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As a student I know that a large majority of the wargaming population is due to teenagers.
Following the A-level results that were resulted today - I was just wondering if this thread could be a place for discussion for GCSE results and feeling about what we get and what we plan to do for A-levels/ future.

So with no further-ado, 5 days to go ladies and gentlemen...
What are your thoughts and feeling?
What do you guys plan to do after this?
What A-levels will you guys choose?
Were are you going to open your results?
What profession do you want to do in the future?

I thought you Brits had OWLS or somesuch gobbledegook.

And with the economy being as bad as it is, will there be any jobs open in Diagon Alley? I don't really want a job with the Ministry.

The ministry isn't that bad. Well the pay stinks and the hours suck, but there's job stability there.

 rubiksnoob wrote:
I thought you Brits had OWLS or somesuch gobbledegook.

We do - we send the owls to attack Americans who somehow get lost on the way to the fast food store and end up on our shores

Been a while since I did GCSE's (and indeed A-levels ) but just remember that ultimately there is no one responsible for your learning but you. Others can help or hinder you, but it is up to you to decide if you want to learn and work hard or not.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 rubiksnoob wrote:
I thought you Brits had OWLS or somesuch gobbledegook.

We do - we send the owls to attack Americans who somehow get lost on the way to the fast food store and end up on our shores

Been a while since I did GCSE's (and indeed A-levels ) but just remember that ultimately there is no one responsible for your learning but you. Others can help or hinder you, but it is up to you to decide if you want to learn and work hard or not.

All you are doing is giving the tourists a free lunch. You thought those firearms were for protection?

Good luck to any and all Dakkanauts getting their results today.

And if you didn't get what you wanted/needed hang on in there, still plenty of options.


Despite getting results of A,B,B,A, it seemed no employer would take a chance on me, but it all worked out alright.

 reds8n wrote:
Despite getting results of A,B,B,A, it seemed no employer would take a chance on me, but it all worked out alright.

They could see you were just after the money, money, money.

That's the name of the game.

As someone who did his GCSEs last year one but of advice would be if you did additional maths don't do A-level maths.

.... must be a really obscure B-side.

Its fun watching the kids on the news saying things like, "I got three A's, and I plan on being a scientist". Sorry dear, you're going to work in a Tesco and at best become a civil servant. =P

Though ah... The English system's totally different from the Scottish one so I haven't a clue what A-levels equate to here...

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Its fun watching the kids on the news saying things like, "I got three A's, and I plan on being a scientist". Sorry dear, you're going to work in a Tesco and at best become a civil servant. =P

Though ah... The English system's totally different from the Scottish one so I haven't a clue what A-levels equate to here...

Three A's at A-levels good and would easily get you into a Science degree.

And the chances of actually becoming the badass pimp scientist that people think they're going to be is....? I was saying that people aught to be more realistic about their life goals. =P

On that though I'll say that on the first day of my course I had my now favourite lecturer giving the induction. To paraphrase his opening line went something like, "...of the (x) number of people in my uni class I and one other are actually working in the IT field. My friend's a fisherman, and another's a bus driver.", which he then went on to say that we should treat the whole thing like a Battle Royale tournament if wanted any chance at getting a relevant job. Oh how the faces dropped on the students in that room... ^^

The problem i think for many students, including me is that a lot of regular jobs which are important, since someone needs to do them are not valued by society. It seems like the be all and end all of your entire education is to go to university, the problem i see is, if more and more people go, it makes them less valuable. It also serves to set people's expectations of life a little bit too high, not saying we shouldn't strive to reach the top, but you need to value alternatives. University is free here in Scotland in terms of the actual fees, so naturally i am going, but i don't really see it as something which will launch me into a career in what i'm studying, History, i see it more as an opportunity to learn, then what comes after that, we will see.

As for GCSE, good luck to anyone who got their results, i predict the news will be extensively covering how they are slightly lower or higher than the previous years and how its somehow the end of the world.....

It's only GCSE...
It's a fairly basic qualification, if you're aiming for a career in science you are heading towards college then uni and probably some kind of masters and phd...

I got 3 A's in science at GCSE (well, 1 A* and 2 A's...) and I am a super awesome scientist (well, scientist/engineer ), so it is not like someone who gets good grades and has a goal in mind can't get where they want to be.

Just need to ensure that the hard work is maintained through the rest of school, university and (ideally) work placements/sandwich years.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:
As someone who did his GCSEs last year one but of advice would be if you did additional maths don't do A-level maths.

Pretty pants advice there I am afraid...

If you want to do anything where the requirement is that you have an A-level in Maths (ie a lot of science, engineering, ecconomics, etc degrees...), or you are planing on doing something where there will be a fair bit of maths, do A-level maths regardless of whether you did additional maths at GCSE.

 reds8n wrote:
Good luck to any and all Dakkanauts getting their results today.

And if you didn't get what you wanted/needed hang on in there, still plenty of options.


Despite getting results of A,B,B,A, it seemed no employer would take a chance on me, but it all worked out alright.

Perhaps it's because they knew you wanted to be a Dancing Queen.

 Alfndrate wrote:

 reds8n wrote:
Good luck to any and all Dakkanauts getting their results today.

And if you didn't get what you wanted/needed hang on in there, still plenty of options.


Despite getting results of A,B,B,A, it seemed no employer would take a chance on me, but it all worked out alright.

Perhaps it's because they knew you wanted to be a Dancing Queen.

Well, you've got to Dance While The Music Still Goes On

What's this business about students sitting the same exam more than once (one quoted having sat Maths eight times). I'm confused, are students actually taking the same exam more than once in the academic year?

 Wyrmalla wrote:
What's this business about students sitting the same exam more than once (one quoted having sat Maths eight times). I'm confused, are students actually taking the same exam more than once in the academic year?

Yes, in an effort to achieve the best mark possible and therefore drive their school higher up the league tables.

It's more for the benefit of the establishment than the pupil.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
What's this business about students sitting the same exam more than once (one quoted having sat Maths eight times). I'm confused, are students actually taking the same exam more than once in the academic year?

What's with this business of the image in your sig stretching my browser window so wide I have to scroll to read what people have written?

But as far as I understand it they are entered for the same exam (ie GCSE English Lit) in multiple exam boards.

 Avatar 720 wrote:

 Wyrmalla wrote:
What's this business about students sitting the same exam more than once (one quoted having sat Maths eight times). I'm confused, are students actually taking the same exam more than once in the academic year?

Yes, in an effort to achieve the best mark possible and therefore drive their school higher up the league tables.

It's more for the benefit of the establishment than the pupil.

My lads are 3 years in secondary education. I was surprised to learn that there are GCSES available at 13 years+ and some of these are just short courses. Designed to give gauranteed success to Schools methinks.

Good luck to all who have taken their GCSES this year and in the future, you will also need will, tenacity and hard skin to to go on.

We do this here in the states. High schoolers will take the ACT or SAT both, and several times for each test in order to get the best marks possible.

Unlike the GCSE helping the school, those tests relate directly to how much scholarship money a school is likely to give you. Though I'm basing this multiple GCSE testing on Avatar's claim that it's mostly to help the school and not the student.

Oh... right. Wha?

In Scotland you're allowed to sit an exam only once as far as I know, and then once more if you fail or don't achieve your predicted grade (though I can't remember if that applies to Highers(A-Levels), so maybe it is only once). Taking an exam multiple times to give yourself a better chance of passing seems like cheating a bit to me.

Does it cost you money to sit the extra ones? Again, here if you want to resit an exam multiple times you need to pay for it (something like £20 a pop).

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Oh... right. Wha?

In Scotland you're allowed to sit an exam only once as far as I know, and then once more if you fail or don't achieve your predicted grade (though I can't remember if that applies to Highers(A-Levels), so maybe it is only once). Taking an exam multiple times to give yourself a better chance of passing seems like cheating a bit to me.

Does it cost you money to sit the extra ones? Again, here if you want to resit an exam multiple times you need to pay for it (something like £20 a pop).

What?!! we can't, like, grumble that OUR tax money funds failing students????

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Oh... right. Wha?

In Scotland you're allowed to sit an exam only once as far as I know, and then once more if you fail or don't achieve your predicted grade (though I can't remember if that applies to Highers(A-Levels), so maybe it is only once). Taking an exam multiple times to give yourself a better chance of passing seems like cheating a bit to me.

Does it cost you money to sit the extra ones? Again, here if you want to resit an exam multiple times you need to pay for it (something like £20 a pop).

Each time you take the SAT or the ACT, it costs money. It currently costs 51.00 to take the SAT and 52.50 to take the ACT, it was 45 and 48 when I took them. Those tests will send your scores up to 2 schools for free, and it's like 6 bucks a school beyond that (I believe).

I took the ACT 3 times, and got decent scores all three times, but I was shooting for something higher than a thirty (36 is the highest score on the ACT). And I got it my second time taking it, but took it a third time to get better than that. I ended up dropping down . Schools I applied to accepted the 32 though.

Right... That seems like a really odd system to me. Ie having to jump between schools to sit the same exam, and having to sit loads of the things. Here we sit at the most nine exams over a period of about six weeks, but you could be sitting what dozens of the things? It kind of gives an advantage to the rich kids, whereas the poorer ones have much fewer chances of getting better grades. If that the case then that's a pretty biased system. Shouldn't kids just be studying to get it right the first time instead of having a safety net?

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Right... That seems like a really odd system to me. Ie having to jump between schools to sit the same exam, and having to sit loads of the things. Here we sit at the most nine exams over a period of about six weeks, but you could be sitting what dozens of the things? It kind of gives an advantage to the rich kids, whereas the poorer ones have much fewer chances of getting better grades. If that the case then that's a pretty biased system. Shouldn't kids just be studying to get it right the first time instead of having a safety net?

You're still talking about the GCSEs right?

There are fee waivers available for the poorer students that qualify. And the SAT and ACT are just tests to get into college if you want to. In America we have proficiency tests that are based on either state educational standards or one of the few states that uses "national standards" (i.e. a group of educators trying to get more than just their home state to use the standards).

In Ohio we have something called the Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) which students take in their sophomore year of high school (16 year olds). If they pass these tests, they can technically graduate as long as they meet the standards of course work which takes them until around their senior year to complete (I could have graduated a year early if it wasn't for government only being offered to Seniors). If you fail the test you get 2 chances a year to retake the test until the March of the year you graduate (if you don't pass in March, you don't graduate). These tests are free to take, mandatory to take, and you can only take them again if you fail.

Here we have Highers. A higher A or a high B will get you into Uni. A B will get you into a uni equivalent college course, with a C getting you into a college course that'll put you onto a uni course, but take a year extra. If you've got a D then it adds one more year. So students only need to sit one type of exam, where they go after that's dependent on your grade though.

We sit Highers in your 5th year (16 year olds), and either go to college/uni then, or sit a 6th year where you can sit another set of different Highers (or resit failed ones). So if you want to resit a class you need to sit the course all over again ...as well you apparently clearly didn't pay attention enough the first time around. College exams have unlimited resits that can be done at any point however (though again, you need to pay for these after the first one or if you've got a passing grade(as a resit's grade replaces your existing one)).

So the system here's pretty much made to get you into uni at some point (though if you don't want to do that you take up an apprenticeship via the school in 5th/6th year, though you can also do that after college). Even if you wind up with a crap grade in your Highers you'll still be able to get into uni. College/University's also free here, so its the case that you could drop out of 5th year with no Highers, sit three years of college and then two years of uni and still walk away with the same degree as someone who had amazing Highers (though the person with the Highers will still have them over you).

Oh and our student loan rates are fairly lenient too, just to hack off those who have to pay for their further education even more.