Even more about English education

[nbc%inf.rl.ac.uk@mitvma.mit.edu]

Just for completeness of this O-Levels thing. My memory creaked when
I wrote my previous piece. When I took O-Levels they were actually
graded numerically (with 1 - 5 being passes) not alphabetically. Kate
being almost as old as me (!) was probably on the same grading system.
They were later changed to A - F grades the A-Levels have always (well
to my knowledge) been graded A - F.

>From:	Geoff Clare <gwc@root.co.uk>
>dlangs%sunstroke@sdsu.EDU (Derek Langsford) writes:
>>To confuse the rest of the world again there were also things called
>>AO levels.
>>AO levels were taken one year after O' levels and one year before A' levels
>>They were exams at an intermediate level that one would take to pad
>>one's CV,

In my day there was also something called the Use of English Exam which
could be taken between O and A Levels as an intermediate English Exam.
You took this to show how clever you were at English - like wot I am ;-)

>From:   nrc@cbema.att.com (Neal R Caldwell, Ii)
>I assume that "mock A's" are some sort of practice exam taken to prepare
>for the regular A-levels.  Whether it could be said that she got four
>of these "mock A's" I don't know.

Mock exams were indeed a practice for the real thing. One usually
took mocks before both O and A-Levels. At my school they were taken
a term before the real exams - other schools may have taken them
earlier. They were set and marked by the school teachers based on past
papers. As such they were really like any school exam and one does not
"get" anything in the way of formal qualifications.

>>At A'level grades A, B, C, D, and E are all considered passing grades with
>>an E pass starting at about 45%.
>
>Not that D and E passes will do you any good.  Universities usually
>insist on reasonable grades before they will take you (e.g. a common
>offer is "a B and two C's").

It really depends on the subject and the University. If you want to
do medicine then start looking at 3 A's. If you want to do sociology
at the Univ. of Neverheardofit then you were likely to be asked
for much less. Also, if you were clearly a good candidate some places
would make you a low offer (say 2 C's and a D) expecting you to do much
better but still willing to take you if you screwed up the exams for some
reason (I got offers like this at a couple of places). If Kate took mocks
she probably at least started the procedure of looking for University
places.

BTW - does Happy have any O-Levels :-) :-)

Neil
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