Balls' GCSE Pop Quiz

Ed Balls fires GCSE exam questions at Michael Gove... but does he get any right?

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News & Politics

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• 02Commons19thNov09

[darkfunkychimp]

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.

[missyxxxsorted]

that maths question was easy!!

[ieuan111]

@ieuan111 (stupid phone, continued) ...or trained to pass A level exams, not O levels...

[ieuan111]

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

[warpigeonofdoom]

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?

[TaffTalk]

@Doctorwhorage Well already it shows how little you know about education. AS is not the modern equivalent to an O-Level. You need to achieve an AS Level in a subject before you can then move on to try and achieve an A2 level. An A2 level is what gets you a place at University (well, you need an equivalent of 3 A2 Levels, 4 AS levels and 10 GCSE's to be offered a place at a basic University), etc. You really have no idea have you. It's rather laughable really.

[TaffTalk]

@Doctorwhorage Are you a complete moron. Do you have any shred of an idea of the tool that young people process today that they didn't when "O-Levels" were around? It's called the Internet, and it means that our population are incredibly more intelligent than those of their old counterparts, whether you want to acknowledge that fact or not. It may come as a surprise to you that our population is getting smarter now that we have done away with bigot beliefs that held us back in the 70's, etc.

[Doctorwhorage]

@HaystackGirl37 I agree, I think he just completely made a fool of himself there!

[Doctorwhorage]

@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....

[ChRIs23696]

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.

[MrHimz86]

Hes got balls