The second A Level General paper was from June 1968. This continued the expectation that the students had a far wider knowledge of 'current affairs' than could surely have been possible for a seventeen/eighteen-year old. These papers must have been primarily designed to see if one could simply write an essay. Alternatively, they could have been designed to weed out the independent school student - the children of politicians, farmers, diplomats, teachers or the professions - from the state school ones.
Here are some more examples:
- What big advances in medicine (including surgery) have been made in the last thirty years? What further advances seem at present likely before the century ends? It would have been a bold student who mentioned MRI scanning, the eradication of polio, cancer treatments, stem cell advances ... How on earth could they begin to know?
- 'Lives of great men all remind us / As we from their pages turn, / That we too may leave behind us / Papers that we ought to burn.' Comment on this in the light of biographies you have read. And how many biographies has the average 17-year old read today?
- 'Comedy should be placeless and timeless; it does not need gimmicks.' Justify this statement with examples from the comedy (not restricted to the theatre) of different ages. This was from a period before television comedy got under way and assumes that one has studied the history of theatre or at least seen comedies from different ages.
- Has the rush to grant independence to new states in Asia and Africa been justified by results? Ouch! The Sixties had indeed seen a tidal wave of countries becoming independent but how impatient of us to ask whether the results were justified after only a handful of years. Can we not allow them a generation or even two? And how can a student have any real idea in an era when few will have travelled to any of the countries concerned? Of course, it was to winnow out the sons of diplomats, colonial officers and British Council staff.
- Discuss the present state and the possible future of agriculture in an increasingly urbanised and industrialised Britain. Not a question designed to appeal to many inner city lads. The 1967 paper also had a question which mentioned the concreting over of Britain suggesting it was a current theme.
- Can bad men write good books? Give a reasoned verdict. How lucky they were to live in a world so easily divided into good and bad.
- 'Profit' has recently come to be regarded as a dirty word. How dirty do you consider it to be, and why? This was in the days before the famous line 'the unacceptable face(t) of capitalism'.
Perhaps the modern critics of the A Level system have a point: the questions have become easier over the years, but these questions were written for young people growing up in a pre-mass media, pre-television, pre-internet age and assume some sort of ideal student who had read biographies and plays, and who had an informed view of agriculture, medicine, science, architecture and planning. In other words a miniature adult. No doubt that is what Mr Gove aspires to once again.
It is hard even to imagine what naive drivel was produced in answer to some of these questions.
Don't miss the next episode: a few questions from the actual subject papers.
