August is the silliest month, Eliot might have said. In the absence of hard news when the British Government goes on holiday, the media have even more column-inches than usual to spare for trivia. Around the middle of the month, the results of the Advanced Level Examinations (the university entrance qualification generally known as A-levels) are published, and there is an annual non-debate about whether it is easier to do well in than it used to be. The invariable conclusion of pundits is that, in a sacrosanct phrase, “standards have fallen.” For instance, writing in the London Independent of August 19, the day the results came out, columnist Judith Judd commented: “Traditional subjects are in decline, while vocational subjects such as computing, media, and business are booming.” In fact, that is statistically untrue; but more important is Judd’s grotesque misuse of the word “vocational,” which suggests that there is a black hole in the perception of the A-level and its purposes.

The A-level was designed, in 1951, for an educational system in which barely 10 percent of eighteen year olds went to university, and has survived, with only minor structural modifications, into a time when that proportion has trebled. Major changes are in the offing, but at present students take three subjects intensively over two years—known as Lower and Upper Sixth Forms—with a coursework element (20 percent in English) having been introduced in some subjects to balance the traditional written examination papers. The depth of specialization, applauded by