diary of infinity

According to Radio 4’s Statistics programme, More or Less, UK A-Level results have risen for 27 years in a row, not just in one subject but consistently, across the board in 10 monitored subjects. But exam questions will inevitably vary in difficulty, as will students’ aptitudes. The programme calculated that the odds of 27 consecutive rises were 100 million to 1. So what’s going on? Well other studies have concluded that A-Levels are getting easier (specifically, they said that students of a given ability have got progressively better grades). Originally only 10% of students were awarded grade 'A', now a staggering 45% get grade 'A'. Meaningless or what?!?!?!?! Grade inflation has been calculated at one grade per decade. I worked it out for my own modest results, and guess what? I would now qualify for five grade A's! (Not that I don't think I'm worth it, but that’s certainly not what I got!) We continually hear of calls to reform the A-Level system. Well here’s a thought: leave the system alone and simply use a marking system based on some kind of sanity! At one time they simply gave the top 15% an A, the next 25% a B, and so on. Then you could distinguish between people’s abilities, which surely is the point of the whole excercise, more or less.