exam results, anyone?

[Almost Yearly]

When I were a lad subject areas was all fields.

[Jemble Fred]

When I were a lad subject areas was all fields.

When I were a lad schoolgrounds were all fields. Now they're fucking housing estates.

Bring back Weekending! I need a job!

[Purple Tentacle]

When I was a lad, the school field was a housing estate.

Now it's all trees.

[Pinball]

What irrelevant things did everyone learn during A levels then?

I've mentioned the sphere on a frictionless slope - calculating the speed at which it would fall if connected via a rope to a pulley etc. Gee that was a great help to my subsequent life - not.

Then there was the pure maths exams. I was lucky enough to do S-level pure maths (tsk). I kid you not - I did a 3-hour paper with one question, to prove that one hopelessly complicated formula equalled another hopelessly complicated confabulation of unnecessary complexity. After about 10 pages of solid maths, I proved that 0 = 0. Clearly an error was made, but apparently the question couldn't be completed, and the bastards just wanted to assess method and how we coped "under pressure". WTF was that all about?

Do you remember the faces of the concentration camp survivors when they were rescued post-WWII? Well that's what we looked like coming out of the exam room. Ball busting bastard examiners (how, I'm sure, they laughed).

Then there was physics projects. I did the old measuring thickness of stuff using beta-radiation by setting up a calibration type graph. After spending five minutes staring at a piece of paper and placing it carefully in front of the radiation source, I then realised I'd forgotten to put lead in front of it. Eye cancer for me then.

So in summary, nice when it's over but completely irrelevant to real life.

[Gazeuse]

We were allowed to use a calculator in my maths GCSE (1996).

They'd just invented those when I took my O-level Maths. It was the size of a housebrick and I used it in my exam. I only found out that they weren't allowed afterwards. Still, no one noticed and it's not my fault that I can't work numbers.

[Purple Tentacle]

Seeing that horrible paper lying face down on your desk was dread made flesh... erm, paper.

"Please turn over......" oh dear.


Of course I had to do all my FUCKING exams on a FUCKING stage in front of every bastard because I am dyspraxic and I got to do it on computer, but because my teachers were CUNTS they made sure I was seated on the school stage in the hall "because it was nearest a power source", lying sadistic CUNTS.

[MojoJojo]

Hmmm, I don't know about other people, but when I think  back to A-levels I don't remember working that hard. It felt like I was working hard, but I probably did no more than 5 hours work a day, occasionally a few hours at the weekend. Got a bit busier at exam times. But compared to the amount of work I do now, it doesn't seem that much.

Got 2As, a B and a C

So I can easily believe that A-level students are working harder now, or teachers are teaching better (I went to a fairly good school; you didn't have to be very bright to do well. If every school was like mine, probably would have nearly 100% pass rate).

But then again, my A-levels were a long time after they got rid of the percentage pass rates. It was only 5 years ago, so I'm sure the older whores will slag me off as a lazy bastard who skived through piss easy A-levels.

[Jemble Fred]

I learnt that Francisco Pizarro was terribly rude in killing Incan emperor Atahualpa, and that Peter Shaffer found all this fascinating.

Oh, and that Emily Bronte was rock hard.

[Almost Yearly]

So in summary, nice when it's over but completely irrelevant to real life.

Yep. But I suppose it was ever the same...

I suppose it's a rather pathetic shadow of what was once a rite of passage.

Getting taken away from your mother by the elders at spearpoint and made to swim to an island where you were covered in ash and chanted at for days before stepping through the trunk of a sliced and spliced sapling and given a new name probably wasn't much practical use either.

[mwude]

After all, universities aren't going to accept you because you think that the next Jurassic Park film will be shite, are they?

That's entirely true.  But neither are they going to accept you if you go on an internet forum & write:

A A C in RE because I hate RE

I'm sorry to hear you got a C in RE, PT.  I hope Scunthorpe Uni still accept you anyway.

Anyway, keep posting A-level whores.  I love reading other people's results because I got brilliant grades with minimum work just when the exams were becoming dead easy.  I am living proof that the exams aren't as hard as they used to be.

So fuck you.

[zozman]

I learnt that you can get quite a lot of very scary, mentally ill women in one room if you sign up to do an evening class a-level in psychology in Cornwall.

I'm in two minds whether weird people sign up for psychology to try to find out why they're weird, or if that's just Cornwall for you.  I got a b anyway, although I'm quite sure not one of you gives a flying shit.

[terminallyrelaxed]

Things learned at A-Level:

Surrealism really is just visual wanking.
How to write a structured scripted essay on how Hitler rose to power - oh and some stuff about how Hitler rose to power.
Being the only boy in a class of girls taught by a female teacher who had been jilted at the altar, is not wise. Especially if the subject covers lots of novels and plays involving romance.

[Still Not George]

I'd like to join in the chorus of "Fuck You, You Self-Righteous Old Tossers" to anyone who's demeaning what is probably the single largest achievement of some people's lives to date. So what if you did your A-levels in 1664 when you had to answer questions set by Da Vinci while sitting on broken glass? Get the fuck back to your mortgages and failed lives and let the next generation get on with making their own mistakes.

Pchuh.

Well done wu be eel and whoever else's done with the things. Don't bother going to university, it only turns you into an unemployable embittered cunt.

[zozman]

Don't bother going to university, it only turns you into an unemployable embittered cunt.

I'll have you know that I went to University  AND I've got a job!

[Almost Yearly]

I distinctly remember feeling that my driving test was more important by far.

I'm in two minds whether weird people sign up for psychology to try to find out why they're weird, or if that's just Cornwall for you.

b)

it's not my fault that I can't work numbers.

Been trying to augment your elevenths ever since?

[Jemble Fred]

I wonder why so many people are being so touchy on here today? I mean I'm in a bad mood, but the amount of umbrage being taken at nowt left, right and centre – this is like an alternative cookdandbombd where nobody seems to be capable of taking anything lightly. Has everyone got a pointy beard?

[Gazeuse]

I'd like to join in the chorus of "Fuck You, You Self-Righteous Old Tossers" to anyone who's demeaning what is probably the single largest achievement of some people's lives to date.

Can I just point out that  I am a Self-Righteous Old Tosser but I'm not demeaning what is probably the single largest achievement of some people's lives to date.

[Still Not George]

Not really touchy, I just felt like calling someone a cunt, so I figured calling lots of people cunts would feel even better.

It did.

Thing is, though, that this really is a shitty arseweasel of a thread. A-levels are a big deal for those doing them, and demeaning them like this is a truly cuntish pastime. Classic post-90s ivory tower syndrome, from people I'd expect better from.

[Lt Plonker]

I did very well in my GCSE's but shit in A-Levels. When I found out I only needed one A Level pass to get onto Foundation Art, I began not doing as much as I should have.  Consequently, my only good mark was in Graphic Design.

[Crazy Penis]

I'd like to join in the chorus of "Fuck You, You Self-Righteous Old Tossers" to anyone who's demeaning what is probably the single largest achievement of some people's lives to date.

Can I just point out that  I am a Self-Righteous Old Tosser but I'm not demeaning what is probably the single largest achievement of some people's lives to date.

I want your B in music. It's hard making your own music when all you have are your ears to guide you.

edit: I'm not in a bad mood. Hardly ever am. I don't know why either.

[Pinball]

What's nice about A-levels is it's sort of like being grownup at university, but with people you know well, esp. with 6th form colleges. Then you go to uni and know very few, which although you make new friends is clearly not as pleasurable as being wit' mates. Scanning Friends Reunited for A levels and earlier is far more rewarding than uni hunting I find.

Edit: Ooh madam, I'm on page 3.

[Almost Yearly]

Classic post-90s ivory tower syndrome, from people I'd expect better from.

Tsk, "people from whom I'd expect better."

[falafel]

I got AAAD (General Studies! I can still remember that fat girl with the builders bum whose unfortunately flabby back I spent most of the exam absent-mindedly staring at...) 2 (I think) years ago. It was the first year of AS/A2s. Piece of piss, if you ask me.

Oh, and I also got a Merit in my AE English (AE being the updated S-Level, which nobody has ever heard of and, I think, has since been scrapped). I achieved this by producing two pieces of work: a short story involving Virginia Woolf and a bunch of time-travelling academics, and an essay about childhood. That was a fun exam, actually. They just plonked a load of mixed-up materials down, and gave a couple of lists of 'questions' for us to answer, the majority of which essentially said "Here are some extracts. Do something with them".

I miss my A-levels. They were harder than Uni is, though. Uni's actually a bit like the AE - that is, more difficult but far more interesting and rewarding. There was definitely an element of 'learn the exam', not 'learn the subject', for my A-levels. I learned half my Psychology exam from a revision booklet. Literally. I didn't like the modules we'd done in class, so I decided to pick up the rest just in case - and found myself infintely more prepared to answer the questions on these than the ones I'd spent the whole year doing. Got an A: didn't deserve one. A-levels aren't easy, they're just irrelevant.

[Purple Tentacle]

The thing is that if someone had posted "I've crashed and burned my A-levels, christ what am I going to do", the thread would be full of people going "ooh don't worry about it, they mean nothing in the long run, you can re-take them if you want or better still go out and get your hands dirty, employers respect that so much more"..... in fact some poor sod is probably reading this who HAS crashed and burned, and he's reading that bloody A-levels are the most important things you'll ever do in your entire life! They're not!

Well done to the people who passed them of course, it takes quite a lot of hard work and revising is a bitch, but it's not a pivotal point in your life unless you're some sort of Stuart-from-Big-Brother tosspot.  We're getting near to 50% of young people going to universities, and we have to ask.... why is that a good thing?

What happened to apprenticeships, solid vocational training for a specific career, not just for plumbing but also for poncy stuff like art and film?

Now it looks like I'm belittling people's achievements, which I have no desire to do, but let's not get hysterical and pretend that A-levels are anything more than a useful (but NOT essential) stepping stone towards your future career.

[falafel]

And - in response to Pinball - I found moving to board at Sixth Form College very much unlike going to Uni, despite the fact that - much like University - I didn't, in fact. know anyone there at first. It was, on the other hand, a welcome stepping stone between school and... well, not school... and a lot of fun. [meander, off-message...]

[Still Not George]

Classic post-90s ivory tower syndrome, from people I'd expect better from.

Tsk, "people from whom I'd expect better."

He mentions that (despite the resulting clumsy sentence structure) and doesn't mention the lack of a verb in the sentence? There must be something strange in the West Country water.

[Still Not George]

The thing is that if someone had posted "I've crashed and burned my A-levels, christ what am I going to do", the thread would be full of people going "ooh don't worry about it, they mean nothing in the long run, you can re-take them if you want or better still go out and get your hands dirty, employers respect that so much more"..... in fact some poor sod is probably reading this who HAS crashed and burned, and he's reading that bloody A-levels are the most important things you'll ever do in your entire life! They're not!

No, no, no! Where in this thread has anyone said that A-levels are the most important things you'll ever do? They're simply the most important thing some people have done thus far.

Sheesh.

[Jemble Fred]

What's nice about A-levels is it's sort of like being grownup at university, but with people you know well, esp. with 6th form colleges. Then you go to uni and know very few, which although you make new friends is clearly not as pleasurable as being wit' mates. Scanning Friends Reunited for A levels and earlier is far more rewarding than uni hunting I find.

Edit: Ooh madam, I'm on page 3.

Other way round for most people I know – until you go to university most folk are stuck with the same old people that they grew up with, (even though I went to a proper 6th form college – it must be a nightmare to have to stay at school for A Levels) whereas at University you get to meet loads of exciting new people who are not only immediately into the same things as you, they're into them enough to go to University to study the same subject. Of course, Friends Reunited is more interesting for A Level comrades and earlier, but mainly because you have no contact with those people any more.

[Purple Tentacle]

No, no, no! Where in this thread has anyone said that A-levels are the most important things you'll ever do? They're simply the most important thing some people have done thus far.
Sheesh.

No, I still don't accept that! For a start they're optional anyway... people who choose not to take their A-levels aren't worse than people who do, in fact pretty much all of my friends I made at uni didn't take their A-levels, the ones who came straight out of school (including me) tended to be absolute wankers.

Secondly people choose to leave school at 16 for a variety of reasons... some are lazy buggers of course, but others have an eye on getting some experience, rather than coasting until they're 22 till they get their first full-time job (me as well).

It's such bollocks that teachers at my school spouted about A-levels being so unbelievably important, and that if you didn't take them you would, inevitably, become a dustman.  I could insert a long and deeply tedious list of very successful people who didn't take A-levels but nobody wants that.  Like I said, we need more apprentices in this country, not more people who aren't cut out for university.

Quite frankly I was just relieved that the fuckers were over and gone, I certainly didn't feel like I'd achieved some life-affirming conquest.

[Timmay]

Stolen from B3ta ;-)

king mob's grown a beard!