BB FANS

9 September 2005
Mirror
By Rosa Prince

GCSE students get top award with half marks in business

PUPILS only had to get 47 per cent to gain an A* in GCSE business studies this year.

Correctly answering 49 out of 105 questions would earn them the top grade in the test set by AQA - Britain's biggest exam board.

And getting 40 per cent right earned them an A and 33 per cent a B.

The Confederation of British Business has said it thinks GCSEs have been "dumbed down."

Students could get a C by scoring just 45 per cent in more than 100 GCSE subjects set by AQA.

But AQA defended its business studies exam saying pupils needed fewer marks to get the top grade because it was harder than last year. It said: "Candidates had consistently found elements of this year's paper more difficult than last year's.

"We have to take that into account and adjust that in order to maintain the standard."

It was even easier to pass GCSE maths set by Edexcel. Getting 16 per cent would earn a C - AQA students needed 20 per cent for a C - the Times Educational Supplement claims. But Edexcel said maths' candidates had to pass seven exam papers plus one piece of coursework. They would need a 16 per cent pass mark to get a C grade in one paper which made up 25 per cent of the total grade.

Edexcel said: "We are confident the grade boundaries are commensurate with those from past years."

In Ireland, to get an A* grade (called an A1 here) they have to get 95%. For a C grade, they need 55%.

Coursework is only a part of a very few courses (Art, Home Economics, Civics, etc)

And in order to be able to study medicine, veterinary science, physiotherapy or dentistry at third level, 6 A1 grades are currently required in the final exam - Leaving Certificate - students take 7 subjects.

It's a rotten system, widely acknowledged to put ridiculous pressure on students, but we've been waiting for years and years for the government to do something to improve the situation.

We look at GCSE/A level statistics with disbelief - but at least you can say that Britain is a land of opportunity!

47% a TOP A? That is ridiculous! I've never heard of anything like that before.

Here as a rule 70% or above is an A, 60% a B, 50% a C and then if you get between 45% and 49% you get a D which is basically a narrow fail - my friend got a D for one of her exams and she just says that she failed it so I dunno if it's counted as a pass or a fail. I think they may alter the grade boundaries slightly depending on average results but 47% for an A pass is an insult to those that did really well IMO.