Well I got my results for the past 2 years of GCSE work in school, and here they are:

Design Technology (Graphics): A
French: A
Geography: A*
Mathematics: A
Religious Studies: C
Science (Double award): 2x A*
English Language: A
English Literature: C
ICT: A*

So thats 4 A*s, 4 As and 2 Cs. Not bad.

The entry requirements for my college are based on a point system. To join you need '46' points (the equiv. of 8 B's). My grades add up to '72' points. It's a good'n

Excellent.

All you needed to get into my college was a head on your shoulders.

Sounds familiar

Nice work.

What's an A*, anyways? Never had one of those in my day. In fact, I'm not even sure we do nowadays.

I'd venture to guess the equivelent of an A+, meaning 100... and any high school that gives out 100 in a class to anyone probably means its easy as f*ck. So yea

There is no A+ in my school.

"A star", I think, kinda like an "A++"


Basically, Robo blitzed it.

Translation: Geek

Although they are getting easier. I think like 90% of the country got As

I know people who got 10 A*s.

...And people complain US education is declining.

Don't get me started on our education system, I work in it...

Let's just say that Robo's achievement would mean so much more if it were not for the fact that nearly everyone got results along these lines. Low-achievers and difficult students that won't go onto the education 'production line' are simply pushed out before exams, therefore they are not included in the percentages. And then, if that were not enough, they move the marking grades around to make sure that schools and colleges give a gleaming image of our education system.

This has twofold effect, one, people like Robo who earned their marks and worked hard are only a few grades above people who barely escaoed the NEET (No Education, Employment or Training) trash-heap. It belittles his achievments and, two, leaves one part of the job market saturated with applicants and the rest of it bare.

Now, add to this the Learning Skills Councils determination that the ONLY exit routes from school should be to either pay for college, pay for university or tax-paying employment, and that training schemes like ours, which actually take on the ones the schools largely don't want and pay a wage to their trainees for work-based learning, instead of earning money for the council, should be financially squeezed to death...

Anyway, I've gone and started, so I'll do you all a favour and stop

There is no A+ in my school.

Arr, we stop at A's as well...

Let's just say that Robo's achievement would mean so much more if it were not for the fact that nearly everyone got results along these lines. Low-achievers and difficult students that won't go onto the education 'production line' are simply pushed out before exams, therefore they are not included in the percentages.

With reference to that, all students here are forced to take their exams regardless of their abilities. Thats why in the UK it isn't as simple as one exam paper for one subject. It's actually broken down into 2 or 3 different papers each with a varying degree of skill required. E.g. Maths has three papers: the higher (hard), the intermediate (medium) and the foundation (easy).

So as it happens they do get included in the 'percentages', whether they like it or not and whether they can do it or not.

Also, not 'nearly everyone' got results along the lines of my own. I can safely say that out of my tiny school 'year' of 130 people who recieved their results on Thursday, only about 20% (at best) got more than 2 As! I saw half of them in tears True - more and more students are getting A's in this country. They blame this on the exam questions becoming easier and easier, when it fact its the students getting fundamentally smarter and smarter as they are forced to learn more. It's just stupid

I am very lucky to get my results, and if any f#####g old-woman-who-writes-for-the-newspaper and her Cheshire cat want to tell me that it was easy to earn them, they can burn on a stick for all I care. The number of times I worked from the moment I got home from school until say 4am was unbelievable. I must have done that for collectively a whole month, I put all of my effort into creating decent school work that would earn me the marks that I wanted to get. It was not a walk in the park, it makes me sick that they claim that.

On average it may seem that my exams were easy, but I worked hard for what I recieved and I'm proud of what I've done.

Not to put down your achievement any Robo but there is a difference between an exam that is hard and an exam that is worthwhile.

When I took my GCSEs I was given the choice between chemistry, biology and physics. My sister who was two years younger got the joint science exam.

Since I'd heard bad things about it I took a look at it and it was ridiculous. My sister was telling me that even though she was in the second year of study they hadn't covered basic things like the stucture of ammonia yet. Instead they were doing class projects like designing a spatula and other idiotic forms of makework like that. I know she had to work hard to get good grades in the science exam but was the result worth it if at the end she didn't actually know much physics, chemistry or biology?

I'll agree that you almost certainly had to work hard to get your grades, I'm not putting you down for that but that too was something that started coming in when I was doing my GCSEs. A reliance on coursework over final exams. This may seem like a good idea to some but quite frankly I hated it.
You had to work much harder throughout the whole year with less of a guarentee that you actually understood it all at the end because once you had passes a module you could completely forget about it. (Unlike exam based courses where you had to remember it for the final exam).

On top of that coursework reliance favours girls over boys (Who traditionally do much better in exam based courses than coursework based ones).