Topic: A levels

[lincsyokel2]

All that and so modest LOL ;D

Nothing to do with modesty, its to do with demonstrating im not talking out my arse, and have taken my fair whack of exams, and therefore know what should constitute an exam at that level.

Its my thread, im entitled to demonstrate my provenance when challenged.

I run my own domain and blog, all this is good material as a sheeple demonstration.

[BarriedaleNick]

You only have to look round the internet to realise spelling is a thing that has long since vanished from english lessons in schools.

The lack of basics and the reliance on spellcheckers and calculators is appalling.

So, I am not the villain here for wanting my grandkids educated properly, and giving a real grounding in the basics of maths, english and other subjects such as physics, chemistry, geography and history, and neither its it criticism of anyone whos taken A levels i nany particular here. All of this is sadly lacking, and its covered up by fiddling the pass mark. Anyone that is happy to accept the current standard is giving themselves or there kids short measure.

I can count at least half a dozen grammatical\spelling errors in the last sentence alone.  I don't really care if people don't use English correctly on the Internet but you seem to mind..
Perhaps a spellchecker may have helped..

[lincsyokel2]

You only have to look round the internet to realise spelling is a thing that has long since vanished from english lessons in schools.

The lack of basics and the reliance on spellcheckers and calculators is appalling.

So, I am not the villain here for wanting my grandkids educated properly, and giving a real grounding in the basics of maths, english and other subjects such as physics, chemistry, geography and history, and neither its it criticism of anyone whos taken A levels i nany particular here. All of this is sadly lacking, and its covered up by fiddling the pass mark. Anyone that is happy to accept the current standard is giving themselves or there kids short measure.

I can count at least half a dozen grammatical\spelling errors in the last sentence alone.  I don't really care if people don't use English correctly on the Internet but you seem to mind..
Perhaps a spellchecker may have helped..

There's two errors, both to do with keyboarding speed
"whos" missed the apostrophe
" i nany" space in wrong place.

You can tell in a forum debate when people have no arguments , they resort to attacking the other posters 'spelling'  (which in this case were keyboarding and proofreading errors)

So do you actually  have any intelligent counter arguments, or will you stick to banal nit picking ?

Personally, ill continue to complain and berate the Education establishment until they stop this farce and start giving qualifications  that reflect  knowledge required to pass them and  the effort put into them. Second best doesnt come into it, neither does fobbing my grandkids off with worthless bits of paper. At this rate they will be doing a Baccalaureate, thats takes some effort to pass.

[BarriedaleNick]

You were the one who thought spelling and grammer were poor on the Internet so I was responding to your point.
If you can't do better than the kids\schools you are critising then perhaps you should refrain from critising in the first place.

English should be capitalised.  So should Interent in the previous sentance.
"neither its it criticism" makes no sense.
You used the wrong form of the verb in "giving a real grounding" - makes no sense.
You have used a comma in front of "and" twice in the same sentance which is ugly.
You used there instead of their in the last line.
Plus your two er "typos"..

I'd give you a C maximum for that post.

Post that on your blog.

[lincsyokel2]

You were the one who thought spelling and grammer were poor on the Internet so I was responding to your point.
If you can't do better than the kids\schools you are critising then perhaps you should refrain from critising in the first place.

English should be capitalised.  So should Interent in the previous sentance.
"neither its it criticism" makes no sense.
You used the wrong form of the verb in "giving a real grounding" - makes no sense.
You have used a comma in front of "and" twice in the same sentance which is ugly.
You used there instead of their in the last line.
Plus your two er "typos"..

I'd give you a C maximum for that post.

Post that on your blog.

but you are still happy that our kids are being fobbed off with a mickey mouse qualification so they can run up a debt of £20,000 by the time they're 22  ?

Im not. But then i care.

By the way, in your post, its 'Internet', not 'Interent', and a 'sentance'  is given to people found guilty, usually by the Judge in the form of a spoken 'sentence'.

So, as they say in the Eurovision Song Contest, Nil Points. If you're going to pick holes in typing and spelling, you have to make sure your posts are squeaky clean.

I'll go and have some tea while you  get the gunshot wound in your foot bandaged.

[carbonel11]

I must admit I don't really understand either how the A'levels are marked these days or how the admissions/ offers work. My nephew sadly did very badly just one A'level at a D level and a mess of AS levels at Cs and Es so I assumed that was that, however today he rang to say he has been accepted through clearing by a college. I obviously am happy for him but as you say I wonder what the quality of the course can be if they are accepting such low grades.

[grawrc]

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/QualificationsExplained/DG_10039017
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/QualificationsExplained/DG_10039018

Well you did ask!! :P

[carbonel11]

Thanks grawrc  :) Sadly my poor old brain would obviously fail at the first hurdle of understanding the points system at all. I was looking at said nephews course modules ( Ancient History) and thinking how interesting and exciting they sounded and then realised that eighteen is a long time ago  :(

[Bugloss2009]

By the way, in your post, its 'Internet', not 'Interent', and a 'sentance'  is given to people found guilty, usually by the Judge in the form of a spoken 'sentence'.


[/quote]

love  it

[lincsyokel2]

I must admit I don't really understand either how the A'levels are marked these days or how the admissions/ offers work. My nephew sadly did very badly just one A'level at a D level and a mess of AS levels at Cs and Es so I assumed that was that, however today he rang to say he has been accepted through clearing by a college. I obviously am happy for him but as you say I wonder what the quality of the course can be if they are accepting such low grades.

Its a farce.

The way exams used to work, for example GCSE's was that if you scored less than 40% you had failed. If you scored 41 to 60 its was a pass, 61 to 80 a credit, and 81-100 a distinction. Or some other such divisions such as grades A,B,C,F,U. You knew if i had a grade B+ and you had a grade B+, we knew about the same amount on the subject. Simlarly, if I had an F and you had an A, then i clearly was crap at it. Not with A Levels.

The way A levels work is all the paper marks are arranged in order. Then  they work out what the pass mark has to be to get say 10% of the people in the top A+ category. This means in  a year when a lot of smart people take the exam, you might have to score 95% to get in the top . On the other hand, if a large number of particularly stupid people take it, you might have to only score 70% to get in the top bracket.

Similarly, they set the fail mark so that no more than say 5% of the people fail. This again could be 25 marks one year and 55 marks the next year. I could pass with 30 this year and fail with the same mark next year.

This obviously is nonsense. My A+ A level might have a score of 99%, and your A+ might only have been gotten with a 45%.

Obviously, the marks are meaningless for the purposes of comparing two job candidates.  And since the object of an exam is to demonstrate your knowledge, intelligence and general level of education, then A levels as such indicate nothing whatsoever unless you know the exact mark each person got, which you never do.

So its an exam that is almost impossible to fail, and exam thats g'teed to have more people in the top bracket every year because they can move and fiddle the number as they like, and it bears no reflection on the abilities of those that have taken it from year to year, because the relationship of mark to score is a variable floating calculation different every year.

What it IS about is covering up the failings of the education system, crippled by 14 years of  political interference by Nu Labour, looney left educationist theories, and political correctness. And I demand better for my grandkids than that.

By the way, in your post, its 'Internet', not 'Interent', and a 'sentance'  is given to people found guilty, usually by the Judge in the form of a spoken 'sentence'.

love  it

Thank you. Playing Grammar Nazi on internet forums is a dangerous game unless you are a genius at written english and never make a typo. People who play that game usually dont last more than three posts before they shoot themselves in the foot. Its also a stupid, pointless game to play, and  is nothing to do with debating.

 8)

[Jeannine]

Well, I can spell, I just can't type so most folks are used to my unique way of writing.

Interesting links Grawc`, thank you

XX Jeannine

[Sparkly]

Just to add the boundaries don't change for the new A*. A candidate has to score an average (mean) score of 90% or more over all exams taken during the AS and A2 year with no A2 exam at below 90% even with a higher average.

[Bugloss2009]

Thank you. Playing Grammar Nazi on internet forums is a dangerous game unless you are a genius at written english and never make a typo. People who play that game usually dont last more than three posts before they shoot themselves in the foot. Its also a stupid, pointless game to play, and  is nothing to do with debating.

 8)

Well, someone round here has metaphorically invaded Poland, and it wasn't me.

My last post consisted of 2 words, and had 2 grammatical errors. 3 if you're really picky.

[Mark S]

I work at a Uni, not academic, purely on the support side. So having things to do with students, and having things to do with external contractors, I have come to a conclusion:

If I had to offer a job, and there was 2 candidates, one with a degree in the subject, and one totally unqualified but 20 years experience of doing the job, who do you think I would pick?

So shortly young people will be leaving with £50K of debt, and still at a disadvantage, even though they have been told they are ridiculously intelligent. Not necessarily going to help them find a job is it?

[Melbourne12]

Ok Just for fun I looked around to see if I could dig up some old papers to compare with those today..

This is this the General Certificate of Secondary Education (O Level) - Foundation Tier -Mathematics 4306/2F (Specification A) from November 2010

http://store.aqa.org.uk/qual/gcse/qp-ms/AQA-43062F-W-QP-NOV10.PDF

This is a 1962 O Level Maths paper

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B7gv596sc3JYNjc0NTAzZWMtZTJmZC00OTUxLTljMzctM2ZkYjM5NWQxZDU5&hl=en_US

I know this is not a proper like for like comparrison as todays Maths exams are modular and times vary etc.. but which paper would you rather do?

That's quite startling.  The modern one is little more than a mental maths test.  Even at my advanced age I can do all of those in my head (yes, I know that you have to "show your workings" or draw diagrams on some, but you take my point), with one exception.

Edith says that an isosceles triangle has rotational symmetry of order three.
Why is Edith wrong?

My first thought would be to put, "Because her mathematics teacher is crap", but I've a feeling that would be marked down as "inappropriate".

Edit: I've just been told that the 2010 paper is the basic one on which candidates can score a "C" grade at best.  It's the equivalent of an old CSE, not an O Level.  So I was being a bit harsh in my earlier comment. 

[shirlton]

Its a bit too late for me to learn how to spell and submit posts that are grammatically perfect. I have probably spelt that wrong too, but at my age I don't bloomin care. I can grow decent cauli though. ;D

[Melbourne12]

Its a bit too late for me to learn how to spell and submit posts that are grammatically perfect. I have probably spelt that wrong too, but at my age I don't bloomin care. I can grow decent cauli though. ;D

I envy your ability to grow caulis.  Mine are barely eatable.

Maybe our schools should concentrate more on useful skills like growing veg, and less on absurdly simple sums.

For example

Jane needs 250 kg of wood chip for her garden. At the garden centre she can buy it in two ways, in bags or a single load that is
delivered.

One bag weighs 25 kg and costs £2.85.  She takes the bags home in her van.

A single load weighs 250 kg and costs £17.  The delivery charge is £10.

Which is the cheaper way of buying the 250 kg of wood chip?
Show all your working.

They could start by teaching the children that woodchip is sold by volume, not weight.

[lincsyokel2]

And its not just A levels tha have been turned into worthless mickey mouse qualifications. labour made GCSE's a laughing stock as an academic exercise

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028620/How-Labour-let-generation-easy-GCSEs.html

[Bugloss2009]

actually i agree. That guy from the RSC who just died found that higher tier GCSE's from 2009 in maths were easier than 1960 11 Plus exams...............

Still, if I were a were a kid who had just got their results, I would be totally hacked off with all this dumbing down stuff. They can only do what they have been asked, and i'm sure that despite our best efforts they are no less intelligent that they used to be

maybe the problem is with the expression "Mickey Mouse". That's an American monstrosity and need not concern us at all. Surely ours should be "Wallace and Gromit". Puts a whole different complexion on it. Now I would wear a Wallace and Gromit degree with Pride. Crackin' Degree, Gromit!

[Hector]

Well said Bugloss. My kids work really hard at school and are really motivated to learn/get good grades. It saddens me that folk rip into exam standards...you can only be assessed on what you have been taught.

In saying that, I agree that the standards have changed and the curriculum perhaps needs an overhaul :).