GCSE's, Easy or Hard: Have Your Say!

[Hecktix]

GCSE results were announced this week and many 16 year olds were overjoyed to discover that they had passed their GCSE's with flying colours.
But by coincidence of course, the Confederation of British Industry release a report stating that GCSEs are a lot easier than the previous version of the Year 11 Exams, "O-Levels".
The CBI are questioning whether schools educate young people "functional skills" which they will use in the workplace. Skills they believe aren't being taught are simple mental arithmetic, competence in percentages, legible handwriting, correct grammar and spelling.

What do you have to say about this?
What do you think about the CBI releasing this report on the same week that you recieve your results?
Are GSCE's easy? How did you find them?

Click here to read the official BBC Report

[beth]

they are easier. i took my higher maths a year early and my mom got out the equivilant of the o-level [she had practice papers from years back] and the O level maths is like AS level now.. hardly anyone is getting lower than a c these days.

[Hecktix]

I think that the CBI are ridiculous to be saying simple mental arithmacy hand writing and spelling and grammar aren't being taught properly in schools. Yes you tend not to do as much mental arithmancy after KS3 but its not hard is it? As for hand writing, i have a particular view on this, If someone has scruffy handwriting, they have scruffy handwriting, you can't change that.
As for spelling and grammar, Why else are most of my words spelt correctly with correct grammar?

[beth]

mental arithmacy needs to be improved cus it's used the most in the world of work. out of all the maths you need you're gonna be dealing with %'s, divisions, adding and subtracting. and in many of the situations you need to do it you won't have time to work it and/or a calculator. plus it keeps your brain in gear. i haven't done any mental maths in about 2 years now. last time i did was my SATs in year 9. handwriting should just be left i reckon, there's no point trying to teach someone to write neatly over&over when you could be teaching them a different subject. and spelling & grammar, well dude.. you might have 'perfect' grammar and spelling, but take a look around the forum. it could definitely do with some improvement.

[Hecktix]

Yeah I agree with the maths side of things most. We do get taught a lot of stuff in maths that we shouldn't be taught.
I have never personally aggreed with what we get taught in maths, algebra etc, I don't see the point. Yes there are some people, ok a lot of people on the forum with crap spelling & grammar, but could this be because they can't be bothered to use correct spelling and grammatical terms, or could this be because they don't pay attention at school. In my view, if you want to learn things at school you have to pay attention, if you don't it's your fault.

[beth]

Yeah I agree with the maths side of things most. We do get taught a lot of stuff in maths that we shouldn't be taught.
I have never personally aggreed with what we get taught in maths, algebra etc, I don't see the point. Yes there are some people, ok a lot of people on the forum with crap spelling & grammar, but could this be because they can't be bothered to use correct spelling and grammatical terms, or could this be because they don't pay attention at school. In my view, if you want to learn things at school you have to pay attention, if you don't it's your fault.

thats not necessarily true. i listen at school [occasionaly rofl.] and like, there are certain things i don't understand even when i've been listening to the teacher for about half an hour. it's not fair to say that just cus someone doesn't grasp the concept of a certain idea that they didn't pay attention and therefore don't deserve to learn.

[Hecktix]

Surely if the person has any sense they would just ask the teacher? You need to make an effort at school, saying that you need to make an effort involving everything in life. You aren't going to get anywhere just sat on your backside.

[the wombats]

Will you stop posting crap? And your GCSEs are easy, its just I only tried in IT.

[beth]

Surely if the person has any sense they would just ask the teacher? You need to make an effort at school, saying that you need to make an effort involving everything in life. You aren't going to get anywhere just sat on your backside.

that is total snobbery. rofl. hate to say it, but it is. i'm an a* student, and i don't understand shape&space in maths. NO MATTER HOW MUCH I ASK.. it's unfair to say that you'll understand everything as long as you listen. asking teachers only goes so far, you can't blame people for not understanding everything, we're not computers afterall.

[Hecktix]

I don't think you could say they are easy easy. Ok they aren't as hard as they used to be but some papers are hard, some papers aren't, and the Exam Boards publish the questions for a reason? Maybe they think we are all stupid?
Maybe they want us to do well?