Fall In Number Of People Comparing GCSEs To O-Levels

Number Of People Comparing GCSEs To O-Levels Falls For Second Year Running
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Two sets of twins (left to right) Minnie Crawley, Tallulah Crawley, Florence Hislop and Dorothy Hislop open their GCSE results at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple in Bristol.
PA

The number of people comparing GCSEs to O-Levels has fallen for the second year running.

The proportion of commentators saying things like "GCSEs are not as hard as O-Levels" and "Of course, it's all coursework now" has dropped by 1.3% since last year - the biggest fall since GCSEs replaced O-levels 25 years ago.

"There are several underlying factors affecting this year's comments," said a spokesman for the Joint Council for Qualifications. "Many commentators are now too old to remember what their O-Level exams were like; while other, newer, commentators are too young to remember them, having taken GCSEs themselves."

Men continued to out-perform women when it came to commenting - partly as a result of society's expectations that we should listen to men's opinions more than women's, and partly because the Education editors at the Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian and The Times are all male.

And there was a sharp rise in the overall number of people commenting, due to Twitter.