The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Cakeguts

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

I did A-Level Physics, our teacher was hopeless. She just read out the stuff from the text book. If you asked any questions she just told you to read the text book. I got a second "O-Level" for Physics. Teacher died the next year - my friend who had gone back to do UVI for a second time (she wanted to be doctor but didn't get good enuff grades) then went to local boys school for physics classes.

My parents wouldn't allow me to go through clearing. They'd insisted I know what job I would do post degree so I chose pharmacy, for which physics is mandatory. I'm still, all these years later, really angry with my parents over that. Could have done biochemistry, which in fact I did as HNC but left my work as lab teck shortly after to go to art school! :rotfl:

Your HNC is now the equivelent of a 1st class honours degree from a reasonable university. You have to do 4 years now to get to the standard of the old BSc because students start from a lower level of education. It is ridiculous all that is happening is that over 18s have to pay more and more to stay at university for longer and longer to make up the difference. Once an A* at A level is being awarded for a good pass in an exam the standard of the old 11 plus students will have to pay for about 7 years of university education just to get to the standard of the old Bsc. Who is this dumbing down and grade inflation supposed to be helping? The only people to benefit are those people working in the universities.

Cakeguts

LydiaJ wrote: »

Cakeguts
You have been told many times, by people like me who know what we're talking about, that it is simply not true that you can get an A at A-level today by being the same standard as a D or E in the old days. You have been asked, many times, to provide evidence or statistics in support of your claims, and you have not responded to such requests.
This is the NICE PEOPLE THREAD. Please do not come on here to denigrate young people's achievements.

I am not denigrating young people's achievements. I am denigrating the people who are supposed to help them achieve and are not doing it.



Also telling the truth about something and not continuing the lie is not denigrating.



A levels have got easier. There is no argument about that they have got easier. The general population has not increased in intelligence so the number of people passing at grade A and A* should be static. It isn't it is increasing. If it increasing then something is changing to cause that increase. So either the marking is becoming more generous or the exams are getting easier and easier. Everyone knows that the exams have got easier but have they got easier and the marking is more generous?





What people want is to know where they stand. People don't generally want to be the same as everyone else. That is why there are people with different cars and different house windows everyone wants to be a bit special and people play sport to win. You cannot be special now with A levels because an average student can now get an A* in a few years everyone will get an A*. Not only that but now if you don't get an A* or an A you feel as if you are a failure. What the people who should be helping the students to achieve should be doing is asking for a much much harder exam so that only the very top students can get A* and very few get A so that no one feels as if they are a failure if they get a D or an E.


I am not going to argue with you over the exams getting easier because I didn't realise that they had until other people told me they had. Including people who are telling me that there are O level questions on A level papers.

Pyxis

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

I did A-Level Physics, our teacher was hopeless. She just read out the stuff from the text book. If you asked any questions she just told you to read the text book. I got a second "O-Level" for Physics. Teacher died the next year - my friend who had gone back to do UVI for a second time (she wanted to be doctor but didn't get good enuff grades) then went to local boys school for physics classes.

My parents wouldn't allow me to go through clearing. They'd insisted I know what job I would do post degree so I chose pharmacy, for which physics is mandatory. I'm still, all these years later, really angry with my parents over that. Could have done biochemistry, which in fact I did as HNC but left my work as lab teck shortly after to go to art school! :rotfl:

That's really tough, Maggie.

However, have you thought about doing an Open University degree?

When I was at school, the only science I did was Biology O Level, and I was hopeless at Maths. I did languages at A Level.

Then, when I was a lot older, and had given up on my first career, I reckoned I needed to fill that gap in my education, so I did the OU Science Foundation course, which was an eye opener! Biology, Chemistry,Physics and Geology.

I didn't intend to carry on with sciences after that, but I enjoyed the Biology so much that I went on to do Biology, Form and Function, then Animal Physiology, and then Biochemistry/Cell biology, which I loved! (I did some other stuff after that, to complete the degree).

It was incredibly well taught, and the summer schools with their lab experience were great!

That was in the 80s, so the course structure may have changed, but even if you just did the Biochemistry course, you might lay that ghost of disappointment.



(I found the Physics element of the Foundation course by far the hardest, but I managed to get through that bit ok, and it was interesting, even if it did give me a headache! )

Cakeguts

Pyxis wrote: »

That's really tough, Maggie.

However, have you thought about doing an Open University degree?

When I was at school, the only science I did was Biology O Level, and I was hopeless at Maths. I did languages at A Level.

Then, when I was a lot older, and had given up on my first career, I reckoned I needed to fill that gap in my education, so I did the OU Science Foundation course, which was an eye opener! Biology, Chemistry,Physics and Geology.

I didn't intend to carry on with sciences after that, but I enjoyed the Biology so much that I went on to do Biology, Form and Function, then Animal Physiology, and then Biochemistry/Cell biology, which I loved! (I did some other stuff after that, to complete the degree).

It was incredibly well taught, and the summer schools with their lab experience were great!

That was in the 80s, so the course structure may have changed, but even if you just did the Biochemistry course, you might lay that ghost of disappointment.



(I found the Physics element of the Foundation course by far the hardest, but I managed to get through that bit ok, and it was interesting, even if it did give me a headache! )

I did the Science Foundation course at the OU in the 80s and filled in all the gaps in my maths. It was so much easier when it got taught properly. I found the last part on the particle physics the easiest bit of the whole course.

Pyxis

LydiaJ wrote: »

Yes, they're easier. Yes the proportion of higher grades awarded is higher than it used to be. I'm not disputing that. However, they are nowhere near as much easier as you assert.

An A* now may well be the equivalent of A & B in the old A-level, but that's not a CSE, or an 11 plus pass, or whatever. You admit that your information is second-hand, and you appear to be admitting that you have no data to support your assertions, so please believe me, because I do actually know what I'm talking about, that grade inflation is real, but it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is.

When you say that an A* now is the equivalent of a CSE, or some such nonsense, you DO denigrate the achievements of those who only got an A, or a B or whatever, by suggesting they are not up to the standard of a CSE in the old days. I know how hard my students worked, and what they're capable of. I know what the old style exams were like - I did O-level in 1984 and A-level in 1986 - and my current A-level students' physics is at a much much higher standard than an old style CSE, so please don't suggest that it's the same.

ETA The "average student" does not get an A*. In physics, at A-level, less than 10% of the cohort get A*, and the median student is just above the B/C boundary for our exam board. That's reasonable - three passing grades above that boundary, and 3 passing grades below it. Considering that physics is now only taken by the brightest students in most places, whereas it used to be much more popular, that's SOME grade inflation, but again, not to the extent you suggest.

Lydia, you may be able to explain something to me that's been puzzling me for years and years.

When I did O and A levels, the pass grades were A,B,C,D,E and then there was also a bare Pass (which meant you'd only just scraped it).
(There might not have been a bare pass at A level, I can't remember).

Anyway, the A grade was a very narrow band right at the top. I can't remember the exact figures, and it varied a bit from subject to subject, but not much.

Let's say, out of 100 marks, A was 90-100, (it may even have been higher), and the other grades followed suit down to the bare pass which was either 40 or 45.


What I'm saying is that all the talk about exams getting easier seemed to come about when the bands were widened to A B and C only (as far as 'passing' was concerned. I know that pass and fail were forbidden words, but that was effectively it).
I know that I was surprised when I discovered that you could get an A at such a lower mark than I had been able to!

So, it seemed to me that the sensible things to do was to narrow the bands again, rather than have A, A*, and A** and so on.

I never, ever understood why those wide bands persisted, when the solution seemed so obvious.

Was I missing something?

It has genuinely been bothering me ever since my children were at school.

Pyxis

Cakeguts wrote: »

I did the Science Foundation course at the OU in the 80s and filled in all the gaps in my maths. It was so much easier when it got taught properly. I found the last part on the particle physics the easiest bit of the whole course.

Actually, yes, that bit was good!
It tied in well with my thirst for Sci-Fi! :rotfl:

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

...

As I understand it, at one point it changed ...

"Back in our day", say, an A was, say, getting 90%.
It was possible, therefore, for nobody at all to get an A... or everybody. Your grade indicated how well you did.

Then they changed it to a %age, so the results were based on the %ages of people ... if, say, A was set at 90% then it'd always mean that only 10% of people could ever get an A in one year.... and 90% wouldn't.

ukmaggie45

Pyxis wrote: »

However, have you thought about doing an Open University degree?

When I first got ill (ME/CFS) and then sacked I did a typing course with the idea of trying to get to University.

Started a BSc in Applied Psychology, part time. I had some help in that as a disabled student got to take exams in small room, also extra time due to cognitive difficulties (can't find the right words quite often eg that big white thing in the kitchen that's cold = refrigerator, but often can't even find an everyday word like that. I still have that problem, but 20 years later it's even worse now! :eek: ).

Got through Level 1 OK over 2 years. Did half level 2 then things got more difficult as my health worsened. Never finished level 2, despite trying over 2 years to do the second half of it. The crunch came when my lovely FiL died in the summer, and the Uni didn't even let me know when term started.

It was costing an arm and a leg that I didn't have anyway. But I learned how to use a computer, and even got husband to get internet at home! :j So learned a lot that continues to be of use to me today (even the Psychology :rotfl: ).

There's no way I could do OU as couldn't do the Summer School stuff. Plus my health is so up and down it would be difficult for me to get course work in on time too. Besides, I prefer to spend my money on hats and clothes nowadays! :rotfl: Oh, and plants and pots and caravan stuff too of course! :beer:

Pyxis

Fair enough!




Have a look at this.......

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/biochemistry

Ok, it's only a little 3-week intro type course, but it's free, it's online, with no time constraints as such, and might be interesting.

ukmaggie45

I'm too old and mentally gone to study Biochemistry any more now. Or anything else really. I'm observing nature currently, have seen some really weird stuff this year! Young blackbird eating dead mouse for one! :eek: Apparently quite rare for blackbirds to eat carrion.

And lots of bumble bees in the plants on our deck. One has been coming into the caravan for around 3 weeks now to visit the nasturtium flowers that we have in tiny vases on a "shelf" between living area and kitchen. She makes straight for the flowers, but also checks out the rest of the room as well. Flies with her proboscis hanging out - I guess she's tasting the air for flower smells? Will miss her when she stops coming - they don't live very long.