First fall in GCSE grades in exam's history

[Doggy Styles]

I don't think A-levels get harder in year 2. If you hadn't done the first year then of course it looks that way, but it just builds on what you learned or is a different topic entirely depending if you're doing a science or art subject.
Viewing an AS as half an A-level is fine, but if someone only has AS levels that is weird.

Agreed. Last week I spoke to head of maths at a large school and she said that A-level results are generally the same, and very rarely more than one grade different, to the pupil's AS score.

[MyUserName]

Agreed. Last week I spoke to head of maths at a large school and she said that A-level results are generally the same, and very rarely more than one grade different, to the pupil's AS score.

Fair enough, perhaps I am mistaken in that assumption.

Although with regards to uni, my second year was vastly harder than my first. The course seemed to go insane. It was not just me either, we were all horrified at how difficult it got. However, that might just have been that course at that uni.

[SupremeSpod]

Nah.

We do that intentionally.

In my young day it was the First year that was insanely difficult (and largely tedious & irrelevant) to weed out the wheat from the chaff.

Can't do that any more or there wouldn't be any esteemed customers left.

According to Eben Upton, that's the reasoning behind starting the "Raspberry Pi" project. To try and harvest more homegrown wheat!