There are also a greater number of "softer" subjects available these days... e.g. If you compare a modern ICT A Level syllabus, with an 80's O level compute studies one it appears the A level is no more demanding.
Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it.
That agrees with my recollection (I did both those O-levels in 1963) but it's worth bearing in mind that at that time the syllabuses/syllabi differed markedly from one exam board to the other.
Maybe over the whole country. However individual schools notice significant differences in ability from year to year.
IIRC some are still done like this.
Unlike now where they suddenly make it more difficult without telling anyone in advance.
Tim Streater wrote in news:041220131615271588% snipped-for-privacy@greenbee.net:
My uncle did calculus for his maths O Level in 1957.
It was only very elementary, just powers of x if I recall correctly. I don't know which board he did.
Apparently the JMB maths O Level had syllabuses A for grammar schools and B for secondary moderns. Presumably the latter was followed only by a small percentage of pupils at secondary moderns, this being before CSEs, when most would have left without any academic qualifications.
Here is a B paper from 1968 with questions requiring both differentiation and integration:
I think O Levels may have changed significantly even in the early period, because when they were first introduced in 1951 they were meant just for the 'top 20%', and then later a figure of 40% was used.
Did you get percentages or had grades come in by 1961?
Harry
In message , Harry Davis writes
There was no calculus in the 1959 Cambridge O level maths. (Mind it was reckoned to be easier than the Oxford version).
I vaguely recall sitting the *B* paper which the site below says did not include calculus.
I got a C in 1959
On Wednesday 04 December 2013 17:37 Harry Davis wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Hugely interesting - ta ^^^
CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism!
Some refreshingly practical questions too...
Ah yes, mid-80s O-level Computer Studies. Part of it (a project) was marked by your own teacher and then the marks adjusted by the exam board according to spot inspections and how harshly the teacher was known to mark. Our teacher was only used to BBC Basic and it threw him completely when I used Sinclair SuperBasic on the QL!
SteveW
I was under the Oxford board.
I had %-ages for O-levels (1961/2), with 45% being a pass, but no-one was ever awarded more than 90%. We had grades A to F (IIRC) for A-levels (1963/4), and there were Special papers (S-level) you could take which were harder and you either got a 1 or a 2 or nothing.
In one of my S level (1958) maths papers I got 101%. In reality it was
252/256 but to make life easier they percentaged out of 250. It would be a Maths paper ( a classmate got 254/256)Tim Lamb wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@marfordfarm.demon.co.uk:
The author of that site is wrong. The 1968 exam papers reproduced on that page, which are both B papers, do require calculus. In Paper I, question A3 (b) asks candidates to integrate 3x^2 +(x^5)/5. In Paper II, question B11 also requires calculus.
Harry
A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right.
The answer's a crown, of course. Rare as hens' teeth, they were when I was growing up. Massive things, and having one in your pocket made you feel rich.
The answer is five.
Read the question!
Although I did.
I've got 2! Festival of Britain & Coronation ones.
You seem to be forgetting one small detail. £sd went the way of the dodo over twenty years before any of those contestants were even born... Their parents would probably struggle to remember whatever the f*ck a florin and a crown were.
Yet somehow they manage to answer plenty of other historical questions.
I thought I might be the first person to coin the phrase "gullible warming" but no chance - Google says 25,100 results.
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