A Level exam too difficult

Curiosity · **Posted:** Sun Jun 21, 2009 23:43

Quote:

A-LEVEL history students are campaigning to alter their examination marks after they failed to understand a question.

They say the phraseology in an exam paper describing Hitler as “a despotic tyrant” confused them and meant they did not know how to answer.

Education chiefs say the complaints merely indicate how low standards in schools have become.

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “It is a tragic reflection on standards that A-level students don’t understand a straightforward word. Despotic is hardly a difficult word to grasp. This really does beggar belief. You could argue that the adjective was unnecessary but they should have worked out the meaning anyway.”

The 6,000 students who sat modern history this year were asked: “How far do you agree that Hitler’s role in 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?”

More than 1,150 complaints have been posted on internet chat rooms and a campaign, Despotic Tyranny Ruined My Life, has been launched to try to get the papers marked more leniently.

Comments on Facebook indicate many students were baffled by the question.

One said: “I thought it meant choatic… so the whole essay has turned out rather choatic.”

Another wrote: “I came to the conclusion there was tyranny bit [sic] it wasn’t always depsotic seeing as they kinda mean the same thing I guess my essay made no sense whatsoeva! ”

Laura Cleary, from Ormskirk School, confided: “I thought it meant weak.” Alicia Luba, of Croydon High School, wrote: “My life is destroyed because of this exam. Seriously.”

Some students have even suggested organising a protest march to the offices of the exam board Edexcel.

A spokeswoman for Edexcel defended the question, saying it was explained in material at the end of the paper.

She added: “It will be taken into consideration but it was felt this was language students attempting A-level history should have been able to understand.”

Am I bad for giving this story (as the kids would say) 'the lolz'? It's very easy to buy into the tabloid frenzy of "Oh no! Kids are getting stupid!".

Where do people stand on this? I think that kids are (probably) smarter in many ways, but that education has become very, very targeted and aimed at passing exams rather than at educating (you could also argue that this has always been the case to varying degrees). As such, you get people capable of many things, but for those unwilling to go outside the syllabus at all, there's potential trouble. Also, compensation culture and lack of blame being attached to people blows things such as this up out of proportion (as does the media).

What say the good people of Beex?

Malabelm · **Posted:** Sun Jun 21, 2009 23:55

If you don't understand a word in an exam, I'm pretty sure you're allowed to raise your hand and ask someone, are you not? At GCSE/A-Level, anyway.

MrD · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2139

Quote:

HITLER: Depot or tyrant?

Depot.

And yeah, I've heard folks asking for clarification of questions in an exam.

I didn't like History as a subject as it was an exceptionally wordy one with naff, indistinct questions. (I have a better record on science/math-based subjects with discrete correct answers. The answers are shorter, simpler, and you can be sure you've got them right.)

I think the question, as quoted, is rather naff. 'Despotic tyranny' is one too many words at once. Asking about 'Adjectivey - Loaded-Noun' just makes me think about semantics. Would they be wanting to examine semantics? Or do they just want a number? "Well, kinda, perhaps. Say eighty-ninety percent? I wasn't really there, so I'm not the best person to ask."

I hope the actual exam would have guide points along the lines of "Your answer MUST refer to the following: The structure of the governance of Nazi Germany. (10 marks)".

I almost can't believe that A level students studying WW2 wouldn't have heard the word 'despotic' before. I can believe it, but that's because I did my A-Levels in a community college in Birken'ead, laaaad.

The lesson here is that you should READ THE PAST PAPERS. Not only will the questions be similar, but you'll be apprised of the rules of the examination room: all of my A-Level and university level exams have allowed the use of a printed language dictionary.

Gawsh, English was naff also. I hated studying Shakespeare, but that's okay, because we didn't really do it. The subject was never introduced as an exercise in character analysis so we never got into that mindset. All anyone could come up with is "I don't know why X did that. The dialogue preceding and following the action in question have no relation to the event, and the relationships between X and Y, the other character present, are not made apparent. I really have no idea what some of the dialogue means, or how it is pronounced. These lines have never been spoken aloud to me, so they really could mean anything." Took most of us long enough to notice that enjambement doesn't end a sentence.

But that's another story.

Dimrill · **Posted:** Mon Jun 22, 2009 0:00

"Tyrant? That's like Tyra Banks, innit?"

chinnyhill10 · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 15695

Curiosity wrote:

They say the phraseology in an exam paper describing Hitler as “a despotic tyrant” confused them and meant they did not know how to answer.

The answer to "a despotic tyrant" is "get to fucking fuck", natch. :attitude:

devilman · **Posted:** Mon Jun 22, 2009 0:14

Dimrill wrote:

"Tyrant? That's like Tyra Banks, innit?"

Tyrant - Voice your displeasure at being unable to find suitable neck attire.

MrD · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2139

INSIDE THEIR MINDS

Quote:

Generally mine worked it out(ish) but one on-for-a-B student interpreted it as meaning despairing!

Goodness only knows what that answer's like!

INSIDE EDEXCELS MIND

sinister agent · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 7046

With class sizes too large to be of much use, and a culture of philistinism and business-aping target setting driving away most good teachers and neutering the rest, this kind of shit is inevitable. No government will do anything useful about it though, because no government would have the stones to fund smaller classes and decent teaching.

I maintain that, academic standards aside, the ordeal of being forced through the education system is significantly harder to go through than it used to be. And I've nothing but pity for the poor saps who are going to be forced to waste their time in school until they're 18, too. There's no benefit to that at all - the ones who don't want to be there will suffer, and the ones who want to be there will suffer too. Total waste of time.

End of an Era · **Joined:** 25th Nov, 2008 **Posts:** 1041

Thick children notwithstanding, the question, "How far do you agree that Hitler’s role in 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?” is absolutely huge! It could never seriously be answered in the 1500 words expected in an exam and would take years of serious research and contemplation to even offer the sense of a reasonable answer.

sinister agent · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 7046

Also, I bet you could easily find well over 2,000 adults who have no idea what despot means, either. This is a total non-story anyway - the only difference between now and 15 years ago is that what back then would have been confined to whinging to friends on the phone is now being publically broadcast over stupid websites.

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Mon Jun 22, 2009 1:33

Plus: also it doesn't matter. If it's a hard question, everyone finds it hard, and the narking scheme is adapted to fit.

For my chemistry A-Level, my final exam was a biochemistry module, and it went poorly. There was one question I didn't even have a clue about, and pretty much left blank. Having finished that, I felt that exam alone could cost me the B grade I needed, and that I could be certain I'd blown the A. Speaking to friends, they also found it hard.

When I got the results, I got a 100/100. Which was impossible unless they'd alter the marking scale to reflect the difficulty of the exam.

Same would happen here if the exam was broadly too difficult.

Doctor Glyndwr · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 32624

I think that's a poorly phrased question, and I can imagine the kids gettting very wound up about it in the exam. "Despot" isn't a word in particularly common usage. It's also redundant anyway; surely "despotic tyranny" is a tautology?

I agree, also, that the question seems to be hopelessly broad for an exam-conditions short essay to address. But then I once wrote 24 handwritten sides of A4 on "analyse the decline in MacBeth's moral characte. throughout the play".

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Jun 22, 2009 7:31

Somewhere, once, where I did some exams, they:

1) Left the second half of the question off. You know, the question bit, so all we got was a nice story.
2) Asked about 2 people who had not been mentioned in the question at all.
3) other stuff I'll add in once I get suitably cross over it.

I don't think that question is too tricky for any exam, you could pick up a fair chunk of marks I would imagine from it, even not knowing a lot. I think it's more that the people complaining are the most vocal.

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38663

Well, yeah

Wiki wrote:

despot (plural despots)

1. A ruler with absolute power; a tyrant.
2. A title awarded to senior members of the imperial family in the late Byzantine Empire, and claimed by various independent or semi-autonomous rulers in the Balkans (12th to 15th centuries)

Maybe they were confused by the Byzantine reference. They were TOO educated.

Had you considered that? Hmm?

MrChris · **Joined:** 1st Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 30498