A Levels are Meaningless. Can you honestly Disagree?

Does anybody have any stats for how many people get As in the A2 part of the course, as opposed to the whole A Level? A2 is significantly harder, and I'd imagine people slack because they know they have marks in the bank from AS.

I'd be surprised if the percentage of As didn't dropp dramtically. Hence - make the A2 a separate qualification. Simple.

Does it really matter if a high percentage of people are getting A grades at A level?

Sorry for being a bit sharp in my last post kelly, reading it back it came across as rather harsh, heat of debate and all that. You've been generously measured in your response.

That said, there's till no doubt in my mind that at least in the A levels I have personal experience with - they are easier. I don't buy the argument that I'm just more accustomed to modern papers, it's not really something that applies to maths for one. Certain subjects have shifted in emphasis and there's an argument that can be made for them being 'different' as opposed to harder. Geography being one that comes to mind; a shift from physical to human in the syllabus over the years makes any comparison difficult. In maths though they teach and test the same old things, pure and applied in their natural progressions, just more slowly nowadays.

I found a page last night that sampled the first question out of every GCSE maths paper for the last 20 years or so, and that illustrated it quite well (they'd plainly got harder), I can't seem to find it again today, but I'll keep an eye out for it. I know you don't do maths, but I'm afraid I didn't do any arts, and I can only argue what I know. Arts subjects I would imagine are much more difficult to gauge anyway because much of the difficulty element is at the marker's discretion. As I said in my previous post though, I believe if science subjects have got easier then it's only logical to assume the arts have too.

Increased opportunities might be a factor in the greater numbers taking A-levels, but I find it hard to believe that it accounts for a huge proportion. Even with the grammar / comp split, it wasn't as if you couldn't do A levels at an ordinary secondary school, many did, there was just less expectation to and possibly dented self confidence for some. Arguably the fact that university was free for the students then meant increased incentive and opportunity for those bright enough to progress through HE.

Lewi: Lots of people argue that exams are getting easier because they look at past papers and can't do them, but in my opinion, that doesn't prove anything except for the fact that exams were very different years ago, not necessarily harder. Of course if you look at an exam you haven't been prepared for, you'll find it difficult because the syllabus will be completely different.

. People have had marks deducted for giving a ratio as 1:0.2 instead of 5:1 (when theyre exactly the same),

For me, the only trustworthy indication of difficulty, for the very reasons you describe, is the proportion of people actually passing, or gaining the top grade in an exam. It is meaningless to talk of difficulty as an inherent property of something in the same way as length is a property of a ruler, or the number of questions is a property of am exam. The way I see it, difficulty measures how hard we find something, not how hard it is, because that is a nonsense. And how can we determine how hard people find a particular skill? Surely the only way is to see what proportion of people can actually do it. So by that reckoning, a-level exams must have become much easier, as people now stand a much better chance of getting a good grade than they did many years ago. Even if this was because of better teaching or more able students (which i doubt) then it still stands that A-levels have become easier, in the same way that anything becomes easier if you get better at doing it. In this case, the scope of the exams should have been increased to compensate. After all, society doesn't improve over time by being satisfied with what it's already achieved and not striving for more.

Surely the main problem is the outweighted mark bracket for an A. 480 out of 600 ums is an A and 420 is a B, 360 a C and so on. Why don't they just make the bracket for an A the same amount as the rest of the boundaries (eg. 540) and then there wouldn't be such a disproportionate amount of As.

And comparitively, a 3 mark question on a chemistry paper (with probably about 7/8 lines to fill) required only the words "bonds, vibrate, more" for 3 marks. Its crazy!! Questions are vague and badly worded, yet require very specific answers to be credited. I even found a question the other day to which the answer was fundamentally incorrect, cos they'd dumbed it down so much. really frustrates me!!

Exactly. I will never forgive EdExcel for giving me a U on the best paper I've ever written. And forcing me to take a year out and reapply because of it (a C and I'd have got my offer).

For me, the only trustworthy indication of difficulty, for the very reasons you describe, is the proportion of people actually passing, or gaining the top grade in an exam. It is meaningless to talk of difficulty as an inherent property of something in the same way as length is a property of a ruler, or the number of questions is a property of am exam. The way I see it, difficulty measures how hard we find something, not how hard it is, because that is a nonsense. And how can we determine how hard people find a particular skill? Surely the only way is to see what proportion of people can actually do it. So by that reckoning, a-level exams must have become much easier, as people now stand a much better chance of getting a good grade than they did many years ago. Even if this was because of better teaching or more able students (which i doubt) then it still stands that A-levels have become easier, in the same way that anything becomes easier if you get better at doing it. In this case, the scope of the exams should have been increased to compensate. After all, society doesn't improve over time by being satisfied with what it's already achieved and not striving for more.