Tough
new tests for Oxbridge entrants
2007
By
Victoria Neumark and Graeme Paton
Pupils
trying to get into Oxford and Cambridge will face a battery
of entrance tests amid persistent fears that A-levels are
failing to identify the brightest candidates.
For the first time, students applying to study English and
philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) at Oxford will sit
an entrance exam. It recently introduced aptitude tests in
physics, history, mathematics and computer science.
Universities
insist A-levels are no longer an accurate barometer of
ability
At Cambridge, the number of prospective students taking the
"thinking skills" test in a range of subjects including
economics, engineering and natural sciences has risen to
more than 3,000.
It comes as the Institute for Public
Policy Research today launches a renewed attack on the
institutions, saying admissions policies favour pupils from
elite independent schools.
However, with record numbers now leaving school with top
grades, universities insist A-levels are no longer an
accurate barometer of ability.
In
the mid-80s, fewer than half of students applying to Oxford
and Cambridge gained straight As, but this year almost
every candidate is expected to achieve the feat.
Most students are preparing to sit aptitude tests at the
end of October — often during half-term holidays –
prompting claims from head teachers that students are
overloaded.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) wrote
to both universities earlier this year to complain about
the timing.
Martin Ward, the deputy general secretary of the ASCL,
said: "If these tests take place in half-term, someone
reasonably senior is going to have to turn out voluntarily
to supervise them.
"It amounts to the university system taking schools and
colleges for granted." Anthony Seldon, the master of
Wellington College, the private boarding school in
Berkshire, said: "Admissions tests are necessary because
A-levels insufficiently discriminate between the
intellectually gifted and the merely well taught."
Geoff Parks, the director of admissions at Cambridge, said:
"About a fifth of students doing A levels get three As.
Cambridge is interested in the top five per cent. The A
grade at A-level is no longer a good means of identifying a
field of competitive applicants."
Oxford's entrance exam for PPE, which gets 1,300 applicants
for 250 places each year, is designed to assess "the
ability to think critically, reason analytically, and use
language accurately and effectively without having to rely
on any particular subject knowledge", said the university.
At Cambridge, admissions to the similar social and
political sciences course (SPS) suggest that candidates
take Advanced Extension Awards (AEAs), or super-A levels,
which ask for "logical and critical thinking skills and a
greater depth of understanding than required at A-level".
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