Chit Chat
to appease people ,cant have people failing ,not good for their self esteem they say.
What's the point in passing something with a 14%? seriously what is the point?
I just can't accept people are that dumbed down, they are forcefully trying to dumb people down now in my opinion, because they are petrified people are going to revolt.
Its nothing to do with appeasement now, people aren't that pitiful or at least I hope they ain't anyway
God help us, if they start giving grades to all and sundry we are defiantly heading into some dark times
The BBC are trying to tell us all the tests are to difficult
yet a few years they were to easy hence the high success rate And bare this in mind.... the pass rates have dropped this year
Because its all inclusive and we can't have anyone feeling left out?
So Mr Science Genius, you go and stack shelvs at Tesco, and you Mr Football you go and operate on that mans brain
Can just picture it now
We can't have Wayne feeling like he's not a public speaker
Get him in
14% to pass are the raw marks.
When you got a C at 51% that would have been the percentile mark.
They don't tell you the percentages you get, that's why the figures you are quoting were 'leaked'.
The leaked figures are percentages not percentiles. Scoring 14% to pass any qualification is a joke.
In the olden days employers wouldn't wany any passes at a C grade O level even though only 22% achieved this level ...there are only so many good jobs out there
actiones secundum fidei ,to you all out there
Aug 15, 2019 -- 3:34PM, Coachbuster wrote:
It doesn't matter really does it ? .... i say have a 100% pass rate and keep the folks happy . AtEOtD employers who want A grades will only select A grades . In the olden days employers wouldn't wany any passes at a C grade O level even though only 22% achieved this level ...there are only so many good jobs out there actiones secundum fidei ,to you all out there
It matters terribly. If you dumb down any qualification then the next higher level qualification will also be dumbed down. This has been going on for years. The government, both at the institutional level and the national level, will be happy because they can say standards are improving. Employers on the other-hand have, for several years, said the standard of recruits they take on is poor. All these things are related.
Aug 15, 2019 -- 3:31PM, Charlie wrote:
dtThe leaked figures are percentages not percentiles. Scoring 14% to pass any qualification is a joke.
Yes that's what im saying as well.
But when OP compares it to him needing 80% for A in his times is wrong imo. The OPs 81% for an A on his result card is a percentile mark not a percentage mark.
The guy that say got 14% in maths and passed this year will not have 14% written on his scorecard. it will have his percentile mark, which I guess would be about 40% for an E grade.
Aug 15, 2019 -- 3:45PM, Angoose wrote:
You were given a choice of paper within the exam hall ?
You had to choose a couple of months in advance, but that applies only to GCSE, not A level.
The leaked Edexcel document also shows that this summer, 43 marks (14%) would result in an E grade – considered a pass, while just over a third of marks (34%) would mean a C grade.
For OCR, 40 marks (13%) is the required threshold for an E grade this year, while 100 (33%) is needed to obtain a C.
These figures relate to overall grade boundaries for new specification maths A-levels.
Grade boundaries for Edexcel’s maths A-level show students who gained 165 out of a possible maximum of 300 marks (55%) will be awarded an A.
Separate documents show that those who took the OCR exam board’s A-level maths qualification will walk away with an A if they achieved 54% across all papers – a total of 161 out of 300.
Last year, 184 marks (61%) were needed for an A grade in Edexcel’s maths A-level, while for OCR’s qualification in the subject, the required mark was 197 (66%).
https://mathsmadeeasy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/AS-Paper-1-Pure-Mathematic.pdf
At a rough guess if I had to sit that paper now I might just about get a pass at 14% but would be touch and go. But give me a month to revise and I'm pretty sure I'd get 95%-100%. I haven't done maths for nigh on 30 years but 54% for an A grade is surely too low.
This year some 25.5% got an A grade or higher - the lowest level since 2007 when it was 25.3%.
Girls narrowly reclaimed the lead from boys, with 25.5% achieving A* and A grades compared with 25.4% of boys.
The overall pass rate remains the same as last year at 97.6% for students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49290421
If only 2.4% of students fail the exam, it does rather feel like an attendance certificate rather than a demonstration of competence.
https://mathsmadeeasy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/9MA0_01-Pure-Mathematics-1.pdf
Not so easy.
Good point - it does rather feel like an attendance certificate rather than a demonstration of competence.
2019: https://mathsmadeeasy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/9MA0_01-Pure-Mathematics-1.pdf
For comparison
https://www.emaths.co.uk/index.php/teacher-resources/classroom-materials/very-old-exam-papers/category/a-level-2
Cambridge 2017:https://pmt.physicsandmathstutor.com/download/Maths/A-level/Past-Papers/CIE/Paper-1/June%202002%20QP%20-%20P1%20CIE%20Maths%20A-level.pdf
Doesn't seem to be a big difference
Aug 15, 2019 -- 4:43PM, Charlie wrote:
Not really in a position to judge but do you have the corresponding pass rates and grade boundaries?
No and that's the whole point. They don't give out raw scores, because after they have evaluated all the papers, they sit down and decide where the average lies, which scores should be assigned which grades etc. They do this to ensure the results are comparable every year.
All I am saying is just because the raw percentages were leaked this time does not necessarily mean that back when you were giving these exams, your raw percentages were any better. People conveniently ignore the fact that they don't had out raw percentages yet when they are leaked this year people sound so alarmed despite the fact that they don't have anything to compare them with.
I've forgot the correct terminology from teacher training. As you've pointed out one is percentile based and one is percentage based. From what I remember it used to be percentage based i.e. you needed, say, 40% to pass for a D Grade, 50% for a C grade and so on which was regardless of the number of people passing. It was then changed to percentile based so that an equal number of people passed at each grade each year (as in a bell curve). Which was changed to more students pass at higher grades and now changed to purely percentile grades so it's difficult to fail.
Aug 15, 2019 -- 5:03PM, detraveller wrote:
I have to say though that the british system of education has to be the easiest in the world to crack. They even hand out examiner reports and detailed mark schemes. If you are good, and study enough past exams, you can easily predict what knowledge the examiner wants to test in a quesiton. You can literally predict the flow of the paper.
That's something else that's changed. Obviously there's a curriculum for each course. It used to be that questions were based on any part of the curriculum. As years passed it became more of a 'teaching to test' as in teachers were told to concentrate on what was likely to be in an exam and ignore parts of the curriculum. Better exam results meant standards of education were improving. Apart from the fact that they weren't which nobody could mention.
60-69 was a "B" (and still very respectable),
50-59 was a "C" and 40-49 was a "D".
30-39 was an "E" and 29 or below was "ungraded".
It's one thing making the exams "easier" (which is bad enough because it seems the whole system becomes devalued)
but actually making the pass marks lower seems a bit daft.
There are already loads of young adults out there with useless degrees (let alone "A" levels)
as employers aren't so impressed as they used to be by the word "degree" (because practically everyone's got one!)
Aug 15, 2019 -- 3:46PM, detraveller wrote:
Aug 15, 2019 -- 3:31PM, Charlie wrote:dtThe leaked figures are percentages not percentiles. Scoring 14% to pass any qualification is a joke.Yes that's what im saying as well.But when OP compares it to him needing 80% for A in his times is wrong imo. The OPs 81% for an A on his result card is a percentile mark not a percentage mark.The guy that say got 14% in maths and passed this year will not have 14% written on his scorecard. it will have his percentile mark, which I guess would be about 40% for an E grade.
but the standards will be just the same whatever level you set the bar ..... the highest grade will simply enable that candidate to go to Uni much as it did before
but the standards will be just the same whatever level you set the bar ..... the highest grade will simply enable that candidate to go to Uni much as it did before
That's not true because there are far more people going to uni now than before. Getting a place at a uni used to mean something now it's the norm.
Aug 15, 2019 -- 8:22PM, Charlie wrote:
Cbbut the standards will be just the same whatever level you set the bar ..... the highest grade will simply enable that candidate to go to Uni much as it did beforeThat's not true because there are far more people going to uni now than before. Getting a place at a uni used to mean something now it's the norm.
that much is true ...but it's good that more folk get the chance , if thats what they want to do .
In the 80s ,most of us were fed to some 'opportunities' programme ...i got out of that
a chance to go ,i cant see how that benefits the country myself .
If you are good at maths then go else where for your grade
Aug 15, 2019 -- 10:38PM, themightymac wrote:
Guy got an A but when asked what percentage he achieved replied, "Don`t know, I can`t fathom percentages".
bless him
