Why a B at maths A-level today is equal to just an E grade 50 years ago
PUPILS who score a B in A-level maths today would have been awarded only an E grade 50 years ago, a study suggests.
Standards in the subject have steeply declined since the 1960s as exam papers have become easier, researchers found.
It confirms long-held views that those who took maths exams five decades ago would have been taught to a much higher level to achieve a good mark.
Critics have warned that erosion of maths standards over the last century has led to British youngsters falling behind foreign children. And elite universities say the high numbers of students getting top grades makes it harder for them to select exceptional candidates.
The reason for the decline is usually blamed on a shift in the level of difficulty of the questions and also to changes in grade boundaries.
However, while recent exam papers appear to be significantly easier than those taken in the 1960s, there appears to have been little change in the past 20 years.
Grade inflation in maths A-level may have plateaued after 1996, the Loughborough University team suggested.
Dr Ian Jones, of its Mathematics Education Centre, said: ‘There has been ongoing concern that maths A-levels are getting easier. While our study does show a decline in standards between the 1960s and 1990s, there is no evidence to suggest there has been further decline in the last 20 years.’
Major reforms to exams in Eng- land are being introduced, with the first new GCSEs and A-levels in subjects including English and maths brought in last autumn.
Ministers have previously said that changes to the system are needed to make the qualifications more rigorous.
The report, called Fifty years of A-level Mathematics: Have standards changed?, was based on answers in 66 papers from 1964, 1968, 1996 and 2012, held by the National Archives.
Maths experts compared pairs of papers marked at grades A, B and E and decided which showed the better mathematician.
All papers were standardised and anonymised, so they could not tell which year they originated in. Researchers concluded that a grade B in a maths paper from the 2010s was equivalent to an E in the 1960s, but no different from the 1990s.
Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, said: ‘A-level maths is much easier now than it was 50 years ago. It has had to adjust to what the candidates can do.
‘Very few took the exam in the 1960s and they were almost all grammar school pupils. A much wider range now take the exam and it has been simplified so that there is an acceptable pass rate.’ But he acknowledged that maths teaching in primary schools had ‘greatly improved in recent years’.
Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said the study seemed to be saying ‘that the ever rising pass rate since 1990 must reflect a genuine improvement in standards’. Pointing to recent research which put the UK 22nd out of 23 developed nations for numeracy, he added: Who do they think they are kidding?
A Department for Education spokesman said: ‘We have introduced a new, more rigorous maths curriculum at GCSE and a gold standard A-level. The changes we have made will help to tackle the grade inflation of the past.’
‘It is much easier now’