Exam Grades?

[dar1437]

What is the difference between exam grades, lets say A level, grade A/B/C/D

 

[dar1437]

Could it be that between 90/100% is an A, between 80/90 is B and so on, or is it not that logical?

 

[chookey]

Could it be that between 90/100% is an A, between 80/90 is B and so on, or is it not that logical?

Nowhere near that logical dar, a quick look at grade boundaries on Google will show what I mean. By the way I've scored you a "U"

 

[avid]

@dar1437 U da man

 

[river4ever]

Hoping not to go of thread to much, but its title is about exam grades.
When i was at school i tortured the teachers and my parents were fed up calling to school with me fighting and just being a teenager.
But at 15 or 16 when i was ready and wanting to leave school.... they sent us all out “work experience” for a week. I went into retail for a week.
My father said......
“dont work for someone that defines how much your holiday costs, build your skills as when they tell you theres no work you can find your own as your just a number out there”.

Over 20 years later they were best words he said to me. With me leaving school with just two GCSE's.
(english (C) , maths (A)

I went onto being heavily involved on steel engineering, and without sounding a di*k it pays really well.
I do think leaving school with as much as possible helps, but really does “NOT” define your future income.

EDIT: i did need welding/engineering/health & safety certificates and more important “EXPERIENCE” that took years.
But not school years.
So “A” and “B” results in schools is not the be all and end all.

(my experience)

 

[Exos]

Hoping not to go of thread to much, but its title is about exam grades.
When i was at school i tortured the teachers and my parents were fed up calling to school with me fighting and just being a teenager.
But at 15 or 16 when i was ready and wanting to leave school.... they sent us all out “work experience” for a week. I went into retail for a week.
My father said......
“dont work for someone that defines how much your holiday costs, build your skills as when they tell you theres no work you can find your own as your just a number out there”.

Over 20 years later they were best words he said to me. With me leaving school with just two GCSE's.
(english (C) , maths (A)

I went onto being heavily involved on steel engineering, and without sounding a di*k it pays really well.
I do think leaving school with as much as possible helps, but really does “NOT” define your future income.

EDIT: i did need welding/engineering/health & safety certificates and more important “EXPERIENCE” that took years.
But not school years.
So “A” and “B” results in schools is not the be all and end all.

(my experience)

I don't think you are; far too many people place an exceptional amount of importance on school exams and whilst I see that they give a grounding, particularly for some specific fields, it's not the be all and end all. I'm certainly testament to that

I'm likely to go off on a tangent here now, but it's more so to support what you're saying.

But, you know what, I completely agree with this. I wasn't very good in school, was bullied quite a bit as my parents where not the most affluent, didn't take much interest in schooling and i took what I could, had free school meals and so on, but it had a huge impact on my confidence and my ability. I had low exam results even in pre-GCSE and mocks and never really applied myself, most of my yearly reports where 'could do better'; Work experience was in a school for other kids with learning disabilities (which was kind of a case of 'it was the only thing left on the list')

I didn't take any particular interest in what subjects I chose for my final years and in fact it was mainly based on what I thought would be the easiest, taking subjects like Art and Home Economics (I actually wanted to be a Chef at one point)

I came out with 11 results mainly low D's, I think maybe one C and even an F (in Maths). I think science was the only one that I actually did well at and wasn't even trying.

I was a child of the 70's/80's and left school to go onto a YTS in IT (yes those wonderful schemes dreamed up by our Government for £29.50 per week). It wasn't a school option to do IT in schools, but I ended up in a placement at Unilever (John West Foods), and did everything from clean up, count prawns and check tuna (helped with product quality assurance), go out to buy sample products from the shops, and just on the off actually periodically get involved in some IT (spreadsheets, DBASE II, Clipper etc)

6 months in I took a permanent job being an Admin Assistant and dropped the YTS, I did that for years and went on to be a customs and excise clerk until I got a break in the late 90s to help them support their IT with what was Cap Gemini (this was the days of Novell Netware, DOS, Windows 3.1, Amstrad PC's and emails only being sent in batches once a day from a PC/modem in the corner of the office). I was made redundant in early 2000, and this was the kick up the arse I needed, I went to work for CSC as an IT co-ordinator in the support space, from there my career just went from strength to strength, just like my confidence, to desktop support, senior support analyst, site lead, deputy area lead and so on, until today where I'm now Enterprise Architect for Digital Platforms, Infrastructure and Technology.

The point is, I have no degree, limited college experience (other than a one day a week BTEC i did in business), my schooling was poor, I learnt on the job and picked up training in particular areas/products etc as i went from job to job.

 

[janobi]

Simple answer Dar is it depends on the exam, they normally use a mean across the exam. So the more people that are getting say 90% of questions correct, the higher the % required to get the grades and vice versa.

So if say 75% of the exam takers are getting 90% of the answers correct, then the A* threshold will be a lot higher, and that then filters down to the other grades. And by the same example is 90% of exam takers are getting only 45% of the answers correct then the threshold for A* is lowered significantly.

Personally I have 14 GCSEs, 3 A Levels, and a BSc in Marketing, im also studying for a MSc in Cyber Security. I didn't start working in IT until about 8 years ago, and have subsequently moved up the chain pretty quickly, and am now an architect for an extremely large insurance company.

The best bit of advice I was given was, get a degree as no-one can take that away from you, and it was absolutely correct. I've never used my degree, but it's mine, and no-one can take it away from me, and it does open doors.

 

[avid]

A bit off topic but if you had to choose which would you rather have, qualifications or common senseless.

 

[janobi]

A bit off topic but if you had to choose which would you rather have, qualifications or common senseless.

Put it this way, my wife says I am the stupidest clever person she's ever met. So I guess that will answer that question.