Most teachers can't teach. They are barely literate and are ignorant of their subject. They don't give a damn about their pupils and are very lazy. They are unhygienic and most of them stink. They are all leftwing reactionaries & are money-obsessed. They all vote Labour and hate their own country. Most of them smoke & most are virtually alcoholic. They are unreflecting and can't think. They are immoral & help their pupils cheat to pass exams. All teachers must be replaced by computers.
I have taken a level exams, and my maths teacher once set us O level exams... the O level exams were much much harder, but that may have been because we were educated
There's a fair few comparison comments. Out of curiosity - I'm a history PhD student at Manchester and research is a hobby and vocation - I ventured into the examination centre's paper archive and the picture is really quite uneven. The current GCSE Higher maths papers (required for A and A*) is comparable first ('50s) generation A-level papers. History A-Level questions were closer to University exams in 1970 than 2000, but the introduction of source material questions possibly demanded more?
What a stupid git! Those questions prove nothing! And they are actually easy, all of those questions were just something you can memorise, there is nothing to think about, and as for the first question in the maths paper.. addition of fractions? really? primary school stuff. They ARE dumbing down exams, it is proven if you compare an O level paper from years back, to a GCSE paper from now. You will see the difference.
@Doctorwhorage I agree that those particular questions were easy, but how is it "proven if you compare an O level paper from years back, to a GCSE paper from now". Have you ever compared the two? I bet you haven't... It's A-levels that matter so who cares?
@samf0135 Well I have compared them obviously because I do my research BEFORE posting a comment, and O level paper was much harder... the point being that the transition from GCSE to A level is much harder than it was before, because GCSE doesn't prepare you enough, and the A level's have also gotten easier too, just look at A level physics papers from like 20 or 30 years ago then look at it now and you will see it has become a joke! Almost all of AS level physics is just O level physics....
I would have been able to answer this off the top of my head. The questions were not hard, especially as they will have been listed in the syllabus as something you had to know.
2) A flourine atom becomes a flouride ion by gaining an electron in its outer shell, thereby filling its outer shell and becoming more stable, but taking on a negative charge.
Nice rhetorical show, but complete bollocks. I did GCSE's 5 years ago & I freely admit they have dumbed down compared to past papers we were shown from years before. I got A's in Double Science even though I had no natural facility for the subject & hadn't paid attention in lessons simply because I spent a couple of weeks going through the text books. The fact that Gove can't answer off the top of his head questions from subjects he hasn't studied in decades does nothing to change this.
Don't know why people don't like Ed Balls, as far as the Labour party goes, he's better than bloody Ed Miliband (who is a tosser) and I really couldn't care less if the Tories get in again because of the fact Miliband is a twat, and I hate the Tories as much as the next person. Balls for PM!
GCSE'S ARE FRICKEN HARD!! i got my results coming out on the 25th ...so not long to wait..the younger generation are not dumming down at all!! the exams are getting harder- my french listening paper was so damn hard...couldnt even do the first question! and despite the fact that the exams are getting increasingly harder there is still loads of teenagers who do really well! i'm predicted to get all A*'s and A's and that took a LOT of hardwork and studying!!
lipase. if it gains an electron from from an electron donor, a metal perhaps. 2 7/20. these questions arent hard. saying that i got 5 As at A level and am doing a mathematics degree at a uni top 50 for it in the world
@Sab8r My Father was in the year after your and he claims that the first year of GCSEs had achieved great grades. The examiners then changed the difficulty and the following year GCSE results were much lower.
We now have 'bands' that take all students performances into account and rank them. So basically if everyone does really well it doesn't show and if everyone does bad nobody can tell. They change the grade boundary depending on how the country does. Which is unfair and makes it pointless.
Ed really doesn't prove anything here, he has nothing to offer the House and was a disaster while he was in office. It's time people noticed how little he can contribute and what a vile and objectionable man he is.
I was in the first year to take the 'new' GCSE exams (introduced by the Tories). We practised using the previous few years' O-level papers. All of us came out of the GCSE exams stunned at how easy they were compared to O-level. Unfortunately the A-level syllabus hadn't changed, so of course, we then had to play 'catch-up' to attain a true O-level status. Both parties have dumbed down the education system for political point scoring and nobody is fooled but themselves. :(
It's quite worrying to me that neither the secretary of education or the shadow secretary seem to be able to demonstrate any basic scientific or mathematical understanding.
@homiezrgr8 Sure, but I don't believe much has really changed in this area. It's not just Balls here; it's the whole room, and the attitudes that I think most politicians give out towards science & maths.
The enzyme that breaks down fat is called ligase! A fluorine atom change into a negative fluoride ion by GAINING electrons. The outer shell of electrons MUST have a full outer shell
@Angryification You got the enzyme one wrong! Its lipase. Ligase is a group of enzymes that is capable of binding things together, you may have come across DNA ligase.
As for the electron one, the outer shell doesn't HAVE to be full, the atom just, normally, has an equal number of electrons to protons, and that's not always true hence why you get ions.
The year after I finished my maths A-Level they turned P1-P3 into C1-C4. They wiped an entire module off the syllabus with no corresponding increase in the workload elsewhere. Accordingly the percentage of students getting A grades increased signifiicantly.
If that isn't grade inflation I'd like to know what is.
I've just sat my A-Levels and I found them hard! Now-a-days you don't just have to learn the subject but also how to answer the exam paper the way the exam board wants you to. It's like doing two subjects in one. That's the real problem, it's not how well you know a subject but how well you follow the exam boards rules. Basically, exams are hard subject wise with the added pressure of trying to abide by an exam boards rules.
The fact that @bartij doesn't even know how to spell "appraised" (double-p), "whinging" (not "winging"; that's what birds do), or "statistics" (rather than "statitics") is conclusive proof that our exams have been dumbed down by Labour. Maybe he should return to the bottom set where he belongs.
FUCK EVERYONE, I DON'T CARE THIS MAN SHOULD BE PM, HE IS THE DOGS BOLLOCKS!!!
ALL YOU PEOPLE WINGING ABOUT HOW TEENAGERS EXAM RESULTS ARE GETTING BETTER, JUST BECAUSE YOU DID SHIT IN SCHOOL!!!!! I HAVE JUST HAD MY ENGLISH PAPER 2 LANGUAGE TODAY AND IT WAS HARD, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, I WORKED FOR IT I WORKED 5 FUCKING YEARS FROM THE BOTTOM SET, WHERE ALL THE TEACHERS TREATED ME LIKE SOME THICK HEADED IDIOT, TO THE TOP WHERE I AM APRAISED FOR HAVING SOME OF THE HIGHEST STATITICS IN MY YEAR!!!!!!
And do you really think Ed Balls had any more idea of the answers to these questions, he would think they were difficult because he could hardly read them. One suspects that one may well lose IQ points just by listening to him! Also, I can tell you from experience that, for instance, everything in the the current A level maths is present in the old O level which is the equivalent of GCSE which students take a year before their A levels.
This is the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. Has ANYONE noticed he's used the 'additional science' paper with which to throw Gove what he believes are tough questions?(they're not even that difficult, really). How about some Foundation papers Ed?
Take it from someone who got 14 A*s in his GCSEs.... they have been dumbed down and whilst that may undermine my achievement, and the achievement of plenty of other 'hard-working students', it's the truth.
Here, here... I took all GCE O levels and A levels in the 80s and these modern papers are nowhere near what we had to do. As per my point below... give these modern papers from 20 years ago to so called A* students today and they would, on average, fail.
And besides that, Ed Balls is a total w@nker and not fit to be in office anyway. Fiddles his expenses and says "so what?" when higher taxes are announced.
Most definitely I could do be better. I am currently reading through the prep papers that my son is getting for his GCSEs and they ARE "nowhere near as hard". I found some of my old O Level papers in the loft and they cover subjects to far greater detail, and physics is now all multiple choice!
e.g. As to Maths, we had to learn logs, and differential equations, which are now not included until A Level.
The papers these days are easier... and that cannot be denied.
@tempie2000 Apparently everything is easier these days. Of course they could be, but in reality it is also easier to learn the subject too. I could go to an interactive site and learn Biology A Level more fluently than I could 16 years ago. Is this because the exams are getting easier or that information is easier to come by?
Also, this multiple choice exam in Physics you are talking about is one of many exams they take for those subjects, that's a mini-exam which you are taking out of context.
In that case, why is that in 2008 when 12 all-A* GCSE Maths students tried taking the 1982 GCE Maths O level papers (the same equivalent) they would have only been awarded 1A, 2Bs, 6Cs, and three failures with two Ds and one E grade using the same marking criteria.
Ed Balls is a total Muppet.. always has been and always will be.
@tempie2000 Because the specifications would be totally different? The content of the syllabi would be totally different but of a similar level of difficulty. I'm sure if those students were actually being taught the syllabus of the O level paper they would have done better. Not that I'm a fan of Ed, I just think you should think about your argument.
I'm not sure what's scarier, that Balls thought these were hard questions or that Gove couldn't answer them. No wonder science funding is in such a bad state if this is the level of scientific literacy of our 'Lords and Masters'...
The exams are not 'just as hard as they used to be'. 30 years ago logarithms were part of O-Level maths. These days they're A-level maths, yet the chemistry GCSE still needs an understanding of logarithms to do pH calculations. This was my experience 7 years ago...
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He just doesn't get it. It's the grade boundaries that have dropped, and the mark schemes that are accepting 'any reasonable answer'. Edexcel physics A level this year awarded an A in the final module to anyone gaining just over 50%. Says it all really.
Might as well also mention that none of the science questions Balls read out requires any intellectual or scholarly thought, but instead a regurgitation of the facts that the pupils have had drummed into them over 2 years.
@sheebp wow, have you looked at a physics paper at A level? it is not facts it is work this out for yourself. also it is not drummed into you over 2 years as the students have to sit an exam after one year where after that the course changes and becomes harder and they start to prepare for the final exam. there is a reason that the A grade is 50%. they change it to accommodate a reasonable amount of students. so if everybody got 60% the grade boundary would go up. go do some research
@indieruless I took it last year - so the answer is yes, I have, and I'm guessing in much more detail than you. My class spent two years learning about interesting things that are not on syllabus, and then spent the final two weeks learning the exact answers you have to put to get full marks according to the mark scheme. We all got 90%+. And yes, we did the AS and A2 in the final year together.
@sheebp Grade boundaries are moved according to how difficult a paper is, so if it is incredibly hard (like I assume the one you mention was) changed grade boundaries give a more accurate representation of the students' skills and intelligence.
I'm not Ed Balls' biggest fan but it's about time someone defended the GCSE kids. The exams are just as hard as they were when I was young and good on Ed Balls to show the Tories are completely wrong as usual.
@andydowland I don`t think its a question of defending the kids. It`s a question of defending the exams, in my view. I have a CSE Maths Book from 1979 that contains chapters on the differential and integral calculus. Not even Higher Grade GCSE Maths books treat the calculus.
More to this, exams should be designed to sift. It only stands to reason that if more students are attaining the grade, then the bar has to be raised. Otherwise, how are Universities to chose those able to cope.
@andydowland Cont.... What good does it do when a very high "%age" of students reach the higher grades ? It only demonstrates to me that the exams are not doing the job they should be doing.
Still, it should be very interesting to see exam results now that the Tories are here once more.
I would think that an enzyme that dissolves fats would be a lipase. And a flouride atom can change to an ion by gaining or losing an electron- that`s very easy. And I have no GCSE`s........
It doesn't matter about the exams though, as they only account for a relatively small percentage of the final result, MOST of the marks come from coursework that's very easy to cheat on; anyone can cut and paste; and just as easy to do over when a teacher shows any "mistakes" that may have been made.
@freddawlanen They have changed the coursework procedure in every subject recently to something called 'Controlled Assessment'. This means that coursework is completed in class with a certain number of hours given to complete it under exam conditions.
@andydowland GCSE is so much easier than iGCSE. I am a student now and this is personal experience, if it is any help I am expecting all A* and As and iGCSE so its not anything to do with me being unintelligent like most of Britain is. I find it appalling that people are happy when they get C's and D's
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Most teachers can't teach. They are barely literate and are ignorant of their subject. They don't give a damn about their pupils and are very lazy. They are unhygienic and most of them stink. They are all leftwing reactionaries & are money-obsessed. They all vote Labour and hate their own country. Most of them smoke & most are virtually alcoholic. They are unreflecting and can't think. They are immoral & help their pupils cheat to pass exams. All teachers must be replaced by computers.
karezza6 2 weeks ago
@ieuan111 (stupid phone, continued) ...or trained to pass A level exams, not O levels...
ieuan111 1 month ago
I have taken a level exams, and my maths teacher once set us O level exams... the O level exams were much much harder, but that may have been because we were educated
ieuan111 1 month ago
There's a fair few comparison comments. Out of curiosity - I'm a history PhD student at Manchester and research is a hobby and vocation - I ventured into the examination centre's paper archive and the picture is really quite uneven. The current GCSE Higher maths papers (required for A and A*) is comparable first ('50s) generation A-level papers. History A-Level questions were closer to University exams in 1970 than 2000, but the introduction of source material questions possibly demanded more?
warpigeonofdoom 1 month ago
1) lipase
2) it gains an electron
3) it is 2 and 7/20, but you can use your fucking calculator on the exam you have to be braindead to get it wrong.
i like how theyre all laughing as well, as if these questions are impossible. shocking that these people are running the country.
ChRIs23696 1 month ago
Hes got balls
MrHimz86 1 month ago
And we are paying these barstards whilst they play pantomine politics!!!!????
No wonder the countrys still in the state its in.
tausti 2 months ago
What a stupid git! Those questions prove nothing! And they are actually easy, all of those questions were just something you can memorise, there is nothing to think about, and as for the first question in the maths paper.. addition of fractions? really? primary school stuff. They ARE dumbing down exams, it is proven if you compare an O level paper from years back, to a GCSE paper from now. You will see the difference.
Doctorwhorage 2 months ago
@Doctorwhorage I agree that those particular questions were easy, but how is it "proven if you compare an O level paper from years back, to a GCSE paper from now". Have you ever compared the two? I bet you haven't... It's A-levels that matter so who cares?
samf0135 1 month ago
@samf0135 Well I have compared them obviously because I do my research BEFORE posting a comment, and O level paper was much harder... the point being that the transition from GCSE to A level is much harder than it was before, because GCSE doesn't prepare you enough, and the A level's have also gotten easier too, just look at A level physics papers from like 20 or 30 years ago then look at it now and you will see it has become a joke! Almost all of AS level physics is just O level physics....
Doctorwhorage 1 month ago
Very good point
xJAKEWx 2 months ago
I would have been able to answer this off the top of my head. The questions were not hard, especially as they will have been listed in the syllabus as something you had to know.
andrejpwalker 2 months ago
:O he doesn't know how a atom changes into an ion and he's running the fucking country!!!???? whats up with the world???
HaystackGirl37 2 months ago
@HaystackGirl37 I agree, I think he just completely made a fool of himself there!
Doctorwhorage 1 month ago
These are reaally easy for school children though,
killerdec21 3 months ago
OWNED.
Noseeyparker 3 months ago
1) I think the enzyme is a lipase.
2) A flourine atom becomes a flouride ion by gaining an electron in its outer shell, thereby filling its outer shell and becoming more stable, but taking on a negative charge.
3) 2 and 7/20 is right.
liamjlhill 5 months ago 3
aight get real that math question wasn't very hard.
zz0rzz 6 months ago
Nice rhetorical show, but complete bollocks. I did GCSE's 5 years ago & I freely admit they have dumbed down compared to past papers we were shown from years before. I got A's in Double Science even though I had no natural facility for the subject & hadn't paid attention in lessons simply because I spent a couple of weeks going through the text books. The fact that Gove can't answer off the top of his head questions from subjects he hasn't studied in decades does nothing to change this.
DAandFrank 6 months ago
Don't know why people don't like Ed Balls, as far as the Labour party goes, he's better than bloody Ed Miliband (who is a tosser) and I really couldn't care less if the Tories get in again because of the fact Miliband is a twat, and I hate the Tories as much as the next person. Balls for PM!
TheGareeh 6 months ago
GCSE'S ARE FRICKEN HARD!! i got my results coming out on the 25th ...so not long to wait..the younger generation are not dumming down at all!! the exams are getting harder- my french listening paper was so damn hard...couldnt even do the first question! and despite the fact that the exams are getting increasingly harder there is still loads of teenagers who do really well! i'm predicted to get all A*'s and A's and that took a LOT of hardwork and studying!!
missyxxxsorted 7 months ago
that maths question was easy!!
missyxxxsorted 7 months ago 6
lipase. if it gains an electron from from an electron donor, a metal perhaps. 2 7/20. these questions arent hard. saying that i got 5 As at A level and am doing a mathematics degree at a uni top 50 for it in the world
PhilClarke1080 7 months ago
Balls misses the point. These are simple facts. Not requiring rigour or joined up thought.
TheSuperRealist 7 months ago
@TheSuperRealist go look at a test paper yourself, plenty online...you'll find those were easier C possibly B grade questions MAX.
salman265 7 months ago 2
That maths one is piss easy.
MrTolleMolle 8 months ago
yh u tell them ed this noob needs to be owned.
homiezrgr8 8 months ago
ive just finished my really really easy exams
TheLiam3004vlogs 8 months ago
@Sab8r My Father was in the year after your and he claims that the first year of GCSEs had achieved great grades. The examiners then changed the difficulty and the following year GCSE results were much lower.
We now have 'bands' that take all students performances into account and rank them. So basically if everyone does really well it doesn't show and if everyone does bad nobody can tell. They change the grade boundary depending on how the country does. Which is unfair and makes it pointless.
iownall12able 9 months ago
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Ed Balls’s record
Voted strongly against an investigation into the illegal Iraq war.
Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards.
Voted very strongly for Labour's so called ‘anti-terrorism’ laws (a.k.a. totalitarian police-state laws).
Source: ‘TheyWorkForYou’ website.
Spent £3 million of taxpayers’ money on a massage room for his own offices
On Expenses: 'Flipped' his home three times in two years, and tried to claim for July 2006 expenses twice. (Source: Daily Telegraph, May 15, 2009)
felix3840 9 months ago
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i will be opening my GCSE Grades in august and would love if you couuld check out my channel :D
memslovesparmoare 9 months ago
This guy deserves so many man points...
Olisleven 9 months ago
1) lipase 2) gains an electron 3) 2 and 7/20
should be revising for my "really easy" GCSE's right now.....
wittywitch94 9 months ago 6
Ed really doesn't prove anything here, he has nothing to offer the House and was a disaster while he was in office. It's time people noticed how little he can contribute and what a vile and objectionable man he is.
Maddy4Me 9 months ago
An education is evrything that you've fogotten at school.
PlasmaticJj 9 months ago
I was in the first year to take the 'new' GCSE exams (introduced by the Tories). We practised using the previous few years' O-level papers. All of us came out of the GCSE exams stunned at how easy they were compared to O-level. Unfortunately the A-level syllabus hadn't changed, so of course, we then had to play 'catch-up' to attain a true O-level status. Both parties have dumbed down the education system for political point scoring and nobody is fooled but themselves. :(
sab8r 9 months ago
Sorry, but these questions are piss easy... Now I know who not to vote.
fangfufu2003 9 months ago
@fangfufu2003 Well they can't be much easier than the ones you sat only a couple years ago? I expect you got all A*'s for GCSE then?
usuckbad2 9 months ago
I'm warming to Ed a little bit
wowthatspeng 9 months ago
It's quite worrying to me that neither the secretary of education or the shadow secretary seem to be able to demonstrate any basic scientific or mathematical understanding.
darkfunkychimp 11 months ago 10
@darkfunkychimp You do know they has been a general election in the past year...?
homiezrgr8 10 months ago
@homiezrgr8 Sure, but I don't believe much has really changed in this area. It's not just Balls here; it's the whole room, and the attitudes that I think most politicians give out towards science & maths.
darkfunkychimp 10 months ago
@darkfunkychimp I agree on the maths and science but I was talking about their roles have changed Ed Balls is now shadow chancellor.
homiezrgr8 10 months ago
@homiezrgr8 Yeah. I suppose I should have chosen my words more carefully.
darkfunkychimp 10 months ago
@darkfunkychimp Don't worry about it mate I've been watching the Michael Gove video what a posh prick excuse my French.
homiezrgr8 10 months ago 2
The enzyme that breaks down fat is called ligase! A fluorine atom change into a negative fluoride ion by GAINING electrons. The outer shell of electrons MUST have a full outer shell
Angryification 11 months ago
Comment removed
constant91 10 months ago
@Angryification You got the enzyme one wrong! Its lipase. Ligase is a group of enzymes that is capable of binding things together, you may have come across DNA ligase.
As for the electron one, the outer shell doesn't HAVE to be full, the atom just, normally, has an equal number of electrons to protons, and that's not always true hence why you get ions.
constant91 10 months ago
@constant91 My bad. Who makes the names for these enzymes?! What really annoyed me at school was glucagon glycogen and glucose Lol
Angryification 10 months ago
@Angryification Yeah, that annoyed the hell outta me when I was at school, glad those day are behind me.
constant91 10 months ago
The enzyme that breaks down fat is called ligase! A fluorine atom change into a negative fluoride ion by GAINING electrons.
Angryification 11 months ago
GCSE exams are too easy? Last year, the grade boundaries for ICT [OCR short course. Just the coursework] were: 56/64 for an A and 63/64 FOR AN A*!
Angryification 11 months ago
I had to feel sorry for Gove then *just* sitting opposite Ed and Vernon would bring the shit to my pants...
iamafurrysam 11 months ago
what the fuck - that was the easiest maths question ive ever heard - that was evidence of dumbing down
qwert4327able 1 year ago
8 year old's in India know how to make "R" the subject of the formula while British kids are taught how to have sex.
MrGilles1990 1 year ago
@MrGilles1990 I wonder if 8 year olds in India know how to use an apostrophe correctly.
etesianSealine 11 months ago
LIPASE ED. LIPASE?
IT GAINS AN ELECTRON.
C'MON EDWARD.
LongLiveAndros 1 year ago
It loses an electon, come on Mikey get in the game
mintzl1 1 year ago
@mintzl1 shh. *gains*
... let's gloss over this. XD
LongLiveAndros 1 year ago
LOL nicely done Balls. ratings...
AlbanianParadox 1 year ago
Oh man, 3.75-1.4
THAT'S INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT.
If I recall from 3 years ago, surds were used to express imaginary numbers. Why didn't they post that?
Alexrose12345678910 1 year ago
And now Gove is in charge of Education policy...
It was fun to see him savage Gove last Summer and can't wait to see him savage Osbourne :)
Dibdin100 1 year ago
to be fair, my maths and english teachers both said that the exams have become easier during their careers
nufc3395 1 year ago
this is worrying.
ChRIs23696 1 year ago
i dont know what's more scary, the fact that they find this hard, or that these men are running our country
ChRIs23696 1 year ago
@ChRIs23696 Amen.
StikManJones 1 year ago
OWAIN GRIFFIN IS GAY?
Dylsters 1 year ago 32
@Dylsters I believe he is EXTREMELY so.
CIHAN1234567890 1 year ago 7
Comment removed
LittleMissFree 1 year ago
This man has to be head and shoulders in front of everyone for the "Slimiest lying Bastard in politics, closly followed by Liam Byrne.
I sure hope he wins the leadership election as it will ensure another 10 years before we get the chance of another Labour government.
markyboy1704 1 year ago
Brilliant!!! Go on Ed!!!
MegaChacha36 1 year ago 3
Balls talks balls
tomgray100 1 year ago
The year after I finished my maths A-Level they turned P1-P3 into C1-C4. They wiped an entire module off the syllabus with no corresponding increase in the workload elsewhere. Accordingly the percentage of students getting A grades increased signifiicantly.
If that isn't grade inflation I'd like to know what is.
thepenguinmafia 1 year ago
Great cover for the British gcse's
santasdeath 1 year ago
I've just sat my A-Levels and I found them hard! Now-a-days you don't just have to learn the subject but also how to answer the exam paper the way the exam board wants you to. It's like doing two subjects in one. That's the real problem, it's not how well you know a subject but how well you follow the exam boards rules. Basically, exams are hard subject wise with the added pressure of trying to abide by an exam boards rules.
Lolee16 1 year ago
The fact that @bartij doesn't even know how to spell "appraised" (double-p), "whinging" (not "winging"; that's what birds do), or "statistics" (rather than "statitics") is conclusive proof that our exams have been dumbed down by Labour. Maybe he should return to the bottom set where he belongs.
anthocol1 1 year ago
@anthocol1 Apparently he doesn't know where the Caps-Lock key is either.
MerckZ 1 year ago
FUCK EVERYONE, I DON'T CARE THIS MAN SHOULD BE PM, HE IS THE DOGS BOLLOCKS!!!
ALL YOU PEOPLE WINGING ABOUT HOW TEENAGERS EXAM RESULTS ARE GETTING BETTER, JUST BECAUSE YOU DID SHIT IN SCHOOL!!!!! I HAVE JUST HAD MY ENGLISH PAPER 2 LANGUAGE TODAY AND IT WAS HARD, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, I WORKED FOR IT I WORKED 5 FUCKING YEARS FROM THE BOTTOM SET, WHERE ALL THE TEACHERS TREATED ME LIKE SOME THICK HEADED IDIOT, TO THE TOP WHERE I AM APRAISED FOR HAVING SOME OF THE HIGHEST STATITICS IN MY YEAR!!!!!!
bartij 1 year ago
sheebp
In 1996 My GCSE exam board, i forget which one, accepted 45% as an A in Physics. Is your point that exams are getting harder
ltrinick 1 year ago
@ltrinick Well that's bizarre because in my 2010 GCSE Module 3 paper 80% was an A.
NightmareCinemaChild 1 year ago
1. Lipases
2. It gains an electron from a metal atom
3. 2 7/20
Easy as pie. Foundation level. If Balls thinks GCSEs are hard he should have taken yesterday's Chemistry paper...
Lazyguy22 1 year ago
@Lazyguy22
2) Is not completely correct. It just gains an electron. Flourine can also oxidise water and gain an electron. It can also oxidise other halide ions.
But still, those questions are piss. What balls was trying get across was that Gove himself couldn't answer the questions.
Supermanisafaggit 1 year ago
Hes a fool, but I can't help but like his sense of humour.
keinzeit01 1 year ago
And do you really think Ed Balls had any more idea of the answers to these questions, he would think they were difficult because he could hardly read them. One suspects that one may well lose IQ points just by listening to him! Also, I can tell you from experience that, for instance, everything in the the current A level maths is present in the old O level which is the equivalent of GCSE which students take a year before their A levels.
mickyh234 2 years ago
This is the biggest load of shit I've ever heard. Has ANYONE noticed he's used the 'additional science' paper with which to throw Gove what he believes are tough questions?(they're not even that difficult, really). How about some Foundation papers Ed?
Take it from someone who got 14 A*s in his GCSEs.... they have been dumbed down and whilst that may undermine my achievement, and the achievement of plenty of other 'hard-working students', it's the truth.
ghostrider88100 2 years ago
Here, here... I took all GCE O levels and A levels in the 80s and these modern papers are nowhere near what we had to do. As per my point below... give these modern papers from 20 years ago to so called A* students today and they would, on average, fail.
tempie2000 2 years ago
And besides that, Ed Balls is a total w@nker and not fit to be in office anyway. Fiddles his expenses and says "so what?" when higher taxes are announced.
Champagne communist.
tempie2000 2 years ago
@tempie2000 You try doing GCSE's now and tell me they're "nowhere near what you had to do".
Nooshingdale 1 year ago
@Nooshingdale
Most definitely I could do be better. I am currently reading through the prep papers that my son is getting for his GCSEs and they ARE "nowhere near as hard". I found some of my old O Level papers in the loft and they cover subjects to far greater detail, and physics is now all multiple choice!
e.g. As to Maths, we had to learn logs, and differential equations, which are now not included until A Level.
The papers these days are easier... and that cannot be denied.
tempie2000 1 year ago
@tempie2000 Apparently everything is easier these days. Of course they could be, but in reality it is also easier to learn the subject too. I could go to an interactive site and learn Biology A Level more fluently than I could 16 years ago. Is this because the exams are getting easier or that information is easier to come by?
Also, this multiple choice exam in Physics you are talking about is one of many exams they take for those subjects, that's a mini-exam which you are taking out of context.
chrissaboy 1 year ago 2
In that case, why is that in 2008 when 12 all-A* GCSE Maths students tried taking the 1982 GCE Maths O level papers (the same equivalent) they would have only been awarded 1A, 2Bs, 6Cs, and three failures with two Ds and one E grade using the same marking criteria.
Ed Balls is a total Muppet.. always has been and always will be.
tempie2000 2 years ago
@tempie2000 Because the specifications would be totally different? The content of the syllabi would be totally different but of a similar level of difficulty. I'm sure if those students were actually being taught the syllabus of the O level paper they would have done better. Not that I'm a fan of Ed, I just think you should think about your argument.
MrJakaroo94 1 year ago
I'm not sure what's scarier, that Balls thought these were hard questions or that Gove couldn't answer them. No wonder science funding is in such a bad state if this is the level of scientific literacy of our 'Lords and Masters'...
The exams are not 'just as hard as they used to be'. 30 years ago logarithms were part of O-Level maths. These days they're A-level maths, yet the chemistry GCSE still needs an understanding of logarithms to do pH calculations. This was my experience 7 years ago...
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muziclov1 2 years ago
He just doesn't get it. It's the grade boundaries that have dropped, and the mark schemes that are accepting 'any reasonable answer'. Edexcel physics A level this year awarded an A in the final module to anyone gaining just over 50%. Says it all really.
Might as well also mention that none of the science questions Balls read out requires any intellectual or scholarly thought, but instead a regurgitation of the facts that the pupils have had drummed into them over 2 years.
sheebp 2 years ago
@sheebp So abolish exams!
MetaCraken 1 year ago
@sheebp wow, have you looked at a physics paper at A level? it is not facts it is work this out for yourself. also it is not drummed into you over 2 years as the students have to sit an exam after one year where after that the course changes and becomes harder and they start to prepare for the final exam. there is a reason that the A grade is 50%. they change it to accommodate a reasonable amount of students. so if everybody got 60% the grade boundary would go up. go do some research
indieruless 1 year ago
@indieruless I took it last year - so the answer is yes, I have, and I'm guessing in much more detail than you. My class spent two years learning about interesting things that are not on syllabus, and then spent the final two weeks learning the exact answers you have to put to get full marks according to the mark scheme. We all got 90%+. And yes, we did the AS and A2 in the final year together.
sheebp 1 year ago
@sheebp Grade boundaries are moved according to how difficult a paper is, so if it is incredibly hard (like I assume the one you mention was) changed grade boundaries give a more accurate representation of the students' skills and intelligence.
marfa453 1 year ago
Top class! Should give Mr Gove a lot to think about.
johninnit 2 years ago
I'm not Ed Balls' biggest fan but it's about time someone defended the GCSE kids. The exams are just as hard as they were when I was young and good on Ed Balls to show the Tories are completely wrong as usual.
andydowland 2 years ago 75
@andydowland I don`t think its a question of defending the kids. It`s a question of defending the exams, in my view. I have a CSE Maths Book from 1979 that contains chapters on the differential and integral calculus. Not even Higher Grade GCSE Maths books treat the calculus.
More to this, exams should be designed to sift. It only stands to reason that if more students are attaining the grade, then the bar has to be raised. Otherwise, how are Universities to chose those able to cope.
Cont...
valarmanwe 1 year ago
@andydowland Cont.... What good does it do when a very high "%age" of students reach the higher grades ? It only demonstrates to me that the exams are not doing the job they should be doing.
Still, it should be very interesting to see exam results now that the Tories are here once more.
I would think that an enzyme that dissolves fats would be a lipase. And a flouride atom can change to an ion by gaining or losing an electron- that`s very easy. And I have no GCSE`s........
valarmanwe 1 year ago
@andydowland
It doesn't matter about the exams though, as they only account for a relatively small percentage of the final result, MOST of the marks come from coursework that's very easy to cheat on; anyone can cut and paste; and just as easy to do over when a teacher shows any "mistakes" that may have been made.
freddawlanen 1 year ago
@freddawlanen They have changed the coursework procedure in every subject recently to something called 'Controlled Assessment'. This means that coursework is completed in class with a certain number of hours given to complete it under exam conditions.
Scouserrrr08 1 year ago
@Scouserrrr08 What exactly is the point of that?
If your going to do anything in "exam conditions" why not do an exam?
freddawlanen 1 year ago
@freddawlanen I have no idea
Scouserrrr08 1 year ago
@andydowland No they are getting easier, i know because i have done them.
MrGilles1990 1 year ago
@andydowland GCSE is so much easier than iGCSE. I am a student now and this is personal experience, if it is any help I am expecting all A* and As and iGCSE so its not anything to do with me being unintelligent like most of Britain is. I find it appalling that people are happy when they get C's and D's
xTomHDx 8 months ago