Aren’t exams cruel?

If you look at the grade statistics, 25% get 7-9 in GCSE and around 30% A* or A in A level. This means that the government only wants to hand out limited top grades, because there are limited university places. University increases chances of prosperity. Therefore, the soul purpose of GCSES is to determine the prosperous and the individuals who do menial jobs.

Anyone who thinks exams are cruel will really struggle in the adult world.

Fail to see how this is the case when exams do not do a good job of reflecting how things will be in the real world (talking about GCSE and A-level exams here mainly). Your employer isn’t going to ask you to sit in silence for 2 hours tell you “right down everything you can remember about X under tight time pressure on pen and paper” with you not being able to access any external resources to help you.

I support exams but find it laughable when people try to imply that you’ll struggle in the workplace/adult world if you don’t like exams or that exams prepare you for the workplace.

Fail to see how this is the case when exams do not do a good job of reflecting how things will be in the real world (talking about GCSE and A-level exams here mainly). Your employer isn’t going to ask you to sit in silence for 2 hours tell you “right down everything you can remember about X under tight time pressure on pen and paper” with you not being able to access any external resources to help you.

I support exams but find it laughable when people try to imply that you’ll struggle in the workplace/adult world if you don’t like exams or that exams prepare you for the workplace.

I don’t think @Gazpacho.was specifically talking about exams, but stress in general. Any job which entails responsibilities is stressful and far more so than school exams. If you are in a service providing job, delays and standards have to be respected. If one or other isn’t there are financial consequences for the company you work for. If you are in a medical role, your knowledge and skill determines the life that your patient will have afterwards. If you are a civil engineer your project has a deadline. For each day that you over run that deadline your company pays compensation. Learning to deal with stress is essential for most ( not all, but most) high paying jobs.

Firstly, exams don’t prepare you the real world is a different argument from the one presented in the OP which is exams are cruel because not everyone gets top grades.

Secondly, while professional exams may not be a thing in your world, they are for many in professional careers.

OP, how many exams did you fail??

Exams are designed for people to be obedient workers because that's what our society is built upon. If you grow up and attend mainstream schools, you'll be positioned onto a path where menial jobs are abundant. The higher ups who make all this happen want us to crunch onto the bait they give and go back for and infinite number of times to feed from their hands. You want to turn the tables, then you must work super hard and have a vision of success.

I understand that professional exams are a thing, I’m saying that the way exams are done in England and A-level and GCSE levels are not reflective of how things are done in the future. I.e it’s more than it being a case of how much content can you memorise over a 2 year window to then write all of that content down in a pen and paper exam at the end of the 2 year course (for A-levels and GCSEs I’m excluding exams done at all other points in education and the workplace).

But yeah exams being cruel because only certain people get the top grades is nonsense. I understand that some people (including some working in education) have an issue with the way the bell curve is designed and how 30% of students must fail under it, only 20% get an A and above etc but we can’t just artificially make everyone get good grades, that dilutes the meaning of getting a top grade (just look at 2021 A-level and GCSE exam results as an example of this). I guess that we could have standardised grade boundaries but I’m not sure if we can fully trust exam boards to design papers of similar difficulty for every subject every year (I’m looking at AQA and OCR as prime examples on this one).

Agree 1,000%. And this year was insanely cruel. Especially if you sat A-Levels with the hope of going to Uni in Ireland. Because of what England did, we pretty much have no chance of getting g enough CAO points to get into top degrees.

Plenty of people with dyslexia, ADHD, etc fail exams but have successful careers. But failing sucks. Especially when you know going in that the game is rigged.