3 ms·

I worked my fingers to the bone to get A grades in my highers. The grading was done based on a distribution where only a certain % of candidates could get each

I worked my fingers to the bone to get A grades in my highers. The grading was done based on a distribution where only a certain % of candidates could get each grade in a given exam. Teacher assesed grades are antithetical to the purpose of exams. This has been an incredible act of political cowardice on behalf of the UK governments. The only mitigating factor I can see is the universities benefiting from a larger candidate pool in the UK since there has been massive drop-off in EU students applying.

taurath 5y ago
Stack ranking in a school setting is a terribly morally wrong thing IMO.
- jstx1 5y ago
  The thing is that stack ranking doesn't make sense for school grades but it makes sense for university admissions and A-levels are used for both.
  - taurath 5y ago
    For universities that are primarily concerned with their reputation as a scarce commodity over the scaling of a quality education, sure. The unfortunate thing is this has become nearly all universities. The social signaling is more important than the education. Let’s all remember that when deciding what to value in such a system.
baliex 5y ago
Interesting point on the mitigating factor. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
ascar 5y ago
> Teacher assesed grades are antithetical to the purpose of exams. The point of an exam is to assess a students knowledge on the given subject not to rank students against their peers. It's especially unfair when the number of peers is low like in a school setting.
CJefferson 5y ago
I don't see how this effects the size of the candidate pool -- Universities increase/decrease their entrance requirements each year, based on their current popularity + expected grades from students. Of course, because you have to make all your offers, then see who makes their grades, it's annoying hard to predict.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
> The grading was done based on a distribution where only a certain % of candidates could get each grade in a given exam I don't think that's fair, either. That's suitable when you have a ranking and only the top n are accepted (like in admission exams) but IMHO not when the idea is to benchmark against a level of achievement: In which case it does not really matter how well others did, only how well each candidate did against the expectation. So while I do think exams should be so that only a certain % of candidates usually get top grades, I think that this should be achieved by calibrating exam questions to the appropriate level of difficulty. For instance, there should be a few stretch questions that are challenging enough that maybe only the top 10% on average are expected to get them right and the grades' thresholds should be set accordingly. A-levels are ridiculous to the point that when it was becoming evident that too many As were handed a few years back the answer was to create a new A* grade for the "really good ones". But of course inflation did not stop so I fully expect someone to propose A* in a few years.
- candiodari 5y ago
  > but IMHO not when the idea is to benchmark against a level of achievement. Yeah but the level of achievement required for starting university education has steadily dropped, and university enrollment has risen as a result. I once read an article that claimed to have done the math for this, on math. It claimed that the absolute top grade in 1976 in high school math would have been insufficient to have gotten you into university just 15 years earlier. I believe they assumed you answered all the questions asked correctly and would leave any more advanced questions blank.

taurath 5y ago

Stack ranking in a school setting is a terribly morally wrong thing IMO.

jstx1 5y ago
The thing is that stack ranking doesn't make sense for school grades but it makes sense for university admissions and A-levels are used for both.
- taurath 5y ago
  For universities that are primarily concerned with their reputation as a scarce commodity over the scaling of a quality education, sure. The unfortunate thing is this has become nearly all universities. The social signaling is more important than the education. Let’s all remember that when deciding what to value in such a system.

baliex 5y ago

Interesting point on the mitigating factor. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

ascar 5y ago

> Teacher assesed grades are antithetical to the purpose of exams. The point of an exam is to assess a students knowledge on the given subject not to rank students against their peers. It's especially unfair when the number of peers is low like in a school setting.

CJefferson 5y ago

I don't see how this effects the size of the candidate pool -- Universities increase/decrease their entrance requirements each year, based on their current popularity + expected grades from students. Of course, because you have to make all your offers, then see who makes their grades, it's annoying hard to predict.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

> The grading was done based on a distribution where only a certain % of candidates could get each grade in a given exam I don't think that's fair, either. That's suitable when you have a ranking and only the top n are accepted (like in admission exams) but IMHO not when the idea is to benchmark against a level of achievement: In which case it does not really matter how well others did, only how well each candidate did against the expectation. So while I do think exams should be so that only a certain % of candidates usually get top grades, I think that this should be achieved by calibrating exam questions to the appropriate level of difficulty. For instance, there should be a few stretch questions that are challenging enough that maybe only the top 10% on average are expected to get them right and the grades' thresholds should be set accordingly. A-levels are ridiculous to the point that when it was becoming evident that too many As were handed a few years back the answer was to create a new A* grade for the "really good ones". But of course inflation did not stop so I fully expect someone to propose A* in a few years.

candiodari 5y ago
> but IMHO not when the idea is to benchmark against a level of achievement. Yeah but the level of achievement required for starting university education has steadily dropped, and university enrollment has risen as a result. I once read an article that claimed to have done the math for this, on math. It claimed that the absolute top grade in 1976 in high school math would have been insufficient to have gotten you into university just 15 years earlier. I believe they assumed you answered all the questions asked correctly and would leave any more advanced questions blank.