Aren't you a little long in the tooth to be sitting 'A' levels?

I prefer the current system of having exams every six months, so I don't have to remember what I learnt about Talcott Parsons two years ago.

How would it work for creative subjects? and what about coursework?

You're never too old to learn! There is more to life than fish you know.

...unless you're a seal.

I would have thought that there was a place for a mix of approaches, depending on subject.

For instance, in art, there's room for course work [iand[/i an exam in history.

Or perhaps, going further, other subjects could/should be something like 50/50, on the grounds that some people can easily swot up for an exam, even if they've apparently done little work over the period of the course, while exam performance is also open to lots of external factors that can be detrimental, from having a period to family issues to all sorts of things.

Sex?

I'd draw a distinction between subjects like art, and pure academic subjects. Your art would be produced during your course, not at the end, but it would indisputably be yours (unless you got your mate to come and throw a few quick brush strokes at your canvas while the lecturer/tutor was at the toilet).

The problem with course work is everybody knows that everybody would be tempted to a path of least effort, and from internet cut'n'pasting to plagiarism to wholesale cheating by buying answers, and it must be the case that you're rarely marking work which is the work, the whole work and nothing but the work of the individual student. This can only get worse as technology gets better, and there is already stiff online competition to "assist" students in ways which are varying distances short of or over the line. (As well as of course many cons, where the unsuspecting buy dummy work which is in fact garbage).

While I would accept that everyone is different in their capacity to swot up for an exam, I think that applies only to revision. In the context of a decent university course, there is no substitute for assimilating and understanding the numerous components of your course, something in which regular explanation and assistance from tutors is essential. If you didn't attend that part of the course, then you simply don't know it, and no amount of swotting up can teach you things which require explanation.

Of course no system is perfect, and I'd accept that there will always be intelligent and hardworking students who for unusual reasons just can't cope well with the situation of an exam, and if there are ways to offer some help or solution for them then those could be explored, but for the substantial majority I would say that exams, where there is no substitute for bringing your knowledge in your head, are a better and more trustworthy indicator than course work. If there was a way to verify that all course work was genuinely the individual's own effort, then I'd support that as the better method, but I don't see that there is.

1. That would be art history, not art. All study in art based subjects of existing artists/designers/illustrators is used for inspiration and reference, not just regurgitation of facts and inferences on history of art, like an art history exam would most likely entail.


2. in A levels? Are you kidding? General studies maybe.

It's more simple then even that.
You could have the best student in the world who is bob-on with the subject in hand but they are not great in high pressure situations. So 1 bad day and everything is wrecked.

In the current system that is mitigated because a good student is a good student is a good student.
With course work and exams you get a whole picture of their schooling.
With 1 exam as I have already mentioned it could all go breasts up for some very clever students.

The thing that I don't get is why they are so desperate for the change.
If I was to hazard a guess as to why it is to try and drop the pass mark percentages as they don't like the fact that so many are passing.

It's down to Gove's ideology, pure & simple. The man is arrogant beyond belief and seeks to railroad through any crackpot idea that currently takes his fancy.

As for reducing the numbers of people passing, that can only lead to a reduction in the numbers going to university. Universities are now businesses, relying on constant throughput of students to maximise revenues. They also attract a substantial amount of foreign investment. So, if you combine a falling roll of UK students going on to further education with a falling number of foreign students (because of increasingly tighter restrictions on student visas), the only logical outcome can be a reduced number of universities who cater more and more for only those who can afford to attend.

Yes. Art history. Which was a specific element of an art 'A' level back at an old-fashioned girls' grammar school in the olden days. Or the beginning of the 1980s, at Lancaster Girls' Grammar School, in my case.



Do you know all my fellow students at the time of my 'A' levels, and the amount of work they turned in during the previous two years and their subsequent success rates (or otherwise) come exam time itself?

As a former employee on fleet street that is hardly suprising.

Back to elitism it is then.
That too is hardly suprising.

rlHe's at it againrl

It would seem another U-turn is on the cards.