This Years College Exam Results

Aldaris

2 days ago, here in England the college exam results were received by many thousands of students, myself included, and for another year running, high standards were acheived. However, yet again, the critics cried out, claiming that exams are being dumbed down to acheive quotas, and allow more people into university.

As a student, this infuriates me. Do they refuse to believe that maybe, just maybe, students are getting more intelligent, and that teachers are refining the quality of their teaching even further? Where is the evidence for their claims, other then the high percentage of students with pass results?

On the other hand, what if they're correct? What if exam boards are making exams easier? Either way, mine and many other's acheivements this year are belittled.

The other point I want to make, is that as more students get into university, and gain degrees, how are employees supposed to distinguish between a bad potential employee and a good one?

juice

Is there any way to get a hold of older tests? I mean, is that exam as open as the GRE or SAT are in the US? Because with those you can get previous tests to look at as well as get an answer key to the exact test you took. I'm sure a big factor in increasing scores in the US with SAT/GRE is definitely people's access to better study materials for the specific tests. Is this the case there? It would be interesting to compare older versions of your college exams side by side with recent ones.

Hawkeye

Intelligence is hardly a number. Just like an IQ test, you cannot simplify someone's intelligence into a number. I'm amazed by the amount of people that take such things serious.

In the schooling system, I can see the usefulness of this though. While the number isn't a representation, it coorrelates to the intelligence, such that it makes comparing people a far easier task.

As for the increasing in the test toughness, I believe there is nothing you should worry about. You are competing against other students who take it, not the test itself. It gives you an opportunity to do even better with more studying.

Fortunately you are interviewed for a job, and not based on a number.

taboofires

Here's how NCSU looks at standardized testing (over-simplified version from talking to several profs on the admissions board):

Some rediculously high number of applications arrive. Now, we try to get the number down to the point where we can actually read/evaluate them by pruning out the obviously bad ones. So, knock off anyone who has obvious clerical errors, unreadable or incomplete forms, and abysmally low test scores. After that's done, never look at test scores again, and judge based on academics, extracurriculars, etc.

Standardized testing is poor at showing how likely anyone is to succeed in college. All it really indicates is how good you are at one particular kind of test, and that's a fairly worthless skill. Still, if your scores are really bad, that won't reflect well on you, compared to average, which is well within the margin of error for good prospects.