Jerry Jarvis, the former head of Edexcel, said a rise in the number of A grades at GCSE and A-level had undermined confidence in the exams system. 

Employers and universities are increasingly unable to “discriminate the very best from the average and the poor” because too many teenagers leave school with A grades, it was claimed.

Jerry Jarvis, managing director of Edexcel for four years, said top marks had grown year-on-year because of bite-sized modules, exam re-sits, teaching to the test in schools and political pressure to improve results.

He compared the current grading system to the Olympic high jump competition, saying the UK educational establishment had “attempted to keep the GCSE and A-level standard – the ‘height of the bar’ – at the same level for years”.

Mr Jarvis also told how he quit as a direct result of attempts to “manipulate” exams grades under the former Labour government in 2009.

As we all know, Kellogg is just a marketing school, right? Actually, no. A quick glance at the schools most recent employment report (click on the function tab) reveals that 40% of its Class of 2011 accepted jobs in consulting, and only 19% went into marketing, its second most popular functional area. Yes, BCG, McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company and Deloitte  were the school’s top hirers in 2011.  Kellogg students credit their management labs—wherein first-year students work on a consulting project and are mentored by consultants from leading firms (before their summer internships)—with preparing them for success in their internships and full-time positions. Meanwhile, a variety of other hands-on experiences are also available, including the “Global Lab” (students work with an international firm), “Advanced Topics in Marketing” (students analyze a marketing issue and present it to management) and “Leading the Mission Driven Organization” (students offer management expertise to nonprofits).  Not to worry, though, if you are interested in marketing, Kellogg still has ample resources for you.

Class leader: Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted’s chief schools inspector 

The watchdog said outstanding schools could have their status reviewed if their teaching was not judged to be of the top level. It is understood around 1,000 schools would meet this criteria and could stand to lose their top grade rating.

In his first keynote speech this morning, Sir Michael said: “We need clear and demanding criteria for a school to be judged good or outstanding.

“A good school should have at least good teaching, and an outstanding school should have outstanding teaching.

“Good and outstanding leadership of teaching and learning drives improvement and knows that the culture of the school and the progress of pupils depend on it.”

Under new grading guidelines, the satisfactory rating will also be replaced by a rating of “requires improvement” in a bid to improve teaching.

Everyone struggles with some amount of anxiety when taking a test like the GMAT, but some people struggle more than others. Stress can also affect your preparation before you ever get to the test center – if you’re too stressed out when studying, that will hurt your ability to make and recall memories. So what can we do to reduce studying and test-taking stress?

Know what’s coming

If you haven’t already, read the first blog post in this series:In It To Win It. The nutshell: you’re not trying to get everything right. Nobody gets everything right, including me and other 99^th percentile testers!

If you have the right attitude going into the test, that will help significantly. I like to pretend that I’m playing tennis. Nobody expects to win every single point in a tennis match – that’d be silly. But I do expect to win more points than my opponent, and I don’t stress out when I lose some points.

You will of course need to know what’s coming in terms of the formulas and rules and so on. But also know that you’re not going to know everything and that’s okay.

Manage your time well

When people try to get everything right, they often mess up the timing. Discovering that you’re behind on time just compounds your stress and makes everything worse, so we have to know how to manage time well all the way through the test. We also need to know what to do if we find ourselves in trouble on the timing.

Read this time management article and start incorporating its recommendations into your study right away.

A Daily Telegraph investigation found evidence of exam boards seemingly giving teachers excessive guidance during seminars. 

John Wood, incoming chairman of the Independent Schools Association, said competition between major exam boards had damaged the “integrity” of the system.

He said it “cannot be right” that examiners can make money from selling advice to schools while also setting objective tests.

The comments came after a Daily Telegraph investigation into exam boards in England and Wales.

Last month, undercover reporters filmed senior examiners advising teachers at £230-a-day seminars about the exact wording that pupils should use and which questions they could expect.

Ofqual is now investigating the role of the advice sessions amid fears teachers are being given unfair help. It could lead to them being abolished or subjected to new regulations.