Judging from today's results, it's now virtually impossible to fail an A-level. The overall pass rate climbed for the 28th year in a row, with 97.6% of A-levels being graded A* - E. Sceptics used to joke that you only needed to write your name at the top of the paper to pass an A-level, but given the appallingly low levels of literacy in this country it seems probable that more than 2.4% of candidates failed to do that. From which it follows that A-levels are now so easy you can pass one without managing to write your own name. A simple 'X' will suffice, even if the rest of the paper is completely blank. (To read more, click here.)
Grading by the bell curve is not the answer to grade inflation. It is used at several North American universities (e.g. McGill in Montreal) and promotes mistrust, envy and suspicion among students. It discourages teamwork, co-operation and any form of peer assistance on a course as if a student does so, they may harm their own chances of getting a higher score.
It's quite common at institutions where grading is by the bell curve for students not to share notes if someone misses a lecture, not to loan books, to keep original ideas to themselves etc etc. Is that really an atmosphere we want to be promoting in schools?
Re: Here
Posted by Toby Young on 24-08-2010 08:26:
Rob,
You make a good point and it reflects my experience as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard from 1987-88. However, it was only due to the fact that each class of approx 20 students was marked according to a bell curve. If the whole of the country is marked that way it's perfectly possible for all the students in a single class to get the top mark and, therefore, what I'm proposing wouldn't discourage cooperation.
