A-level Results
Once again, a-level results have been the best ever, which makes you think that all the criticism received by the education department is true – that a-levels really are getting easier. Despite this thought, many university have seen a decline in applications, joined with colleges having a decline in applications to actually study a-levels themselves. Are we just becoming dumb and lazy? Or are a-levels just becoming more exclusive, with only the most top students taking them, which is why we are seeing such an increase in good results?
Having just finished my a-levels, I don’t see how anyone could call them easy, in all reality they were the two hardest years I’ve ever spent at school, and I think that people don’t realise that on top of the studying at a level which you have never experienced before, (in my view GSCE’s were a breeze for those lucky enough to be naturally clever, but a-levels presented a challenge like they have never encountered) but many of the students hold down jobs, many do voluntary work, and then of course there is the need to have a social life. And all this when you are probably in the hardest phase of growing up.
I think many would argue that there isn’t a need for the job, the voluntary work or the social life, but for many students it isn’t an option to drop any of them.
The job gives them a sense of financial independence, there just comes a point where you don’t want to have to rely on your parents to finance you. The voluntary work not only makes them feel like they are making a difference in some way, but provides essential material to bulk up that personal statement on the feared uni application. And as for the social life, teenagers just wouldn’t be that without the social life, and after all, all work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy.
My experience was somewhat like this, I took 5 AS’s in my first year and then dropped down to 3 in my second. I spent way to many hours working and volunteering, and at the end of it all I would have said that cost me, I didn’t get the grades I wanted or needed. But at the end of the day, I wouldn’t have changed it for all the world, I have gained many valuable experiences and memories that I wouldn’t be without. My only advice is to make sure you get the balance right between work and studying, and then you get the best of both worlds, experience and good grades.
After all that is why you do a-levels, to get the grades, in my own very personal experience, it is heart-breaking not to get the grades you wanted, to have the uncertainty of where you’re life is taking you, as you were counting on those grades to get into uni, to have to watch your friends as they jump for joy with their own exceptional grades, to feel jealous because they did better than you.
So are a-levels getting easier? Well they definitely aren’t easy, ask anyone of the hundreds of thousands of teenagers that slogged their guts out for the past two years, with many not receiving the grades they so desired, any one of them will tell you they are definitely not easy, and that those two years were, summed up in three words, just blood, sweat and tears, whether those tears be of joy or sadness.
