Fact of the Day
Autumn is called Fall in North America because 70% of children aged between 5 and 16 cannot spell Autumn properly.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 11:56, 10 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

bloody americans
you know what their like..

the schools gradually lower the passing grades, so more kids pass, the school looks good, everyones happy, the country slips a few IQ points, so that pretty soon all you need to get into college is a pencil...

and they wonder why several more countries graduate more scientists than them
(Lord Chode, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 12:31, Reply)

Was that tongue in cheek
Mr Newton?

That is of course what has happened in the UK.

When I took my GCSEs there was no such think as an A*. Also the percentage to get a C was something like 60%. These days it's closer to 30%.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Sun 23 Nov 2008, 12:58, Reply)

that sums it up
That's been happening in this country since the introduction of league tables.

Grading is still
A - 80%
B - 70%
C - 60%
etc.

Three years ago, I went to college and did an AS level in maths. There were some things that we covered that I'd done in GCSE in the late 80s.
I have an O'level maths book (published in 1978) that has some topics in it that were in the A'level further maths course that I did a couple of years ago.

It's not the grade-levels that have altered, it's the depth of the subject matter that has been dumbed down and it pisses me off royally.

My mate's a teacher at sixth-form college and he said the intake of new students can't spell, can't construct a sentence and don't know their times-tables, or know how to do arithmetic with a pencil and paper.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 13:12, Reply)

Fact #2:
Ian McShane hides gambling chips in his mullet and uses them to defraud casinos from Norwich to Sunderland.
(lost, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 13:56, Reply)

Fact #3:
The largest lake in Argentina is called Vicks Vaporrub.
(lost, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 15:26, Reply)

Actually Mr Newton
The grading scale in the US is as follows:
A = 90% and above
B = 80%-89%
C = 75%-79%
D = 70%-74%
Failing is 69 or below

This grading scale has not changed in more than 30 years. I'll have to do some checking around to see when this grading scale came into being here. However, there were a few years in the 80s when some schools raised the bar and made anything under 75% failing while an A was 93% and above.

And "Fall" is a term colloquial term that is based on leaves falling off the trees in Autumn. Children are taught "Autum" in school when learning the seasons in kindergarten (that is age 5), whereas they are NOT taught that 'fall' is a season, but rather that "fall" means "to drop to a lower positions".
( flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Sun 23 Nov 2008, 17:45, Reply)

Correction?
"the country slips a few IQ points" should read "QI points".
(DeactivateThisDisaster No., Sun 23 Nov 2008, 20:02, Reply)

"Fall"
has its root in Middle English. It means exactly what the Americans use it for. It fell out of favour in this country and the Americans kept using it.

So I've heard, anyway.
( Kroney, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 21:06, Reply)

Fall.. fall..
..fall.. I'm so tall.. you're so small.. let's have a ball.. just take that call.. escape your small-town brawl.. let's see it all.. let's get gay y'all.
(lost, Sun 23 Nov 2008, 23:22, Reply)

...and yet somehow
we're still the major economic force in the world, while the British Empire has slipped back down the scale a bit.

Somehow I suspect that we're not as far behind you as you like to think.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Mon 24 Nov 2008, 13:12, Reply)