Did YOU pass the English Baccalaureate?

[pwilkinson]

I have a confession to make - forty years ago this year, I failed the English Baccalaureate. Of course, the English Baccalaureate didn't exist forty years ago - but it still didn't exist last summer when, the government tells us, tens of thousands of teenagers failed it. So this petty objection can not negate my failure.

Comments

[anghara]

My O-levels:
English Lang AND English Lit, separately: yes.
Maths, yes.
French and German, Yes.
Physics, Chemistry, biology: all yes.

No history or geography, though. Which means no Baccalaureate, I guess.

[ffutures]

Nope - I was a crap student and if memory serves me right I ended up with English language, Geography, Maths, Physics, and Biology O-levels, none of them particularly good grades and I think I took two resits in English and Maths, and Physics and Zoology A-levels.

[coalescent]

Did YOU pass the English Baccalaureate?

Yep. This:

English Language and English Literature separately [...] Biology, Chemistry and Physics separately. [...] the other three subjects would have had to be Mathematics, one language ([...] French) [...] and either History or Geography.

Precisely describes my GCSEs! (I did Geography. And also Music.)

[purplecthulhu]

If you equate O-levels and GCSEs then I don't pass for the simple reason i didn't do English Literature.

However, equating O-levels with GCSEs is a serious error as there was stuff on the O-levels when I took them (~1980) that are absent from A-levels in 2010. I know this because I interview lots of university candidates and not only see what they can, and can't, do but ask them what they've covered

[coth]

My 'O' levels:

English Language and English Literature separately - yes, both
Biology, Chemistry and Physics separately - Biology and Physics
Mathematics - Maths and Further Maths
One language - French (and failed Spanish)
Either History or Geography - History

But I still don't meet the Grade A-C GCSE criteria - I got numbered grades, and my Physics Grade 6 is a GCSE Grade E.