Be Excellent To Each Other

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.”

HITLER: Depot or tyrant?

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.

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

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!

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)

"despotic tyrant" therefore being a redundancy, of course.

"despotic tyrant" therefore being a redundancy, of course.

"despotic tyrant" therefore being a redundancy, of course.

It's almost like someone's already said that. But yes.

Did they? None of the interesting posts I have read in this thread mentioned anything of the sort. I may have self-edited some out, though.

It's also redundant anyway; surely "despotic tyranny" is a tautology?

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

Yep, still can't see anything like that.

I didn't read all of the thread, ok? I sinned. I posted before reading. And yes, I know what a tautology is. It's surprisingly relevant to my job.

I'm with the tabloids on this one. If you don't understand the question, it's because you're fick innit.


There was a news story on at the weekend, I just caught a bit of it, some education person proclaiming that the english language must be allowed to "evolve" to modify difficult words to simpler ones, as children today don't have the capacity or interest to learn the trickier bits, and schools don't have the resources to force it into them.

Disgust.

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

There was an article posted a long time ago where some woman was pushing for the 'redundant' letters in words to be phased out, and their shorter versions accepted. It was pretty much like reading a teenager's text message.

A good example of retric.

Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the
European Parliament has commissioned a feasability study in ways of
improving efficiency in communications between Government departments.

European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is
unnecessary difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and
thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to
iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be
administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's'
instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would
resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k'
sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up
konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be
made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthousiasm when in the sekond year, it was
anounsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'.
This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be
expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are
possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters
which have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is
disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as
though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the
skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing
'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v',
vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o
kould be dropd from words kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of
kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli
sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls,
difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems
of the Guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru.

Didn't Twain come up with something similar?

When I was doing my Standard Grade Modern Studies exam when I was 14, there was a question about apartheid era South Africa. I can't remember the question very well but one of the things it mentioned or asked about was autonomy. I had no idea what that meant and after the exam it seemed no one else in the class did either. In that instance, it was simply a case of us never having heard that word before.

my opinion is that stupid ignorant people should be penalized. They can protest as much as they want, but this ignorant fucks failed at the exam. I'm sure i knew what despot meant when i was 10 years old. It's hardly a complex word.

It seems that is this impression nowadays that common knowledge is worthless and that as long as you do your job properly there's no need to know anything more. e.g. my work colleagues

I wouldn't have reacted the way these people reacted though, in this case the question can be answered with the word omitted so they should just get on with it.

Yeah, but you only know that if you know what the word means.

Surely this could all have been solved by forcing the kids to play any of the Civilization games?

There was a news story on at the weekend, I just caught a bit of it, some education person proclaiming that the english language must be allowed to "evolve" to modify difficult words to simpler ones, as children today don't have the capacity or interest to learn the trickier bits, and schools don't have the resources to force it into them. Disgust.

There was an article posted a long time ago where some woman was pushing for the 'redundant' letters in words to be phased out, and their shorter versions accepted. It was pretty much like reading a teenager's text message.

. I don't see any serious academic linguists wringing their hands about the state of modern English, and I suspect most of the examples of this sort of thing the tabloids draw on

Mark Twain.

Was it at all like this one:

Now who's redundant, eh?