The A level is a type of educational certificate offered by certain institutions on the British Isles. This assessment replaced the Higher School Certificate, which examined students at around age 18, or two years after they achieved the School Certificate. This earlier exam tested students over a broad range of subjects. The A levels assessed students separately in each subject.

Why Were The A-Levels Created?

The Higher School Certificate had served British schools well between the two world wars. However, concern was constantly expressed over the number of students who failed to qualify for higher education because they scored poorly on one section of the exam and this reflected on their overall score. After World War II, the A levels were developed as single tests in each subject area, so that students could display their strengths instead of suffer a crippling score due to one failure. In 1953, the A levels replaced the Higher School Certificate, which was subsequently abolished.

Evolution of the A Levels Scoring System

Initially the A-level exam was scored simply as pass or fail. Students were frustrated early on by the lack of distinction in successful scores. In the early 1960′s the scoring system was altered to display letter grades to show achievement.

This letter grade was not awarded according to score, however. Instead, the top 10% of scorers were awarded A’s. The following 15% received B’s. The next 10% were C’s and so on. This remained the scoring system for a few decades. However, by the mid-1990′s, people had begun to note that this grading system did not reflect actually achievement but just maintained a proportion of students in each scoring level.

In other words, 25% of students might achieve excellent scores but they would still be forced into two groups, one significantly beneath the other, even though scores in both categories may have been almost indistinguishably close. This was also a problem because the number of students continuing their education after the A-levels was increasing. In the 1950′s,, only 13% of students went on to University. By the 1990′s, the number of continuing students had increased to 72%.

The A Levels Courses

Beginning in the 1980′s and continuing for two decades, the A-levels transformed again. Previously, the exams had been preceded by two years of courses in each subject. This slowly transformed into a modular course. This was done in order to address the problem arising from 30% of students failing in the linear courses which only addressed one subject.

A Levels and the Student

Students can take a varying number of A-level courses at their will. The usual approach to this level of education is to begin with four areas of study at the A S-level, eventually dropping back to three courses at the A2 level. This is the minimum number of courses required in order to request entrance to a university.

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