16th February 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Every year the press jump on the news that A Level and GCSE results have increased yet again. Obviously we expect nothing less, the worst news days are those when there are no positive or negative spins to be put on anything. Whether you’re in the camp of congratulating students and teachers for continually improving grades, or suspicious of the ease with which students appear to achieve exam results, there’s no denying that something must be causing the year-on-year improvements; it can’t be simple chance.
As tutors we’re in a privileged position to compare the difficulty of exam papers and see whether there is a trend of reduced difficulty. This isn’t just because we tutor students who obsess themselves with understanding every exam in the last five years, but tutors also remember the exams taken themselves, sometimes not that long ago. However, could this cloud our judgement? Is it possible to be objective about the difficulty of exams that one has taken, or do we always want to believe that today’s achievements aren’t as valuable as our own?
One suggestion for why grades are on the increase was hinted at in the above paragraph when mentioning students’ obsession with exams. Most readers will probably remember when their only access to past papers was the papers given to them by the school. There were probably one or two students in your class who had a tutor who gave those students extra papers, but compare that to today when there are seemingly an unlimited number of past, practice and sample exam papers available all over the internet. Who has heard of an examiner’s report 15 years ago? Now we can all have access to notes on past years’ exams (and more importantly hints as to what will change for the next year).
It is also the students who are seeking the exam information out themselves. Each new generation seems to be an order more savvy on the internet, and it now takes them no time at all to find exactly what they’re looking for. Many tutors and teachers have probably never been bothered to search extensively for the latest expert opinion on what will be in this year’s exams, but students do care, and can find that information much quicker than us.
So, is it any surprise that exam results are improving? If we consider a consistent level of intelligence in the population then the increased interest, if not obsession, with predicting and practising exam questions points to higher grades.