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Equalisation of A-level and Leaving Cert points. wtf?

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Comments

  • #32
    Sabrina Icy Topic
    Posts: 6,645 ✭✭✭ Sabrina Icy Topic


    Ye 80% is an A but it's not just calculated from an end of school exam like ours is. We got talking about this because I was looking at A-level maths material and it looked the same as what we have yet I got a B1 (same percentage as their A).

    And on the other hand, the LC French and German papers (I sat the A-Levels and tutor students for the LC) are very easy compared to the A-Level papers. A lot of students in my French class had good LC grades, yet they hadn't even covered a lot of the grammar, and had never studied literature! The standard of the Northern Irish students was much, much higher and this was noted by the lecturers. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but the British system is basically university preparation - studying a few subjects in detail. We have GCSE's (which are supposedly between the JC and the LC in difficulty) to cover general education, and as someone pointed out only 50% of students in the UK even get the MINIMUM 5 A*-C passes at GCSE, which puts them out of education before they even get to A-Level. Then there are all the students who choose to leave, get technical qualifications or don't get enough points to get into sixth form (in my school you had to have good GCSE's, not just passes, to be allowed to do A-Levels) who don't sit A-Levels. That's why comparing pass rates is silly - most Irish students sit the LC, while only the best 25% or so of the British students do A-Levels. The only reason to do them is to go to college, so of course people tend to do well. They aren't a general leaving exam like the LC. The problem with this is that the 2 systems are so completely different, that you can't compare like with like.


  • #33
    Chunky Monkey
    Closed Accounts Posts: 923 ✭✭✭Chunky Monkey


    I understand, I wasn't putting down the A-levels, I would have loved the opportunity to just do the subjects I like in detail and avoid subjects like Irish. I do think A-level students are treated unfairly here. 4 As at A2 at the first sitting are required for medicine (and then there's the lottery) yet in the UK all the med schools bar the London ones) look for reasonable grades from LC students with one which offered me an interview with only AAABBD on a second attempt.


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