But if anything it has got slightly harder.Because they now do combined science at GCSE – covering biology, physics and chemistry, but in slightly less depth – physics candidates start A- level from a lower level of experience, and it can be hard to make up the difference.But in general they are better scientists than in the past. They would be required to do something with what they know, to show they really understand what is going on.My hand-on-heart feeling is that it is still the same candidates getting the top grades. When I started teaching there was a lot more in terms of recall, whereas now there is much more application: they really have to think things through and apply their knowledge rather than just learn things.Fifteen or so years ago, there were set experiments they had to know. Now they would be more likely to be given a description of the apparatus and be asked to explain particular features of it and do some calculations. She is chair of the Association for Science Education.Physics A-level has definitely not got easier. Also, the examination system is a lot more open and teachers are given far more information.Students now complete the A-level better equipped for life because they have been encouraged to talk rather than just listen, and to think rather than regurgitate.Jane Wheatley has taught physics A-level for 18 years, and for the past seven has been at Highworth Grammar School, Ashford, Kent. Teaching A-level is no longer about promoting a particular reading of the texts, but a multiplicity of readings.The course work component in A-level has been a crucial element in standards going up.

He is chair of the post-16 committee of the National Association for the Teaching of English.It has got harder to get A and B grades at English A-level. In the past there was less requirement for students to think for themselves and there was more recall of received opinions. There was often a tricky element in the questions, which you either grasped or you didn’t, and there was a lot of poring over past exam papers trying to guess what questions would come up.The questions have become more friendly and more open now, but they require a more rigorous and sophisticated approach to reading. There is less of the “compare and contrast” type of question, which could be answered in a formulaic way without the candidate really engaging with the text.”Is Hamlet mad?” is an example of a more open question.

For some it is better teaching and better courses, combined with a greater openness on the part of examination boards, who now publish their marking schemes Some look at demographic changes. Others argue that there is more pressure on young people now to gain good qualifications and that they are better motivated by A-level course work, or the new “modular” A-levels (in which blocks of work are examined at intervals throughout the course).In an effort to shed more light on the situation, we asked six experienced A-level teachers if they felt A-levels were getting easier, and in what ways the courses and examinations have changed.Glenn Mascord teaches English at Ordsall Hall School, a comprehensive in Retford, Nottinghamshire, and has taught A-level for 14 years. He is due to report finally next Easter.Meanwhile, educationists point to a range of factors which they claim have helped to raise standards. Sir Ron Dearing will give it serious consideration in his wide- ranging review of 16-19 qualifications. This year the percentage of students gaining A to E passes increased by 0.9 compared with 1994, and the proportion gaining A to C grades increased by 1.1 per cent.But the status of the A-level – which has long been regarded by many as the “gold standard” of school qualifications – is coming under increasing scrutiny. The Schools Curriculum and Assessment Authority is to join schools inspectors in investigating, and they are expected to report by February 1996.
The A-level pass rate in 1990 was 77 per cent, and has been steadily rising ever since.

This summer, Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education, has shown herself sufficiently concerned to order an inquiry into whether A-level standards have fallen. Are A-levels getting easier? Examination boards, as well as most teachers, deny it strenuously, but after last month’s pass rate reached a record 84 per cent, the cries of right-wingers and traditionalists that the exams are less rigorous have grown harder to ignore. “He became very confident with his reading and much more comfortable with tackling problem-solving,” Mrs Douglas says “He needed to know that he could achieve things We’re not pushy We just wanted him to be happy.”. The association is holding its annual conference on Saturday 28 October at Toddington, Bedfordshire. More details are available from the above number.`It has been well worth the money’William Faux is nine years old and has been under tuition for about two years.