The Sun

Ok, so AS and A level are like the junior and senior years in high school here.  

Here, a standard test called AIMS is required for all high school students to pass in order to graduate.  The first year it was implemented, the average score was 46%.  So instead of making the kids learn, we lowered the standards, and made the test easier to pass.  

And people wonder why the US is falling behind in science and math degrees...

Your AIMS sounds like the MCAS we have in Massachusetts. It's a horrible test, even more arbitrary than the SAT, and it's required to graduate. They've been dicking around with the standards, trying to find reasonable ones that don't prevent hundreds of kids with good grades and SATs from graduating, but they fail to see the obvious solution: drop the fracking test.

what type of engineering do you do then??
I always went for the more theoretical subjects coz i'm not very good at putting things into practice!

Mechanical.  

I would rather let the mathematicians and physicists come up with the equations, while I find a way to use them in the real world.

Your AIMS sounds like the MCAS we have in Massachusetts. It's a horrible test, even more arbitrary than the SAT, and it's required to graduate. They've been dicking around with the standards, trying to find reasonable ones that don't prevent hundreds of kids with good grades and SATs from graduating, but they fail to see the obvious solution: drop the fracking test.

Having never taken the AIMS test (I was well into college when it was started), I can't really say what it's like.  I can see its usefulness, as the SATs are not a requirement to pass high school.

Here, a standard test called AIMS is required for all high school students to pass in order to graduate.  The first year it was implemented, the average score was 46%.  So instead of making the kids learn, we lowered the standards, and made the test easier to pass.  

And people wonder why the US is falling behind in science and math degrees...

How long ago was this?  I've never heard of the AIMS test.

AIMS is strictly an Arizona test.  However, other states have similar tests.  It was started 3-4 years ago, IIRC.  

If you really care, here's a link.

AIMS is strictly an Arizona test.  However, other states have similar tests.  It was started 3-4 years ago, IIRC.  

If you really care, here's a link.

That explains it; I graduated in Iowa.

OK, i don't know how schooling works in America, but over here, we Have GCSE's (General Certificiate of Secondary Education) which are roughly age 14-16, then AS (advanced Supplementary) Levels for 1 year, then A-Levels for 1 year before University, normally from 18 onwards.

Now, when i was back at school 7/8 years ago, we didn't have AS levels, it was 2 years of A-Levels, But the governemtn decided they were too hard.

Does that help at all?

how stupid. why not just do as we in the good old Us of a...

k-5 (grade school) 6-8 (middle school) 9-12 (high school)

AIMS is strictly an Arizona test.  However, other states have similar tests.  It was started 3-4 years ago, IIRC.  

If you really care, here's a link.

like the FCAT?

i dont like these stupid Assessment Tests. i am in private school, (12th grade)  so i don't have to take them, thank God. (but i did up in till 8th grade when i was in public school).

Your AIMS sounds like the MCAS we have in Massachusetts. It's a horrible test, even more arbitrary than the SAT, and it's required to graduate. They've been dicking around with the standards, trying to find reasonable ones that don't prevent hundreds of kids with good grades and SATs from graduating, but they fail to see the obvious solution: drop the fracking test.

Hmmm, I thought the MCAS was incredibly easy. But I took it almost 5 years ago.