Does including O'levels on your CV give away your age

fira

A year before my 65th birthday I applied for a part-time job with a government agency and was asked to bring my O and A level certs plus details of any other qualifications to the interview. I was taken into a side room and asked if the O and A level documents were genuine. They'd never seen certificates where the results hadn't been graded and I'd to explain that when I sat them only passed or failed appeared against each subject. Felt my age that day but I did get the job.

Bill

sangie595

fira wrote: »

A year before my 65th birthday I applied for a part-time job with a government agency and was asked to bring my O and A level certs plus details of any other qualifications to the interview. I was taken into a side room and asked if the O and A level documents were genuine. They'd never seen certificates where the results hadn't been graded and I'd to explain that when I sat them only passed or failed appeared against each subject. Felt my age that day but I did get the job.

Bill

How odd. It must be an examining board quirk. All mine have the grades. As did my mother's, and she was in the first cohorts of students to take O and A levels. Her O levels were taken in 1953, and they were only introduced two years before that. A-C were considered passes. D-F were fails.

fira

I'm sorry sangie595, I should have said that they were Scottish O and A levels under the now defunct Scottish Examination Board. The 'youngest' certificate I am sitting looking at is dated 1968 so grading must have started, at least in Scotland, after that.

Bill

Nick_C

sangie595 wrote: »

How odd. It must be an examining board quirk. All mine have the grades. As did my mother's, and she was in the first cohorts of students to take O and A levels. Her O levels were taken in 1953, and they were only introduced two years before that. A-C were considered passes. D-F were fails.

I took "O" levels in 1973. They were graded 1to 9. 1 to 6 was a pass, 7 to 9 was a fail.

For A levels, A to E was a pass, O was a fail but treated as an O Level pass, and I think F was a complete fail.

Only Use of English and General Studies were ungraded, simple pass or fail.