Funnily enough I had a conversation with the head of science at my son’s school only last week, at the school’s 6th form open day, and as teacher he’s of the opinion that most of what was taught at ‘O’ level in my own day – in physics and chemistry specifically – is today, not covered until AS level.

I’m not sure this is good evidence of a difference in ability or content, as the results you mentioned are perfectly consistent with the older person being just better at physics/exams than the GCSE student. If he had been a little less good at them, he would have done worse in the GCSE but still better in the O level, which would prove precisely nothing. And of course, that’s not to mention that a sample of one proves nothing.

I know more about maths than physics, but since the same claim is made about it perhaps saying something about maths might throw some light on the case of physics. When I studied maths at school, we didn’t do an enormous amount of trigonometry, learning theorems about chords and sections of circles as they did in the good old days, but we did learn about group theory and set theory, which was certainly not taught in the good old days. And I can tell you that whereas almost all of modern mathematics is stated in the language of these two theories, and in the case of group theory has been for over a hundred years, there is very little need of advanced theorems of Euclidean geometry. In my time as an undergraduate and graduate student, I used group theory and set theory every day, but I don’t think I used any Euclidean geometry once. (I think I once followed a proof in non-Euclidean geometry that mirrored the proof of the Euclidean version.)

Now that’s not to say that the exams aren’t easier in some overall sense, but the evidence in the entry and comments above is a long way from proving the point for the reasons pointed out in my comment and Simon’s one two above.

The reason I highlight this is because there is, it seems to me, pressure to go from “equality of educational opportunity” to “equality of outcomes” in the manner in which our education system is being reformed …

I don’t know the various institutional relationships at work here, but I don’t believe this assertion is supported by the exam paper comparison without additional context. You have not addressed the possibility that Cambridge University exam papers are and always have been deliberately harder (i.e. test on more knowledge) than AQA ones due to differences in target market and objectives, for example.

Speaking from experience as a 27 year old, I think the second question is nearer what I remember and the first is more like a pre-GCSE comprehensive level question, but memory is a funny thing.

Not really.

You could make such an argument in respect of somewhat less empirical subjects in which opinion and subjectivity plays a greater role but not when it comes to physics, which should include a significant degree of mathematical rigour but patently, in the modern exam questions, does not.

Put it this way; there is much less content in the modern physics syllabus, hence the much easier exams, and in physics that matters.

If you take a subject like history then, to a considerable extent, it can be treated in a content neutral fashion. It doesn’t really matter whether you study World War I or World War II because the base skills and knowledge you use to analyse each are broadly the same and can be readily transferred to the different subject matter.

That’s not something that’s true for physics – you have to have the discipline specific knowledge to get anywhere. Newton’s laws of motion tell you little or nothing about the nature of electromagnetism, for that you have to study Faraday et al or you’re stuffed.

In the sciences, content is either there or it isn’t, and what the papers show is that in the modern syllabus much of what I studied for my ‘O’ level is almost, if not entirely, absent. Large parts of the syllabus that used to be taught to kids sitting exams at 16 years of age have simply been taken out of the subject in their entirety and the quality of the subject (and of exam passes gained in it) are all the poorer for their omission.

If you wanted to show systematic dumbing down you would need to compare papers from the same organisation, or else rule out intentional differences based on the different objectives of the organisations you chose. Perhaps you could show that the papers were to be held against some common standard such as a common outcome for the same pupils.

http://www.nmc-uk.org/aFrameDisplay.aspx?DocumentID=932

Especially page 12 which reads:

“The framework (see annexe 1) is underpinned by five principles (Para 1.2). It has eight domains, each with an overall descriptor. There are four stages to acting as a registrant, mentor, practice teacher or teacher each with more specific outcomes relevant to one of the eight domain descriptors. The NMC would expect that the majority of registrants would at least meet the outcomes of a mentor.”

I wonder how long it took a committee of NMC policy wonks to dream up the term registrant and I wonder what it actually means?

The problem is that education is pretty important to the country, and to the future of the economy, particularly the science subjects. So they will interfere if things don’t look good (and the level of uptake is a problem).

Kent Man – twaddle. It was bad enough when kids were judged at 11 and on that basis left to rot in poor schools if they failed, without doing it at 7. It’s precisely because parents don’t always teach their kids to read by the time that they are 5 that schools have to do it.

And yes, one can demonstrate how the papers have got easier in empirical terms. IIRC a newspaper did it a while back using Maths papers, which were given to two subjects, one GCSE student and one older person who’d sat the old ‘O’ level.

As I recall both came in about equal on the GSCE paper, but on the ‘O’ level paper the older person scored considerably higher.

That’s not necessarily evidence of differences in ability but it does show up the differences in content.

I’m surprised, actually, that there has been no scientific study comparing older exam papers with newer ones. With physics particularly, I’m sure it would be possible to empirically demonstrate that they’ve gotten easier. That would be some rotten fruit to throw at the government, wouldn’t it?