A-Level Results - Why exams are not getting easier

What most commentators are seemingly missing from this debate is the reason why students are getting better grades in the first place. Two things become apparent with the passage of time. A teacher will refine their own skills and knowledge of examination procedure, therefore making their  lessons more informative. Or as I often remarked when at a-level myself, 'We are learning to pass an exam, not the subject'.

The other much more important reasoning behind this increase in student pass grades is a shift in culture. Students are exposed to a whole different set of complexities that were not even dreamed of when I was in school. Lets think on this a moment, I am not that far out of A-level myself – some five years. Courses offering tuition is media studies were just taking off then, I think in fact that I remember one of my friends remarking that they were the first to go through the subject at the sixth form I attended. When we were in our formative years, discovering the world and all that was interesting in it, well there was not all that much to discover. Television was still bound to four channels, going to the cinema was considered a treat rather than something to do to fill time. Even reading was considered only acceptable to age appropriate books. Basically parents pushed their children to do three things.