i agree with everything Fork Me has said in this thread. You sir talk a lot of sense. 16% for an A or A* or whatever it what was, would only be because you got full marks in the previous two sections of the exam. It is the same in the A levels, if at AS you get full marks in all 3 modules, you would only need a D or an E at A2 to get an A. how rarely does that happen? It is just the media manipulating the stats, presumably to convince themselves and their generation that they were clevere and had to work harder.