Pupils of today struggle with science questions of the 60s

There has been a "catastrophic slippage" in standards of science taught in schools, leaving children with a superficial understanding of chemistry, biology and physics, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.Declining standards in schools, linked to teachers focusing on test results rather than analytical skills, risks starving the country of vital skills, the RSC said. In a competition run by the society, 1,300 pupils with a keen interest in science sat chemistry questions from O-level and GCSE papers set every decade since the 1960s. The questions were selected to test logical reasoning and problem-solving.Only 35% got the toughest questions from the most recent GCSE papers right. But the pupils fared progressively worse when doing the older O-level papers. For the 1980s O-level papers, 23% of questions were answered correctly. On the 1970s papers, only 18% of answers were right and on the 1960s papers, just 15% of questions were answered...

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