Structure
O-levels were predominantly exam-based; this had advantages for students in part-time or evening education. Some commentators criticised this mainly exam-based approach as offering only partial proof of the student's overall ability in comparison with other methods (e.g., coursework-based assessment). There was no summative "school certificate": each subject was a separate O-level in its own right.
Madsen Pirie found that the O-level was advantageous to boys because of exam-based learning. Pirie also observes that the GCSE focus on coursework has disadvantaged boys, reversing the gender gap in attainment, to the degree where in all subjects girls outperform boys, including traditionally male subjects such as sciences and physical education.
Read more about this topic: Ordinary Level
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“Slumism is the pent-up anger of people living on the outside of affluence. Slumism is decay of structure and deterioration of the human spirit. Slumism is a virus which spreads through the body politic. As other “isms,” it breeds disorder and demagoguery and hate.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)