Kate and Exams

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

(Sorry Mike and others who are fed up with this)

>From: IED0DXM@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU
>   She also took her "mock A-level exams", for which she returned to
>   school for a day, after having dropped out.  That's all any of us know.

Since the real A-Level exams were usually 2.5 or 3 hours long,
it is unlikely that Kate took more than one or at the very most two
in a day. Either that or her school set very abreviated versions of the
exams. In terms of allowing the children to revise properly it is very
unlikely a school would schedule more than two subjects per day.

So should we assume Kate came back for one mock exam and either did
not feel she was going to do well, or was so put off by the whole
experience that she decided finally that her academic life was
definitely over and she would dedicate herself to music from then on?

>   IED was under the impression that merely "passing" O-levels doesn't
>   really indicate the braininess of the student--that it also matters
>   what the individual scores were for each exam. Is that not so? On the
>   other hand, passing 10 is unusual enough to indicate superior academic
>   potential.

Yes, the scores do matter - in terms of continuing your education at the
school. However, although the results announcement I received had
the grades, the official certificate I got from the local exam board did
not have them printed on, so it is common to say I have "n" O-Levels
and not quote the grades. Passing all your O-Level exams was NOT that
unusual for people in the top classes of grammar schools. It would
normally indicate that the person would be very capable of taking A-Levels
and going on to University. If all the passes were grade 1 or 2 then this
would indicate very superior academic potential. While exams such as
O-Levels were quite a large part memory, to get the best grades required
a degree of "braininess".

What would be interesting to know is whether any of the teachers at
Kate's school tried to persuade her to stay on. If they did not then
it could be assumed that they did not rate her as especially gifted
academically. Then again, she may just have had unsympathetic teachers.
Any quotes on this Ron, IED?

Neil

--
Neil Calton                          UUCP:   ..!mcsun!ukc!rlinf!nbc
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