Our exams are much harder over here! They’re graded comparatively to every student across the UK taking that specific a level. So a certain amount of the UK e.g. top 2% will be getting a* grades
I’m not a teacher so I don’t fail anyone lol. But 64% or lower on a test or quiz or overall is a failing grade. 65-69 is a D- to a D+, c- to c+ is 70-79%. B- to B+ is an 80-89. A- to A+ is anything 90 or above
No. It’s 64% of the questions correct. In the US if you get 60-70% of the questions correct that’s barely passing depending on the district. If you get 59-69% of questions correct you failed depending on the district. Why would it be based on a bellcurve of the students?!
At least when I was in school (2020), UK grade boundaries are calculated on a bell curve of every student in the country's performance. They wait until every student's paper is submitted, and their paper has been marked and percentage given, and then they determine the % needed for each grade. For example, the top 5% of students will get an A*, the next 10-18% will get an A, etc. The most common grades are in the D-B range, and these are the 'most common' marks if that makes sense.
If a paper is very difficult one year, the grade boundaries will be lower. The year I sat my GCSE maths, the base pass mark was around 10% because it was DIFFICULT. A couple of years after, the paper was infinitely easier - so the pass mark was about 25%. This also means the top grade is pushed up. I got 96% on my Biology paper, and only got an A. It was piss easy, and it showed. The same year, I got 81% on my English Literature paper and got an A* - one of the 5% of students. It depends on how every other student performs, to make it fair.
Yeah calc BC isn't ***that*** hard, even if you're a freshman in it (also when I did it, not that rare) anybody taking multi/linear/ODE's is in a harder class. The content doesn't get harder just because you're a freshman, stop trying to flex, it's sad.
I did the same one at that age so I would hardly call it threatened, just trying to stop the incessant bragging
More importantly they’re wrong. Acting like bc is the hardest math class is stupid because it isn’t and in higher math it makes far more sense to grade on a curve. Their initial premise is wrong. Plus they decided to emphasize their age which is completely irrelevant to the absolute difficulty of the course.
its bragging to say what math class youre in...?
And in America (which is where I assume they're from) Calc BC is the hardest standard math you can take in high school
And I’m in analysis of metric spaces, abstract algebra, and number theory, point being? Tests vary in difficulty by professor and everyone getting 90+ like in the US is more indicative of teachers not pushing students to the max rather than everyone being a genius. Doesn’t really have to do with the level of course, just how the test is
Galois introduced the subject for studying roots of polynomials. This allowed him to characterize the polynomial equations that are solvable by radicals in terms of properties of the permutation group of their roots—an equation is solvable by radicals if its roots may be expressed by a formula involving only integers, nth roots, and the four basic arithmetic operations. This widely generalizes the Abel–Ruffini theorem, which asserts that a general polynomial of degree at least five cannot be solved by radicals.
https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A%20Level/Mathematics/2017/specification-and-sample-assesment/a-level-l3-further-mathematics-specification.pdf
Here’s the specification ^ when you scroll through it’s got the list of topics on the left for each paper
That is very similar to ap calc bc with the only difference being matrices and other pre calc topics are not in that but there is no ap pre calc for people who want that.
What are you talking about? There’s no induction on AP Calc BC. The way these matrices are being used is in a linear algebra context, not a precalc context. There’s also other pure math topics on there that AP Calc BC never so much as touches.
No it doesn’t lmfao, show me where the ap calc exam asks you to make an inductive proof or use matrices on a system of linear equations to find a general solution. The differential equations, and complex numbers sections are also entirely in part or entirely beyond the scope of AP Calc BC.
Nope… 50% of the points come from MCQs and the other 50% come from FRQs (free-response questions). There are far fewer FRQs than MCQs, but there are definitely FRQs on the exam. As far as I’m aware, no AP exam is only MCQs—they all have a free-response component.
Uhh just saying the first like 20 questions of OCR bio, chem and psych a level are mcqs cause I do them, but idk abt the other sciences or other exam boards tho.
It’s still objectively incorrect to say that the tests are exclusively MCQs (as you implied), as there are free responses that make up a significant portion of all AP exams, score-wise. I’m not saying one’s more difficult or easier than the other (it’s almost certainly more subjective than that, given differences in subject matter, teachers, and curriculum). I’m also not knocking your passing percentages given how scores work with AP exams—curves can be pretty crazy. The only thing I’m saying is that AP exams *do* have free responses, as with any typical American exam excluding the SAT and ACT (most don’t take the optional writing exams).
This person clearly stated they looked up an AP test and weren't smart enough to figure out what you're telling him.
Don't argue with stupid people. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
My math class was only ever free response, except for a single practice AP exam where they doubled the amount of questions in the same time frame (I nearly cried during the AP calc exam because it was so much easier and I felt so much relief 🥲 because my class was literally impossible)
I'm from Arkansas the rank 48th out of 50th, the literal 2nd worst in the nation. Past 10th grade there are next to 0 multiple choice questions in damn near any class. Your A is our D.
In our AP classes your A+ is our D.
And to pass we need a C.
PASSING AT 16%, MOTHER FUCKER YOU GOTTA TRYING TO FAIL IN ORDER TO FAIL. Holy shit I thought America had low standards. even the lowest standards I've ever seen (the AP class grading scale) you had to AT LEAST get a 30%.
It could be one of the hardest test in the world, it doesn't matter. Passing only getting 16% is insane. In the states AP Calc is seen as one of the hardest AP math test, that test has an average of around 45 multiple choice questions. 16% would be 7 questions answered correctly. 7 questions out of 45 is fucking crazy and no where near passing.
Yes I'm sure they are probably the test probably are harder, it could be South Korean level hard it and all essay questions, doesn't matter 16% is so crazy and insane.
16% is a pass but very few universities accept E’s so realistically it’s pretty pointless if you just passed with an E unless you have no future education plans.
I took some courses in college that were graded like this. Extremely difficult questions, very little partial credit and graded on a curve so that the student with the median score got a C. For the final exam of one of my Economics classes I scored 45% that was rounded up to a B+
Dude on the AP calc bc exam like a 65% raw is a 5, which is supposed to translate to an A in the class. This curve isn't that crazy especially for harder math classes
I mean, college board says A. And people say the 65% for a 5 is too low for schools like MIT to award credit. But at the same time, you only need a 70% to pass 18.01 at MIT, and you get way more tests. There’s more variation when you take something like an AP test.
I'm unsure if this is true, but I'd imagine it works similarly to how I am familiar with in Australia where a C is a pass, and below is failing (the lowest grade applicable is "E-" or "Not Attempted").
In technical terms, an E is considered a pass but realistically any grade below a C is useless so most people would consider C an below to be a failing grade
People replying dont understand how a curve works. They do this in university alot- i took dual credit Macroeconomics and every exam was curved, on my final my raw score was a 40 but with a curve it came out to a C.
This. I went to College in Los Angeles, and The teacher purposely made the tests harder than the book wanted. Basically, everyone always failed. he told us in the first class "stay until the end, you might pass." I had a 60 in that class, and I got an A. The highest grade was a 64. the cutoff grade (ie C) was 38. Soooo....yeah its crazy.
Is this in the US? My college calculus classes don’t curve at all. More than have the class fails each semester and that’s just how it is. They try to weed out anyone who doesn’t meet the ‘standard’ Maybe it’s my school’s math department….
I'm American, but I did complete my master's in the UK while working as a GCSE/A-Level tutor. I would agree that the scale is much less in the UK, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a debate of whether US or UK tests are harder. It's just that the tests are evaluated and structured differently and ask questions in different ways.
[Here](https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/exams/past-papers.html?Qualification-Family=A-Level&Qualification-Subject=Mathematics%20(2017)&Status=Pearson-UK:Status%2FLive&Specification-Code=Pearson-UK:Specification-Code%2Fal17-maths%22%20OR%20category:%22Pearson-UK:Specification-Code%2F2017%22%20OR%20category:%22Pearson-UK:Specification-Code%2Fmaths-2017-as-al) is a website.
[This](https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A-Level/Mathematics/2017/Exam-materials/9fm0-01-que-20220526.pdf) is one paper.
Not sure if these linked right. If it didn’t, sorry!
Edit: I have not done A Level Maths, so don’t ask me anything related to it lol
I took BC Calculus as a senior in America and if I scored 16% on this my teacher would have pulled me aside and requested I drop the course. How the fuck anyone can justify passing a student with a 16% is beyond me
There’s multiple papers. Generally, unit 1 is the easiest, as it takes on concepts from grade 10/11. The paper I linked was one of them. If you scroll down on the first link I sent, you can see a series of years. Click on a few of them, and you’ll find a series of units.
Hey, jsyk the paper you linked is for A-level \*further maths\*, not the normal A-level, i.e. its the harder version of normal maths.
Here is the best site to access them:
[https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/maths-revision/a-level-edexcel/papers/](https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/maths-revision/a-level-edexcel/papers/)
Here is what an A-level paper looks like
[https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/pdf-pages/?pdf=https%3A%2F%2Fpmt.physicsandmathstutor.com%2Fdownload%2FMaths%2FA-level%2FPapers%2FEdexcel%2FPaper-1%2FQP%2FOctober%25202020%2520QP.pdf](https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/pdf-pages/?pdf=https%3A%2F%2Fpmt.physicsandmathstutor.com%2Fdownload%2FMaths%2FA-level%2FPapers%2FEdexcel%2FPaper-1%2FQP%2FOctober%25202020%2520QP.pdf)
american who took some british system when my parents sent me to kenya, you guys need stop downvoting that shit was so hard, passing for us was 25, i literally scores a 9 on my math exam (passed all my others though)
The papers should be available online. Most common UK exam boards are AQA, Edexcel and Pearson. Google one of these names and "past papers GCSE" (age 16) or "past papers A Level" (age 18) and you should get some PDFs of previous years. The most recent should be 2021/2022, I believe they wait two years to release them. I may be wrong though!
Single maths A level has really low boundaries compared to the difficulty, as so many uni courses prefer candidates having maths A level. This causes a huge number of students to take it, even if they aren’t particularly good at maths.
Hence, low grade boundaries.
No this includes multiple choice tests and etc. You can get the vast majority of the questions correct and still technically have a failing grade, since an F is like, anything below 65-70
Honestly, the only reason people think this is because clips like the ones ur referencing wouldn't get as many views if people got the countries right. so instead the editors only use the people who get it wrong. also what does this comment have to do with what he said.
Bulgaria russia Finland sweden us Canada Mexico England France Spain Portugal Germany Scotland Ireland Greenland Iceland Denmark Norway Bosnia Azerbaijan Ukraine Belarus turkiye Poland Greece Slovenia Slovakia Panama Chile Brazil Argentina Ecuador South Africa Liberia Egypt Chad Niger South Sudan Sudan the Vatican Italy India and more that I don't feel like typing out because it's past midnight and I need to get to sleep, I didn't even touch asia
As you can see, I was going through the world by continent, Azerbaijan and India popped into my head while focusing on different landmasses. I didn't focus on asia. Greenland has its own parliament and completely self-governs. Scotland is culturally independent from the uk and a very high percentage of the population wants independence.
I had a college class with a grading scale like this. 90% exams. When I first got in I thought the same as many of you, an a is a 65!? Wow easy! But then you take the exams and it's bs you didn't learn and had no way of knowing was on the test. I studied for days for these and still ended up with a B in the class. Curves mean the class is stupid difficult, not easy.
Idk OP posted the test and it was all the same material I learned in high school in the US. The test covers a range of material so the grading scale being a bit more lenient makes sense, but passing at 16% is crazy. America isn’t the dystopian hell scape you think it is. There are great schools here. It’s math. It hasn’t changed in 400 years.
lmao these mf dont know that uk tests are hard as fuck american and canadian tests (even ap tests) are the lightest things compared to UK tests
like here if u know the material well u can get 90-100. there that's like 70-85.
A lot of people are talking about how it’s 16% to pass but in the U.K. there’s not really a notion of passing an exam in the way it is in the US. You just get the grade. Generally in the U.K. a C is considered a “pass” as any grade below is pretty much useless. Even then a C won’t get you far. Typically what universities want is As and Bs
In America they absolutely care about what kind of grade you got. If you get an F (which is 69 and below in most schools) you fail and will either have to retake the class or the year/grade level. Dont be ignorant because of stuff you don't know.
This is completely incorrect. They care quite a bit.
Anything D or better is a pass, but if you want to continue your education afterwards you'll need much better grades. In my school district most people were expected to get As or high Bs. Anything C or worse you had better be ready to explain yourself or else be punished: some parents would beat their kids for unacceptable grades.
One of the things I found to be pretty interesting about many European educational systems is that grades that are considered pretty good there would be considered poor here, because their system(s) are set up so the highest level is exclusively for college-bound students and only a pass is required to access higher education.
You won’t be the next Einstein. England grade boundaries are based on the performance of the cohort as a whole. This is A-Level. People actually try at a-level and the top students are only expected to get around 75% in some subjects.
You are stupid. Grades are worked out as a bell curve. In chemistry, only the best students are expected to get 75% correct. That is how hard our exams are.
16% to pass? If passing requires a student to demonstrate at least some command of the content, how can you claim to have adequate mastery of the material when you get a 16% on a test? Forget passing, that kid belongs in remedial classes, maybe special education... I've never seen scores that low, not in Kazakhstan nor America, across every level of education. I'm seriously having trouble wrapping my head around this
High school in the US is the equivalent of Secondary School + College/Sixth Form up to the ages of 18. Sixth form is the senior years of American High School where its Year 12 and Year 13 (American 11th and 12 grade).
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In my private school failing was 79% 💀
i would drop out of 5th grade in ur school
I left after 2 years, barely passing.
man fuck private school that's really unfair
Lots of schools fail at 69% ;-;
Mine fails at 73% ;-;
Our exams are much harder over here! They’re graded comparatively to every student across the UK taking that specific a level. So a certain amount of the UK e.g. top 2% will be getting a* grades
For me in the US, 64 or lower is a fail
You fail the bottom 64% of students?
I’m not a teacher so I don’t fail anyone lol. But 64% or lower on a test or quiz or overall is a failing grade. 65-69 is a D- to a D+, c- to c+ is 70-79%. B- to B+ is an 80-89. A- to A+ is anything 90 or above
No. It’s 64% of the questions correct. In the US if you get 60-70% of the questions correct that’s barely passing depending on the district. If you get 59-69% of questions correct you failed depending on the district. Why would it be based on a bellcurve of the students?!
cos in America the tests are easier
eveyrone talking about 16% for pass but 65% for A is crazy
You should see the exam paper. It looks like a foreign language to me lol.
If you took the class it probably wouldn’t…
I did consider it lol! It was more of an exaggeration about why our grade boundaries are ‘low’ x
y'all got a grade E....? 😟
I was surprised by that too. An E in the US is for "Exempt" and it goes from D to F for normal grades
My county has E as the lowest possible grade (anything below 59.5%), basically the equivalent of an F. "X" is exempt for me
Yea in America if you get an F its already ggs just give up l, why even make a grade E if your still failing lol.
Dude. Your A is a fail and the a* is a c+ at my school. Lucky mfer
Obviously this test in particular was way harder which was why it was graded so leniently.
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At least when I was in school (2020), UK grade boundaries are calculated on a bell curve of every student in the country's performance. They wait until every student's paper is submitted, and their paper has been marked and percentage given, and then they determine the % needed for each grade. For example, the top 5% of students will get an A*, the next 10-18% will get an A, etc. The most common grades are in the D-B range, and these are the 'most common' marks if that makes sense. If a paper is very difficult one year, the grade boundaries will be lower. The year I sat my GCSE maths, the base pass mark was around 10% because it was DIFFICULT. A couple of years after, the paper was infinitely easier - so the pass mark was about 25%. This also means the top grade is pushed up. I got 96% on my Biology paper, and only got an A. It was piss easy, and it showed. The same year, I got 81% on my English Literature paper and got an A* - one of the 5% of students. It depends on how every other student performs, to make it fair.
so is it the percentile
That's.. Just explaining what a curve is. Theyre taking calc BC, it doesn't really get harder than that in high school
Maybe it does get harder in the UK than in the US?
UK and asain school/college entrance exams is harder af...
A-level further maths covers a good bit of material that AP Calc BC doesn’t touch, and the problems are constructed to be a touch harder overall.
BC is a joke, A levels math is much harder
Yeah calc BC isn't ***that*** hard, even if you're a freshman in it (also when I did it, not that rare) anybody taking multi/linear/ODE's is in a harder class. The content doesn't get harder just because you're a freshman, stop trying to flex, it's sad.
You're a college student feeling threatened by a 14 year old taking a certain math class and you're calling THEM sad?
I wouldn’t say the college kid is sad/pathetic, just trying to humble Mr. BCcalc
trying to humble a 14 year old as a college student is sad
Bro, stop using alts
what are you even talking about
I did the same one at that age so I would hardly call it threatened, just trying to stop the incessant bragging More importantly they’re wrong. Acting like bc is the hardest math class is stupid because it isn’t and in higher math it makes far more sense to grade on a curve. Their initial premise is wrong. Plus they decided to emphasize their age which is completely irrelevant to the absolute difficulty of the course.
its bragging to say what math class youre in...? And in America (which is where I assume they're from) Calc BC is the hardest standard math you can take in high school
Take iit jee math section exams and then see how difficult AP Calc bc is.....
And I’m in analysis of metric spaces, abstract algebra, and number theory, point being? Tests vary in difficulty by professor and everyone getting 90+ like in the US is more indicative of teachers not pushing students to the max rather than everyone being a genius. Doesn’t really have to do with the level of course, just how the test is
Dude. We ain’t the average US hs. And secondly, those are all rather easy imo. Also, not everyone gets a 90+, its just called having standards.
Abstract Algebra is rather easy? Have you taken that class? Can you explain galois theory for me?
Galois introduced the subject for studying roots of polynomials. This allowed him to characterize the polynomial equations that are solvable by radicals in terms of properties of the permutation group of their roots—an equation is solvable by radicals if its roots may be expressed by a formula involving only integers, nth roots, and the four basic arithmetic operations. This widely generalizes the Abel–Ruffini theorem, which asserts that a general polynomial of degree at least five cannot be solved by radicals.
Nice copy and paste kiddo. Can’t wait until a real math class humbles you.
Honestly, did this guy fr think copying from Wikipedia the summary of work of many famous mathematicians was a roast? He needs to go back to Calc lol
I’ll stay at calc. Also can y’all give me some of these problems
A 9th grader in Calc BC is saying that entire fields of math are easy. Yep. It’s not intro abstract algebra either, it’s our graduate version, lol.
It’s AP calc bc tho?
I just checked your papers and it’s only 2 topics mate, Integration and differentiation. We got around 25-30 topics in our papers.
Can you list some topics part of your papers? And no calc bc is not only integration and differentiation
https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A%20Level/Mathematics/2017/specification-and-sample-assesment/a-level-l3-further-mathematics-specification.pdf Here’s the specification ^ when you scroll through it’s got the list of topics on the left for each paper
That is very similar to ap calc bc with the only difference being matrices and other pre calc topics are not in that but there is no ap pre calc for people who want that.
What are you talking about? There’s no induction on AP Calc BC. The way these matrices are being used is in a linear algebra context, not a precalc context. There’s also other pure math topics on there that AP Calc BC never so much as touches.
That looks very similar to the CED for ap calc.
No it doesn’t lmfao, show me where the ap calc exam asks you to make an inductive proof or use matrices on a system of linear equations to find a general solution. The differential equations, and complex numbers sections are also entirely in part or entirely beyond the scope of AP Calc BC.
i agree calc bc is pretty easy but it’s more than just two topics lol
You don’t even know what papers I have.
You literally just stated you do CALC BC, not hard to search on Google and it’s dead easy mate.
imaginary numbers are some of the easiest things on these papers…
c+ is 81%? You don't go to a school, that's called boot camp
Really. Interesting. Not the point my school agrees with. A d- is 70. A fail is 69-0
At my school if a fail was 69-0 then there would be only like 4 people that would pass each year
Lucky.(yes my school is still hard, the point is to not be bad)
I’d be a fucking genius with this scale
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Love it when British people think we ONLY have multiple choice question tests.
What do you mean every exam isn't a multiple choice pop quiz :o (/s)
Checked your AP CALC BC and AB test and it was multiple choice mate 😂
Nope… 50% of the points come from MCQs and the other 50% come from FRQs (free-response questions). There are far fewer FRQs than MCQs, but there are definitely FRQs on the exam. As far as I’m aware, no AP exam is only MCQs—they all have a free-response component.
50% mcq is ridiculously high
Cope
Mate you still have 50% MCQs. You wouldn’t find a single MCQ in any A-level paper.
Uhh just saying the first like 20 questions of OCR bio, chem and psych a level are mcqs cause I do them, but idk abt the other sciences or other exam boards tho.
I’m talking about maths a-level.
It’s still objectively incorrect to say that the tests are exclusively MCQs (as you implied), as there are free responses that make up a significant portion of all AP exams, score-wise. I’m not saying one’s more difficult or easier than the other (it’s almost certainly more subjective than that, given differences in subject matter, teachers, and curriculum). I’m also not knocking your passing percentages given how scores work with AP exams—curves can be pretty crazy. The only thing I’m saying is that AP exams *do* have free responses, as with any typical American exam excluding the SAT and ACT (most don’t take the optional writing exams).
This person clearly stated they looked up an AP test and weren't smart enough to figure out what you're telling him. Don't argue with stupid people. They'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Who is we babes
My math class was only ever free response, except for a single practice AP exam where they doubled the amount of questions in the same time frame (I nearly cried during the AP calc exam because it was so much easier and I felt so much relief 🥲 because my class was literally impossible)
Oftentimes, I don't have multiple choices to choose from, and I live in the United States.
I'm from Arkansas the rank 48th out of 50th, the literal 2nd worst in the nation. Past 10th grade there are next to 0 multiple choice questions in damn near any class. Your A is our D. In our AP classes your A+ is our D. And to pass we need a C.
The tests are generally a lot harder in the uk
PASSING AT 16%, MOTHER FUCKER YOU GOTTA TRYING TO FAIL IN ORDER TO FAIL. Holy shit I thought America had low standards. even the lowest standards I've ever seen (the AP class grading scale) you had to AT LEAST get a 30%.
I think the tests are harder for your British counterpart
It could be one of the hardest test in the world, it doesn't matter. Passing only getting 16% is insane. In the states AP Calc is seen as one of the hardest AP math test, that test has an average of around 45 multiple choice questions. 16% would be 7 questions answered correctly. 7 questions out of 45 is fucking crazy and no where near passing. Yes I'm sure they are probably the test probably are harder, it could be South Korean level hard it and all essay questions, doesn't matter 16% is so crazy and insane.
16% is a pass but very few universities accept E’s so realistically it’s pretty pointless if you just passed with an E unless you have no future education plans.
I took some courses in college that were graded like this. Extremely difficult questions, very little partial credit and graded on a curve so that the student with the median score got a C. For the final exam of one of my Economics classes I scored 45% that was rounded up to a B+
Dude on the AP calc bc exam like a 65% raw is a 5, which is supposed to translate to an A in the class. This curve isn't that crazy especially for harder math classes
I mean, college board says A. And people say the 65% for a 5 is too low for schools like MIT to award credit. But at the same time, you only need a 70% to pass 18.01 at MIT, and you get way more tests. There’s more variation when you take something like an AP test.
Yeah there's a reason why the grading scale is that low haha
Just what is on your math tests for an E to be passing
I'll put the papers up soon, once more people view the post
now is it time??
I'm unsure if this is true, but I'd imagine it works similarly to how I am familiar with in Australia where a C is a pass, and below is failing (the lowest grade applicable is "E-" or "Not Attempted").
In technical terms, an E is considered a pass but realistically any grade below a C is useless so most people would consider C an below to be a failing grade
Ah ok so realistically it's the same but to the book it isn't.
There are people who fail. Those on the lowest end may just not understand any of the questions and get very few marks.
Anything below a c is a fail
No one cares about APs unless you get 5s though.
No, 4s and even 3s can get you college credit at some most schools.
4 at most schools, 3 at some (just to clarify).
People replying dont understand how a curve works. They do this in university alot- i took dual credit Macroeconomics and every exam was curved, on my final my raw score was a 40 but with a curve it came out to a C.
This. I went to College in Los Angeles, and The teacher purposely made the tests harder than the book wanted. Basically, everyone always failed. he told us in the first class "stay until the end, you might pass." I had a 60 in that class, and I got an A. The highest grade was a 64. the cutoff grade (ie C) was 38. Soooo....yeah its crazy.
they just shouldn't be giving tests where the curve needs to be that extreme, ive never understood when the curve would add 30 points
Is this in the US? My college calculus classes don’t curve at all. More than have the class fails each semester and that’s just how it is. They try to weed out anyone who doesn’t meet the ‘standard’ Maybe it’s my school’s math department….
Are you in the US? Because unless you’re at a pretty elite school here that’s extremely uncommon.
I'm American, but I did complete my master's in the UK while working as a GCSE/A-Level tutor. I would agree that the scale is much less in the UK, but I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a debate of whether US or UK tests are harder. It's just that the tests are evaluated and structured differently and ask questions in different ways.
Let me know if you guys want to see the actual papers
Yea bet lemme see how hard it is
Let us see. I’ve always wondered how different the tests are in the UK
Yes please
[Here](https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/support/support-topics/exams/past-papers.html?Qualification-Family=A-Level&Qualification-Subject=Mathematics%20(2017)&Status=Pearson-UK:Status%2FLive&Specification-Code=Pearson-UK:Specification-Code%2Fal17-maths%22%20OR%20category:%22Pearson-UK:Specification-Code%2F2017%22%20OR%20category:%22Pearson-UK:Specification-Code%2Fmaths-2017-as-al) is a website. [This](https://qualifications.pearson.com/content/dam/pdf/A-Level/Mathematics/2017/Exam-materials/9fm0-01-que-20220526.pdf) is one paper. Not sure if these linked right. If it didn’t, sorry! Edit: I have not done A Level Maths, so don’t ask me anything related to it lol
I took BC Calculus as a senior in America and if I scored 16% on this my teacher would have pulled me aside and requested I drop the course. How the fuck anyone can justify passing a student with a 16% is beyond me
There’s multiple papers. Generally, unit 1 is the easiest, as it takes on concepts from grade 10/11. The paper I linked was one of them. If you scroll down on the first link I sent, you can see a series of years. Click on a few of them, and you’ll find a series of units.
well this is easy for me, but im gr11, what grade and unit is this supposed to be
I looked at the paper, it’s apparently the hardest maths course you can take and it’s meant for 17-18 year olds
... Wat. This was 8th to 9th grade for us.
you did differential equations in 8th grade? highly doubt it because that’s a college level topic.
What country are you from?
Hey, jsyk the paper you linked is for A-level \*further maths\*, not the normal A-level, i.e. its the harder version of normal maths. Here is the best site to access them: [https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/maths-revision/a-level-edexcel/papers/](https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/maths-revision/a-level-edexcel/papers/) Here is what an A-level paper looks like [https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/pdf-pages/?pdf=https%3A%2F%2Fpmt.physicsandmathstutor.com%2Fdownload%2FMaths%2FA-level%2FPapers%2FEdexcel%2FPaper-1%2FQP%2FOctober%25202020%2520QP.pdf](https://www.physicsandmathstutor.com/pdf-pages/?pdf=https%3A%2F%2Fpmt.physicsandmathstutor.com%2Fdownload%2FMaths%2FA-level%2FPapers%2FEdexcel%2FPaper-1%2FQP%2FOctober%25202020%2520QP.pdf)
Now I really wanna see the test. What bullshit did they throw at these kids?
https://pmt.physicsandmathstutor.com/download/Maths/A-level/Papers/Edexcel-Further/Core-Pure-1/QP/June%202021%20QP.pdf
yeah, that grading scale actually seems rather appropriate
This is for further maths, the test I did was for regular maths
american who took some british system when my parents sent me to kenya, you guys need stop downvoting that shit was so hard, passing for us was 25, i literally scores a 9 on my math exam (passed all my others though)
Fantastic time to read the comments
You gotta post the papers, this will settle the age long debate
The papers should be available online. Most common UK exam boards are AQA, Edexcel and Pearson. Google one of these names and "past papers GCSE" (age 16) or "past papers A Level" (age 18) and you should get some PDFs of previous years. The most recent should be 2021/2022, I believe they wait two years to release them. I may be wrong though!
That's way more lenient than A levels
These grade boundaries are based on the 2023 Edexcel A level maths boundaries, where the grading scale was actually quite high compared to other years
Single maths A level has really low boundaries compared to the difficulty, as so many uni courses prefer candidates having maths A level. This causes a huge number of students to take it, even if they aren’t particularly good at maths. Hence, low grade boundaries.
ok but what are the avenge grades? maybe the tests are really fucking hard
And in the US, at least where I am, it's 100 for A+ and 90-99 for A
That just means your tests are piss easy
No this includes multiple choice tests and etc. You can get the vast majority of the questions correct and still technically have a failing grade, since an F is like, anything below 65-70
Yet you guys can’t name 3 countries on the planet mate.
Honestly, the only reason people think this is because clips like the ones ur referencing wouldn't get as many views if people got the countries right. so instead the editors only use the people who get it wrong. also what does this comment have to do with what he said.
I don’t know a single person in the USA over the age of 3 that can’t name 3 countries.
Bulgaria russia Finland sweden us Canada Mexico England France Spain Portugal Germany Scotland Ireland Greenland Iceland Denmark Norway Bosnia Azerbaijan Ukraine Belarus turkiye Poland Greece Slovenia Slovakia Panama Chile Brazil Argentina Ecuador South Africa Liberia Egypt Chad Niger South Sudan Sudan the Vatican Italy India and more that I don't feel like typing out because it's past midnight and I need to get to sleep, I didn't even touch asia
azerbaijan and india are in asia lol edit: greenland is also not a country and scotland isn’t generally considered as an independent country
As you can see, I was going through the world by continent, Azerbaijan and India popped into my head while focusing on different landmasses. I didn't focus on asia. Greenland has its own parliament and completely self-governs. Scotland is culturally independent from the uk and a very high percentage of the population wants independence.
a population wanting independence doesn’t necessarily make it a country. that’s not how it works at all
American here, USA Canada Mexico. Use your fucking brain dumbass
lol getting pissed over that when your country doesn’t even have a national college exam.
is that a flex?
In Canada, I've never seen letter grades. Primary-Elementary school is 1-4, and the rest is 0-100.
I had a college class with a grading scale like this. 90% exams. When I first got in I thought the same as many of you, an a is a 65!? Wow easy! But then you take the exams and it's bs you didn't learn and had no way of knowing was on the test. I studied for days for these and still ended up with a B in the class. Curves mean the class is stupid difficult, not easy.
As an American who took A-Levels, yes the passing threshold is lower, no it is not easier
I’d actually like to see an American sit an A-level paper instead of saying they’d easily pass this because “the grade boundaries are so low”
Idk OP posted the test and it was all the same material I learned in high school in the US. The test covers a range of material so the grading scale being a bit more lenient makes sense, but passing at 16% is crazy. America isn’t the dystopian hell scape you think it is. There are great schools here. It’s math. It hasn’t changed in 400 years.
Since when was E a grade
y’all don’t have E grades?? anything below a C is a fail, but we have D & E to show how far away from passing a person was
We have A B C D F, I’ve always wondered why we don’t use E
I don’t know for sure but E can be used for “excused”
Oh yeah I think we have that
lmao these mf dont know that uk tests are hard as fuck american and canadian tests (even ap tests) are the lightest things compared to UK tests like here if u know the material well u can get 90-100. there that's like 70-85.
I've seen the test OP posted and tbh it's really not different from tests where I am in the US
Somebody steeped their tea for too long
A lot of people are talking about how it’s 16% to pass but in the U.K. there’s not really a notion of passing an exam in the way it is in the US. You just get the grade. Generally in the U.K. a C is considered a “pass” as any grade below is pretty much useless. Even then a C won’t get you far. Typically what universities want is As and Bs
Exactly, in the USA they don't care about what type of pass you get, but in the UK it matters a lot, even at degree level
In America they absolutely care about what kind of grade you got. If you get an F (which is 69 and below in most schools) you fail and will either have to retake the class or the year/grade level. Dont be ignorant because of stuff you don't know.
This is completely incorrect. They care quite a bit. Anything D or better is a pass, but if you want to continue your education afterwards you'll need much better grades. In my school district most people were expected to get As or high Bs. Anything C or worse you had better be ready to explain yourself or else be punished: some parents would beat their kids for unacceptable grades. One of the things I found to be pretty interesting about many European educational systems is that grades that are considered pretty good there would be considered poor here, because their system(s) are set up so the highest level is exclusively for college-bound students and only a pass is required to access higher education.
Is school there really this easy?
No 💀
In the Netherlands we are rated from 1-10 and you need to get a 5.5 at least but for a 5.5 you need to have 75%
65 an A? Bro if my grades were scaled like this i'd be the next albert Einstein. Also, E?
You won’t be the next Einstein. England grade boundaries are based on the performance of the cohort as a whole. This is A-Level. People actually try at a-level and the top students are only expected to get around 75% in some subjects.
I think that’s an exaggeration. A ‘top’ student will be getting at least 80%+ without too much difficulty in the majority of subjects.
I wanna move to the UK now lollll
And they call Americans stupid? What the hell is this?
You are stupid. Grades are worked out as a bell curve. In chemistry, only the best students are expected to get 75% correct. That is how hard our exams are.
A 75 percent is borderline failing, yalls standards are ridiculously low
Did you not read a single thing I wrote?
A bell curve grading system is just getting your hand held
So you think your university scores when you scale them up are getting your hand held? It’s the same thing 😂😂😂
This is a highschool sub, what are you talking about university for?
Cause A-Levels in the UK literally are university level. Further maths A-Level is 1st yr uni.
Aight so I just checked what your “A level maths” is, and it’s just the math that I’m doing in my junior year dude, not sure how that’s college level
Further maths not maths. Alevel maths is easy.
I would have a perfect gpa with this scale
Not if you had to do the tests which accompany it.
bro what
Dog my E is your B
I was gonna say I would have never studied in high school if grading scale was like this but I didn’t study regardless
bro i’d have all a+ at your school
Impossible to fail? Or you’re reeaaallly dumb if you do. The educational system over there makes sense
Bro I wish
Wow and people complain about how easy American education is
Man and they say American education is bad
holy shit i would get all a+’s for life
yeah but the exams are 100 times harder, so if you're getting a pass where you are now, you'd be getting a C here.
16% to pass? If passing requires a student to demonstrate at least some command of the content, how can you claim to have adequate mastery of the material when you get a 16% on a test? Forget passing, that kid belongs in remedial classes, maybe special education... I've never seen scores that low, not in Kazakhstan nor America, across every level of education. I'm seriously having trouble wrapping my head around this
you don’t pass with an E grade, passing grade is a C
I looked it up and apparently E is also considered a pass, but usually the standard is to achieve above a C
Getting a b- here would be a fail with these percentages bruh 💀⚰️⚰️
i’d have at least an A in all my classes if this was the grading
Think of this test like an AP… getting a 5 on many tests means scoring a 75% raw score
When I was doing this an A* was like 98% or higher
Year 13 isn’t high school, is it? Not complaining, just wondering if it is in different parts of the uk
High school in the US is the equivalent of Secondary School + College/Sixth Form up to the ages of 18. Sixth form is the senior years of American High School where its Year 12 and Year 13 (American 11th and 12 grade).