Proposed improvements to Higher School Certificate exams (1 Viewer)

[me121]

NSW Minister for Education and Training, John Della Bosca, said today community consultation would be sought from next month on proposed improvements to Higher School Certificate examinations.

“The NSW HSC sets the gold standard in school credentials across the nation and like any benchmark it must be continually reviewed and improved,” the Minister said.

“The NSW Board of Studies proposals have two aims – to provide greater consistency in assessment in different subject areas and to make exam expectations clearer to students and teachers.

“This will help students manage their workloads and reduce stress about HSC assessments and exams.

“If adopted, the improvements will be implemented progressively in 2009 and 2010,” Mr Della Bosca said.

The proposals include:

* Incorporating 10 minutes of reading and planning time in all exams to allow students to write plans prior to attempting the essays;
* Suggesting an adequate range for the length of answers written in exams;
* Making the exam length and number of questions consistent between HSC courses – for example, a three-hour exam for every 2 unit course and a 1.5 hour exam for every 1 unit course;
* Providing revised guidelines to schools on the maximum number of school assessments per course to help manage student workload;
* Limiting the scale of some major projects in practical subjects to reduce the time, money and stress involved in creating them;
* Standardising the number of multiple choice questions in most exams.

“The Board has been researching and analysing its own and other systems’ exam specifications for the past two years and has developed these proposals to tackle areas of emerging concern,” the Minister said.

“For example, the Board wants to stop the growing number of students who write excessively long and unstructured responses in exams.

“Last year one student wrote 64 pages for a single essay question, and essays of 20-30 pages are common. These answers are often poorly structured and contain a lot of information that is not relevant to the question.

“More emphasis on quality over quantity and a compulsory 10-minute reading and planning time will help to address this issue in some courses,” Mr Della Bosca said.

Mr Della Bosca said the Board’s research also identified the school-based assessment load on many HSC students was too great.

“The Board currently recommends three to five assessment tasks per course including a trial exam, however many schools are setting more, or setting tasks with multiple parts that amount to many more assessments than recommended,” the Minister said.

“Under the proposals, the pressure on students would be alleviated by reducing and specifying the number and nature of tasks required by the Board. For the majority of subjects (2 unit courses) this would be four tasks including a trial examination.

“Based on the Board’s proposals, the Office of the Board of Studies is finalising a detailed plan to go before the Board of Studies at its June meeting.

“Following that meeting it is anticipated that the proposals will go out to consultation with the education community,” Mr Della Bosca added.

http://news.boardofstudies.nsw.edu....provements-to-Higher-School-Certificate-exams​

I agree with most of this stuff. What do you think?

can't help but laugh at the person who wrote 64 pages for one essay!

 

[Aplus]

10 minute reading and planning time sounds good.

 

[me121]

10 minute reading and planning time sounds good.

although their statement doesn't make sense.

"Incorporating 10 minutes of reading and planning time in all exams to allow students to write plans prior to attempting the essays;"

I don't get it.

 

[lyounamu]

although their statement doesn't make sense.

"Incorporating 10 minutes of reading and planning time in all exams to allow students to write plans prior to attempting the essays;"

I don't get it.

... But you can "write" to make plans, not write to answer questions. lol

 

[Aplus]

although their statement doesn't make sense.

"Incorporating 10 minutes of reading and planning time in all exams to allow students to write plans prior to attempting the essays;"

I don't get it.

You don't actually write the essay, you just prepare the structure of it.
Example:
Thesis:
Some thesis
Arguments:

• Issue 1
• Issue 2
• Issue 3

 

[me121]

You don't actually write the essay, you just prepare the structure of it.
Example:
Thesis:
Some thesis
Arguments:

• Issue 1
• Issue 2
• Issue 3

If they allow writing of plans, then there is no way to stop people writing answers to questions.

 

[kaz1]

64 page essay .

 

[veloc1ty]

LOL they're reducing the amount of assessments? Let's make each assessment worth more, that'll reduce the stress! Glad this is my last year.

 

[selablad]

If they allow writing of plans, then there is no way to stop people writing answers to questions.

If you gave everyone a piece of brightly coloured paper and said they could only write on that sheet during the perusal time, then you could just have the examiners standing at strategic places and looking at the colours of papers students were writing on, and if they started writing on white paper then they could swoop down and confiscate it...or whatever they do...

(that's what my school does. So the concept of perusal time isn't totally unworkable...)

 

[Aplus]

If they allow writing of plans, then there is no way to stop people writing answers to questions.

They might have a separate section for planning, whilst the other section must be placed faced down. Something like that.

 

[me121]

You are both right, but this doesn't stop them from writing their essay. It only stops them from writing anything that they can submit. I know, its pretty pointless to write your essay on the planning sheet, then when times starts copy it onto the writing booklet.

I guess this is a good idea, but I don't think it would make much difference. Most people write out a quick plan before they start to write anyway (well I did.)

 

[boris]

Get fucked.

We all managed to do our essay with 5 minutes reading and no planning time. EXT English I managed to write 18 pages of legible shit in 2 hours, so these little worms can too.

Why make it easier. They're gunna get to uni and go 'awr but where is my planning time guyz? i need to draw a mind map first!'

 

[oo STAVROS oo]

How the fuck did someone write 64 pages? Im gonna be screwed trying to finish 1 booklet let alone 8!!!

Unless they wasted all their time on that particular question I reckon its impossible

 

[me121]

How the fuck did someone write 64 pages? Im gonna be screwed trying to finish 1 booklet let alone 8!!!

Unless they wasted all their time on that particular question I reckon its impossible

unless the write really really big. remember its not so much how much you write, but more what you write.

We all managed to do our essay with 5 minutes reading and no planning time. EXT English I managed to write 18 pages of legible shit in 2 hours, so these little worms can too.

Why make it easier. They're gunna get to uni and go 'awr but where is my planning time guyz? i need to draw a mind map first!'

I don't think they should get "planning time" rather this should be part of the normal examination time.

Our teacher recommended we take a minute to write down a plan before we wrote an essay, and I totally agree. It makes writing the essay much easier and everything ties in nicely.

I think the examiners would prefer you to got down an outline before (or during) writing, but many people don't because they think its a waste of time. So what can the board do, they can try to make some time for this in a hope of getting people to plan before they write.

 

[pritnep]

Interesting timing for Mr Della Bosca to be announcing this.

These are the suggestions that I think would improve things/worth it:

* Suggesting an adequate range for the length of answers written in exams;
* Limiting the scale of some major projects in practical subjects to reduce the time, money and stress involved in creating them;
* Standardising the number of multiple choice questions in most exams.

I can see why they are doing the planning though and it's kind of a good idea but like others have said it's very counterproductive.

For me I think they are doing to get people out of writing prepared essay dribble rather then adapting it to the question, just adding in a through linking back sentences and using the same examples when they probably should be changing them more.

As for the 20-30 & 64 pages, to me it's not as laughable as it sounds. Every year you can come on BOS and here people bragging about how much they wrote sometimes 2+ booklets for one essay question and how they have "nailed" it. That's why I'm very much in favour for the guideline on how much people should write, because I know my teachers just wouldn't mark answers that they deemed to long for the question so it's about time BOS cracks down on it.

 

[wuddie]

worst proposal ever.

* Incorporating 10 minutes of reading and planning time in all exams to allow students to write plans prior to attempting the essays;
* Suggesting an adequate range for the length of answers written in exams;
* Providing revised guidelines to schools on the maximum number of school assessments per course to help manage student workload;
* Limiting the scale of some major projects in practical subjects to reduce the time, money and stress involved in creating them;
* Standardising the number of multiple choice questions in most exams.

i am always against planning time. whose fault is it that a student can't read through the question quick enough? not the bos'. if you can't read, plan and write your essay in the specified time, tough. nor is it their fault that you can't write succinctly. they are one step short of telling them the answer.

and, for the love of god, multiple choice in the hsc??? what is this, primary school? get writing or get failed.

who here reckons they are buggered from all the assignments and assessments they are getting from school? if you do, you ought to quit, because life is harder than that.

 

[Cerry]

and, for the love of god, multiple choice in the hsc??? what is this, primary school? get writing or get failed.

I don't think they're suggesting that multiple choice get implimented in every exam, just standardising the number of questions in each exam. I'm pretty sure general maths has 23 multiple choice questions, which is just an utterly retarded number.

I'm all for the concept of reccommending the length of essays - German extended responses tell you about how many words you should write, which I find quite useful, because it means you know how long they're expecting your answer to be to get the required amount of information in.

The reading time, on the other hand, sucks ass. I already tend to find that they give you way more time than you need, and when you can't pick up a pen to write anything down, it's somewhat pointless having all that "planning time".

 

[emytaylor164]

How the fuck did someone write 64 pages? Im gonna be screwed trying to finish 1 booklet let alone 8!!!

Unless they wasted all their time on that particular question I reckon its impossible

i agree i struggle to write my english essays in the correct time let alone that amount