physics after Standard Grade so those last two questions were utter guesswork, but that's just silly. I don't think it's meant to be taken seriously, exams require a lot more reasoning than multiple choice questions with only two options.

Reply 24

KingKee

The "back in my day" cliché will hit us all one day :biggrin:

Reply 25

Little Wolf Taima

Yeah, The Guardian does not seem to realize that from about the age of 14, like 90% of parents are incapable of helping their kids with their homework.

Reply 26

belisarius

Original post by Lunch_Box

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

I think that it may not be as straightforward as that, it may just be a case of people generally working harder.

I forget who said it but one of my favourite quotes is:
"Thank god we didn't put Michael Gove in charge of the olympics. If we had he would have claimed the only reason we broke so many world records was because the track had gotten smaller."

How do professional athletes get better and better? Why is it that in every Olympics world records are broken again and again? The answer is not eugenics, it is as simple as training (Ok advances in sports gear may have some influence but that hasnt changed much since the beijing and britain still smashed loads of cycling times). I think it is not unreasonable to apply some of that reasoning

Reply 27

dkdeath

Surely question 6 is worded wrongly .

"The curve with equation y = f(x) + k ..... has a maximum point at (3,10)"
No, it has a local maxima/inflection point at that point. The curve itself has a maximum point at infinity.

Retarded quiz is retarded, randomly guessing will still give you around 5/10 plus the questions are mainly the first part of questions to ease in the topic put in for those who are working at a D/E level.

Reply 28

Nitrogen

Want to punch those retards who say 'I got an E in 1986 and I score 10/10 on this quiz, A-Levels are so easy these days'. They just sound like failures trying to act smart. They think their E's are equivalent to A*'s nowadays.

Reply 29

RoyalBlue7

My two year old brother got 5/10. Didn't know he could do C1 maths
True, A levels are a joke these days. Even toddlers get half correct.
:wink:

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(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 30

the mezzil

If you read the guardian and take it seriously, then you are a fool.

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Reply 31

Heliosphan

There's a stack of evidence to back-up the FACT that exams are easier, you just need to be arsed to search up some articles. In fact, broadly speaking, the only people who deny the fact are recently qualified students or teachers who's interest is served by better grades.

Reply 32

TheHistoryStudent

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.

Attitudes to exam results are a bit of a joke really, if students do well they say the papers are dumbed down, if students don't they say there's a problem with teaching - either way the students just don't win. Aside from that I never trust articles like these anyway, as they'll always pick & choose questions from the papers to push their agenda, when of course a proper, objective journalist would likely just give you the paper, their opinion by pointing out certain questions, and let you decide for yourself.

Despite all that though, given the current system of league tables and competing exam boards, I think there is a potential danger for dumbing down in exams, and so we must be vigilant against it.