The exam everyone passes
Oh dear... I've just scored 14/14 on the BBC's star wars quiz. I must be an uber-geek. In my defence, I had to guess 2 of the answers, but they were vaguely educated guesses. And education and exams are the subject of today's epistle (loose link? I thought so).
Aside: (There is actually something that's annoyed me more, but I'm not going to go into much detail as I'll get too offensive. Briefly; more than 100 people have been killed in anti-US protests in Muslim countries across the Midle East following the unconfirmed report of an American soldier at Guantanemo flushing a copy of the Koran down the bog. I'm just going to sigh and say "priorities?". You can put the rest together yourselves, right?)
Anyhow, education. The latest big idea is to remove negative marking for poor spelling in English GCSE exams. This begs the question just what the hell is left in GCSE English. Grammar went out more than 10 years ago, now spelling. Is the ability to hold a pen to be the only criterion for success? Perhaps being able to pick the only English word out of a list of symbolic Cantonese expressions will be enough. Maybe being able to read the exam timetable and turning up will be sufficient. Even getting one's name right is no longer required with 'annonymous marking' (indeed, having to remember your 5-digit candidate number means there is now more maths than English in English GCSE's).
Whatever the claimed motives of Mr(s)/Miss/Ms Whoever-they-are, education secretary, are, the true reason is to make the exam easier so they can make the assertion that educational reforms are working. This isn't just the case in English; many subjects have so-called 'foundation' levels. Foundation history invovles knowing what day it was yesterday, foundation geography involves counting cars, foundation maths actually has no content whatsoever (get a copy of the syllabus if you don't believe me), and foundation religious studies requires torching of oneself in defense of a typo in your copy of the (insert religious text of choice). (N.B - one of those examples isn't true. An A* in GCSE brilliance to the first 5 correct answers).
But even these vacuous foundation courses haven't been sufficient to get the truly stupid through the system. No, now we need to account for every possible excuse by allocating extra marks. Fair enough, something serious like dyslexia requires consideration, but the sensible step of extra time is usually used here, and that's ok. But it seems that, every day some new disorder is 'discovered' that impairs a child's ability to "reach their full potential". Amazing how no disorders seem to exist that "increase their potential". But who am I to argue with the medical profession, lets look at something even dafter.
There exists a rigorous system for giving extra marks to pupils based on circumstances at exam time. Death of a close relative up to five days before the exam: +5%; death of a more distant relative day before the exam: +3%; death of pet on day of exam(watch out pussycats everywhere!):+2%; death of pet day before exam:+1% Headache (with GP's note): +1%. There are lots of others too. Jeez, if you engineer all of them at the same time, there's a C already!
The motivation for all that I've talked about, is to make the exam system fairer (noble, but misguided). But let's take the argument to its logical conclusion and identify a minor flaw. The main thing that separates pupils in exams is intellect. As such, fairness requires that the IQ of all exam-sitters is measured and accounted for with bonus marks/deductions, like those given for pet death, thus leading to a situation where everyone has the same 'effective ability' (this is a term I've just invented, but I expect to hear it from a civil servant soon!). Consequence: Everyone gets the same result.
The only truly fair exam is one where everyone achieves the same mark. And make no mistake, it will come if we don't stop it now. But I'm too apathetic, and, as I passed my exams fair and square, no-one will listen anyway. TO THE PUB!
Aside: (There is actually something that's annoyed me more, but I'm not going to go into much detail as I'll get too offensive. Briefly; more than 100 people have been killed in anti-US protests in Muslim countries across the Midle East following the unconfirmed report of an American soldier at Guantanemo flushing a copy of the Koran down the bog. I'm just going to sigh and say "priorities?". You can put the rest together yourselves, right?)
Anyhow, education. The latest big idea is to remove negative marking for poor spelling in English GCSE exams. This begs the question just what the hell is left in GCSE English. Grammar went out more than 10 years ago, now spelling. Is the ability to hold a pen to be the only criterion for success? Perhaps being able to pick the only English word out of a list of symbolic Cantonese expressions will be enough. Maybe being able to read the exam timetable and turning up will be sufficient. Even getting one's name right is no longer required with 'annonymous marking' (indeed, having to remember your 5-digit candidate number means there is now more maths than English in English GCSE's).
Whatever the claimed motives of Mr(s)/Miss/Ms Whoever-they-are, education secretary, are, the true reason is to make the exam easier so they can make the assertion that educational reforms are working. This isn't just the case in English; many subjects have so-called 'foundation' levels. Foundation history invovles knowing what day it was yesterday, foundation geography involves counting cars, foundation maths actually has no content whatsoever (get a copy of the syllabus if you don't believe me), and foundation religious studies requires torching of oneself in defense of a typo in your copy of the (insert religious text of choice). (N.B - one of those examples isn't true. An A* in GCSE brilliance to the first 5 correct answers).
But even these vacuous foundation courses haven't been sufficient to get the truly stupid through the system. No, now we need to account for every possible excuse by allocating extra marks. Fair enough, something serious like dyslexia requires consideration, but the sensible step of extra time is usually used here, and that's ok. But it seems that, every day some new disorder is 'discovered' that impairs a child's ability to "reach their full potential". Amazing how no disorders seem to exist that "increase their potential". But who am I to argue with the medical profession, lets look at something even dafter.
There exists a rigorous system for giving extra marks to pupils based on circumstances at exam time. Death of a close relative up to five days before the exam: +5%; death of a more distant relative day before the exam: +3%; death of pet on day of exam(watch out pussycats everywhere!):+2%; death of pet day before exam:+1% Headache (with GP's note): +1%. There are lots of others too. Jeez, if you engineer all of them at the same time, there's a C already!
The motivation for all that I've talked about, is to make the exam system fairer (noble, but misguided). But let's take the argument to its logical conclusion and identify a minor flaw. The main thing that separates pupils in exams is intellect. As such, fairness requires that the IQ of all exam-sitters is measured and accounted for with bonus marks/deductions, like those given for pet death, thus leading to a situation where everyone has the same 'effective ability' (this is a term I've just invented, but I expect to hear it from a civil servant soon!). Consequence: Everyone gets the same result.
The only truly fair exam is one where everyone achieves the same mark. And make no mistake, it will come if we don't stop it now. But I'm too apathetic, and, as I passed my exams fair and square, no-one will listen anyway. TO THE PUB!
posted by Dave's annoyed | 3:30 PM
3 Comments:
Friends reunited allows you to take multiple choice papers out of current GCSE exams to compare with when you used to take them. I took one and I was shocked at the result. I have a degree in Maths and took the maths paper, so I was prepared to get a high %age, but I was still shocked. Having heard comments about the latest results on the radio I am now proposing to conduct an experiment.
I intend to take a variety of GCSEs in subjects ranging from those I know well to those I have never really encountered and see how I do with no preparation. I do not yet know how much entering these exams will cost, so I do not know how many i will be able to arrange to take. Also I know that you can do coursework over until you get it right, so I intend to assume that I would have got the same mark in the coursework as I get in the actual exam. I do not really intend to spend any time on this, and coursework would mean I had to spend some, so it seems unlikely. I will return here to post the results.
Does anyone know whether any GCSEs can be passed without handing in any course work at all? If so they might be good ones to try.
P.S. The maths paper took less than 4 minutes and gave me 100%. I should not even have been able to tick random boxes in that time for a serious exam.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Thank you for providing some actual evidence to back up my ranting, I'm usually to lazy to go and find anything. Judging by your result (even with a maths degree), perhaps the situation is even worse than I thought.
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