Having suffered every IT problem possible in the last three weeks or so, I now hope that my blog is finally up and running.

Just after the exam results were released last month, an article appeared in The Independent newspaper of the statistics for the pass rates and grades for all of the major A level subjects. It will come as no surprise to anyone that the pass rate for physics is the lowest overall pass rate across all subjects. What is possibly more of a surprise to some is that biology is second from bottom. In other words, the only A level with a lower pass rate than biology is physics!

I go on at great length that biology is not an easy subject to study at A level, and that “I like biology” or “A science will look good on my CV” is not an adequate reason to attempt biology A level. Now the statistics are supporting my view.