h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

GCSE's may not be important when you are 40 - however, they are the key, passport, if you like, to various other stages of education. Most schools require 5 gcse passes to commence a levels. Then after that, most courses, be they 'red brick'or more industrial, require passes in GCSE's to demonstrate a basic knowledege and understanding of necessary basics.

Personally, i think that the way GCSE's are going at the moment, suck big time...my brother is in the middle of his right now and he feels that he must put himself under such pressure to achieve - he wants to apply to Oxbridge and knows that if he does not achieve straight a's or a*'s, that isnt going to happen for him.

But instead of all these lovely finals that we put our bambino's through (granted, they do have to complete coursework, yada yada), why do we not just examine them right the way through the course, and focus on their development within the subject, as opposed to getting them to cram 2 years worth of knowledge into the space of four hours worth of exams - surely, there is a more methodical way to assess - better for both the ajudicators and the pupils.

Thoughts anyone? or am i just talkgin rubbish?

In America, we get grade reports by quarter, so the teachers have to give tests at least once every quarter, and they generally divide everything they have to teach into units for each of which they give tests. The only teacher this year who gave a "final" was my math teacher, but the test was just 100 multiple choice questions. My biology teacher said he would give a final, but he didn't, which is really nothing new. I have a rather high degree of contempt for Wisconsinites, even though I am one, because most seem to be proud of the fact that they don't know anything, and they all have terrible grammar, especially our school's newspaper staff! Whew! I'm sorry, I just had to get that off my chest.

But I digress.

My point was that it seems to be just European countries that have the final-exam setup, and on the rare occasion that a US teacher chooses to give finals the students have to do it in a normal class period, which is only 55 minutes for some reason.

We do have the Advanced Placement tests here, but no one is forced to take them.

that method does seem quite good - however, what are the american requirements to enter into university - do they look at your grades from the ages of 15 onwards or is it only the grades from your final years of secondary education? Please forgive my ignornance - i am not familiar with the US system.

and spelling for that matter!

They generally look at one's grade point average from the last four years of high school (9th through 12th grades), plus SATs and ACTs. Some colleges are weird, though, and also want students to have a lot of extracurriculars like National Honors Society, so having a 4.0 isn't necessarily the best way to get into college.

How is it done in the UK? I'm not too familiar with that.

They generally look at one's grade point average from the last four years of high school (9th through 12th grades), plus SATs and ACTs. Some colleges are weird, though, and also want students to have a lot of extracurriculars like National Honors Society, so having a 4.0 isn't necessarily the best way to get into college.

How is it done in the UK? I'm not too familiar with that.