(Warning: this rant is qualified DEFCON 1, and may offend some people. The management apologises in advance for any offence caused, but still refuses to edit this post and instead points out that people who worry about 'political correctness' are a bunch of whingey dickheads.)
In Great(?) Britain, we have a lot of exams. Doesn't seem to make people smarter though. Probably something to do with the fact that THE ****ING EXAMS ARE A WASTE OF TIME! O'course, that's just my take on it. But still I must ask myself why, even though the education system is geared towards teaching people only how to pass exams (as opposed to something USEFUL) there are still a surprising number of grades lower than C. Now, in my opinion, anything lower than C is a FAIL. Not a D or an E (or even an F or a G at GCSE-level) but an outright FAIL!
A short time ago, there was a newspaper article about the renaming of exam grades from Pass and Fail to 'Satisfactory' and 'Not Satisfactory'. WTFH? Are these stupid BASTARDS in the government afraid of offending people with the word FAIL? THIS IS POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE CRITICAL! IT'S BLOODY MADNESS! HEY, TONY BLAIR, GET YOUR ****ING BRAIN IN GEAR!
My GCSE results:
I got 3 A*, 5 A, and 3 B grades. One of those A*s was Maths, and I took it two years early. Two of the As were IT and Statistics, and I took them 1 year early. The Bs were things like D&T Graphics, Art, and English Literature, eg. subjects with NO technical content and hence a very open mark scheme. At least with Maths an answer is either right or wrong...
My A-Level results:
Most people take 3 of these plus one AS-Level (which is like half an A-Level). However, it's now necessary to do a piece of **** called 'General Studies', and another called 'Key Skills' (which basically covers all the stuff that we SHOULD'VE learned before our GCSEs...)
I managed to avoid either piece of **** by doing five A-Levels: Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Electronics and Computing. Results: 4xA, 1xB. The B-grade was in Computing, eg. the only subject I did any work for.
Easy exams, you might think, since I got all the above results WITHOUT DOING A SINGLE BIT OF REVISION! However, there are a large number of people who are happy with D grades, not because they lack the ability to score higher, but because the level of teaching in Britain is about as low as it can go. Although I'm sure that Labour government can bring it further down if they find another MONEY SINK like the ****ING MILLENIUM DOME instead of something IMPORTANT like EDUCATION or the HEALTH SERVICE.
Why did I do well? Because instead of listening to a teacher drone on about something we don't need to know, I got out a book and learned something. The fact that Key Skills is a necessary component of the A-Level course just shows how poor this country's education service is. How is it possible to pass a GCSE if you don't know basic arithmetic, or how to spell? I had a better grasp of the English language when I entered Secondary school than one of the English teachers!
Would anyone like to hazard a guess at the most ridiculous aspect of English Literature we have to know about? Advertising. And camera angles. We had to analyse a TV advert, do a storyboard, and then explain the impact of the different camera angles. WHAT A PIECE OF ****! SOMEONE GET ME A PLANE TICKET TO AMERICA OR ANYWHERE ELSE, SO I CAN EMIGRATE BEFORE MY BRAIN MELTS!
Fortunately, University education here is still of a (reasonably) high standard. Because most people here think as I do.
Rant over. Good luck with your exams, Setekh.
