A level results

[jah]

Pupils have always been able to have more than 1 go at A'levels. Several people I knew didn't get the A'level results they wanted, and stayed on to a 3rd year in the 6th to resit. One of my friends who flunked first time round went on to get a 1st, and is now head of department at a university

Now schools seem less keen on letting people resit afterwards as they have the chance to resit within the 2 years.

[Belinda]

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[T.i.p.s.y]

It's interesting that admissions tutors think the students are weaker yet the Universities award more firsts!

Contradictory ....

The more firsts a uni gives, the better they look in the league tables.

[KB]

With students & universities now being told marks for each module at AS as well as A2 it allows Universities to make offers based on how well students have performed in each module (e.g. an 80% v. a 96% A grade) as well as their performance at interview (where subject based questions outside the curriculum can be introduced).
The current system does mean that a good performance at AS reduces the pressure at A2 but with the introduction of the A* grade (at 90% I believe) the bar could be raised if Univerties make A* offers.
My son has just finished at the 'top state school' in the Country with outstanding results gained through intelligence, hard work and great teaching. It may be easier to get an A grade under the modular system thanks to the building block approach, but please let him and his fellow students enjoy their well earned success.

[Lulu]

KB

Q.E.D.

Lulu
(A 'grown-up' who took an extra A level when she was 40+ )

[KB]

Wow Lulu - how brave

[Lulu]

KB

No, not brave because I had nothing at stake, but an invaluable insight into how things are done nowadays. However, best of all, none of my children can argue with me that I don't know what I'm talking about when I help them with their homework , well in one subject anyway!

Lulu

[solimum]

An interesting statistic perhaps would be:
What percentage of all those who sat A levels did not get any A grades? i.e. all their results were B or lower. Anyone?

More sloppy journalistic statistics here - the Guardian says "More than a quarter (25.9%) of pupils received A grades" when what they actually mean is "more than a quarter of exams..." - there is no information given on the number of pupils

A quick back-of the-envelope calculation - roughly 830,000 A levels are taken of which say 210,000 are grade A

There are around 320,000 pupils entered for A levels (this is the 2007 figure from dcsf figures, rounded up a bit) of which say 10-12% or 32,000-36,000 get 3 or more As - say around 100,000- 120,000 of the As between them at least

That leaves 90,000-100,000 or so remaining A grades for the other 280,000 -290,000 pupils

Assuming (for no particular reason) that 2/3 of these go to pupils with AA and the rest to those with one A, this will account for around 60,000-70,000 more pupils with one or two As, leaving 220,000 with no A grades, around 70% of pupils taking the exams.

Possible sources of error - how many of of the As actually "belong" to those with AAAA or AAAAA, especially considering Further Maths, General studies etc - this would increase the proportion with no A grades. Also the balance between one A and two As may be different. Also some (many?) must take only 1 or 2 A levels or the totals won't add up...

This will bug me now unless I can find more accurate info!

Interestingly if every pupil had an equal (25.9%) chance of getting an A independently in each of 3 exams the proportion with none would be only around 40% (roughly 0.74 cubed) whereas the proportion with AAA would be less than 2%!

[Belinda]

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[Guest55]

It was Mark Twain that said:

'lies, d*mn lies and statistics' ... full quote on link below.


I can remember using the same data to both prove and disprove a hypothesis ... makes you think indeed!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1091350