I've always been fascinated by the British schooling system of O-levels, A-levels, etc. This is probably based on the fact that I don't really know what they are. Please break my fascination and explain this to me.

OK. The minimum school-leaving age in the UK is 16. The system used to be that at age 16 there were two ranges of exams available: O-levels (meant to be more "academic" and aimed at those planning to continue with education), and CSEs (meant to be less challenging but more "vocational" and aimed at those entering the workforce at 16). The brightest pupils would take up to eight or ten O-levels; a few would leave without so much as a single CSE. The lowest grade awardable for an O-level exam, just above fail, entitled you to a CSE in that subject instead. (Could you be awarded an O-level for a really stunning performance on a CSE exam? I can't remember, but probably not.)

This system was then done away with, starting with exams sat in summer 1988, in favour of a single set of exams called GCSE. A GCSE offered a wide range of grades, the top ones of which were deemed equivalent to O-level grades, and the lower ones to CSE grades. This was meant to simplify the whole system, although in practice exam boards tended to set a "basic level" and a "higher level" paper in each subject, which closely resembled the previous year's CSE and O-level respectively. Born in 1972 and sixteen in 1988, I was part of the first year of GCSEs.

There was a lot of fuss at the time about declining standards, and looking at the O-level and GCSE syllabuses for (say) mathematics did show a lot of material missing from GCSE. But it was (allegedly) replaced by greater practicality and applicability of the material that remained, which if true is, I guess, no bad thing.

Now, for those who didn't leave school at 16, the next two years were taken up by A-levels, exams usually sat at 18. Pupils were expected to specialise at this point, sitting usually between three and five A-levels. (Or their equivalent; there are things called AS-levels which count as half an A-level each and can be used to broaden the range of subjects studied.) The lowest A-level grade, just above fail, entitled you to an O-level in that subject. The A-level system remained the same even when O-level changed to GCSE.

Entrance to university is based on A-level grades: an offer of a university place would be conditional on achieving (say) three C grades, or two A's and a B, or whatever.

All this, by the way, is the English (and Welsh and maybe NI) schooling system. The Scottish system is different again.

Peter