I can't quite believe it."The sisters will have to get used to spending time apart when they get to Cambridge. Lydia said yesterday she was relieved - both sisters had always been fiercely competitive as they grew up."I'm absolutely amazed we got the same results but I'm so relieved," she said. "Otherwise one of us would have had bragging rights over the other"Caroline said she and her sister both loved science and chose the same subjects at the High School for Girls, a state grammar school in Gloucester. The twins, from Norton, near Gloucester, will both go to Cambridge University to study veterinary science after being awarded five A grades each. The identical twins received straight As in exactly the same subjects: maths, biology, physics, chemistry and general studies. Its popularity has been put down to TV psychology dramas such as Silent Witness and Cracker..
Identical twins Lydia and Caroline Chambers were celebrating yesterday after achieving identical A-level results and winning places on exactly the same degree course. Chinese take-up has increased 70 per cent in the past two years to just over 2,000. However, headteachers warned there were not enough teachers to sustain much of a further rise.English is still the most popular subject, with 85,858 entries (one in three of all candidates) and showed an 11 per cent rise this year. Science is making a comeback with biology up 6.9 per cent to 53,968 and chemistry up five per cent to 38,851. However, physics dropped again - down two per cent to 28,119. Maths showed a slight rise of 109 entries (0.2 per cent) - 52, 897 youngsters opted to take it.Schools Minister Andrew Adonis welcomed the rise in take-up of traditional subject options."Maths and English are the bedrock of our education system and the growing popularity of these subjects is equipping our school leavers with the demanded by employers and universities," he said.However, the figures also show that media studies - often the b? noire of education traditionalists - overtook physics for the first time, rising 5.1 per cent to 28,261.Another subject on the rise is psychology - up six per cent to 50,035. This decision - which came into force two years ago - is expected to impact upon A-level take-up in two years' time."I think we are in a position where our traditional modern languages are in free-fall - and they're not being replaced by the community languages," said Mr Hart.Admittedly, figures do show a rise in Spanish (up 4.4 per cent to 5,966) and community languages such as Chinese and Russian - singled out by Sir Digby Jones, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, earlier this week as the type of subjects necessary for the successful business chief of the future.
Almost one-quarter of students from this broadly average intake have achieved at least three grade As. Within an hour, 64,000 bleary-eyed would-be students had sifted through the information available to see what courses would be on offer if they had to go through the clearing system. It was a massive rise on the previous year's figure of 46,000 - and shows just how much pressure there is on this year's intake of students to find a university place. As one educationalist put it: "They comfortably outnumbered the number who were queuing for Test match tickets at Old Trafford on Monday morning."The figures show an 8.2 per cent rise in the number of university applications this summer - bringing the total number to more than 480,000 for the first time. Many of these are thought to have been the result of students trying to avoid having to pay top-up fees - up to £3,000 a year - which will be charged by universities from September next year.By the time the A-level results came out, it was obvious that the predictions were correct - a record number of youngsters had obtained the necessary grades to take up provisional places offered to them by universities.