RE: The thread for flipping shits (and tables)
06-19-2013, 03:59 PM
hi I want to rant about exams this may be long and unintelligble to those not familiar with the intricacies of the British exam system
This summer, I am doing nothing but A-Level Mathematics modules (seven of the buggers, in fact; five exotic and brand new ones plus two resits). It was revealed a fortnight ago that a number of Edexcel's 18 modules had been compromised, and ever since I've been actively avoiding finding out which. Once a paper has been compromised, it is replaced by a Reserve Paper, and these standby papers are notoriously far trickier and more punishing than normal ones. And, last week, the poor, poor peeps sitting Core 3 found this out to their cost* (I was sat slashing my way through Statistics 3 at the side of the hall and could just tell people were suffering.)
Yesterday's Mechanics 4 paper was exhausting, though in retrospect not terrible; there were some leftfield questions, sure, and getting it done in 90 minutes was significantly arduous, but I have practised on worse. It did however follow unusually gruelling M1, M2 & M3 papers, so I tried to discover whether or not it had been compromised or if it were simply part of a trend of difficult Mechanics papers this year, in which case I'd put some extra grunt into M5. And then I accidentally read the whole list.
M4 was not one of the seven compromised exams, but both my clashing resits are. That means that, on Friday, I'll be sitting a reserve Further Pure 2 paper, followed immediately by Statistics 4 which I already know I'm not going to do well in - then, on Monday, a reserve Further Pure 3 followed by a Mechanics 5 which has the potential by extrapolation to be brutal.
This is not going to be pleasant.
...I pity the people who actually need to get good grades out of this summer's exam series. By rights, I shouldn't be panicking; my January resit results guarantee me my uni place, and at best this summer is mostly just to save me from the agonising bureaucratic rigmarole of re-certificating my Further Mathematics A-Level with a different set of modules. But bloody hell, lots of people were relying on a decent C3 resit after January's challenging paper, so they're completely screwed; likewise, many people had their one and only opportunity to take M2 and C4 this summer. If even one Further Pure paper turns out monstrous then I can foresee another student protest, and given the sort of peep who sits FP it'll probably be more serious than tacky "one does not simply show that tan x = (1/3)tan40**" memes on Twitter (bloody hell guys you're letting our generation down here.)
* for the record, the harshness of the paper is heavily exaggerated by students and heavily played down by the exam board - I'd say it was unfair. Questions gave you fewer marks than I'd have expected for doing reasonably tricky things. Many problems were non-standard and, yes, unfortunately required you to think, thus scuppering those who'd learnt only how to pass the exam based on what typically shows up. I'm all for awarding understanding over pattern-spotting, but for this paper there were two instances where without due care and calm thoroughness you'd have easily missed picky little details, both right at the end of your workings, and if these are harsly marked against then that really is unfair - that's not awarding understanding, but penalising those shaken by the high-pressure paper, and that's certainly what this was. It did not conform to the usual standard; consistency is really what this argument ought to be about...
Also question 8 will go down in infamy as the completely ridiculous mechanics question in a core paper a.k.a."why can't Kate just use her camera's zoom to take the photo rather than running out into the road in front of a frickin' marathon with a speed varying as a function of the reciprocal of a trigonometric function?"
seriously Kate get a grip and don't clumsily frame questions with bad context that wasn't separating wheat from chaff that was dealing with bright pink wheat that nobody wants to buy on account of it being bright bloody pink
...
I didn't even do this paper my C3 was two and a half years ago why the devil do I care so much (it's possible that I've spent too much time around the maths department this year because they give me tea in exchange for me teaching doing their jobs for them doing the papers their students just sat so they can see how bad the exam was without actually having to do it helping out)
** okay I concede that particular question was not simple and you deserved more than four measly marks for getting it but if yet another year 13 whines "how was I supposed to know that cos 40 = sin 50?" I will ram the Core 2 textbook they had last year right down their oesophagus whilst screaming "THAT WASN'T EVEN THE HARD PART"
This summer, I am doing nothing but A-Level Mathematics modules (seven of the buggers, in fact; five exotic and brand new ones plus two resits). It was revealed a fortnight ago that a number of Edexcel's 18 modules had been compromised, and ever since I've been actively avoiding finding out which. Once a paper has been compromised, it is replaced by a Reserve Paper, and these standby papers are notoriously far trickier and more punishing than normal ones. And, last week, the poor, poor peeps sitting Core 3 found this out to their cost* (I was sat slashing my way through Statistics 3 at the side of the hall and could just tell people were suffering.)
Yesterday's Mechanics 4 paper was exhausting, though in retrospect not terrible; there were some leftfield questions, sure, and getting it done in 90 minutes was significantly arduous, but I have practised on worse. It did however follow unusually gruelling M1, M2 & M3 papers, so I tried to discover whether or not it had been compromised or if it were simply part of a trend of difficult Mechanics papers this year, in which case I'd put some extra grunt into M5. And then I accidentally read the whole list.
M4 was not one of the seven compromised exams, but both my clashing resits are. That means that, on Friday, I'll be sitting a reserve Further Pure 2 paper, followed immediately by Statistics 4 which I already know I'm not going to do well in - then, on Monday, a reserve Further Pure 3 followed by a Mechanics 5 which has the potential by extrapolation to be brutal.
This is not going to be pleasant.
...I pity the people who actually need to get good grades out of this summer's exam series. By rights, I shouldn't be panicking; my January resit results guarantee me my uni place, and at best this summer is mostly just to save me from the agonising bureaucratic rigmarole of re-certificating my Further Mathematics A-Level with a different set of modules. But bloody hell, lots of people were relying on a decent C3 resit after January's challenging paper, so they're completely screwed; likewise, many people had their one and only opportunity to take M2 and C4 this summer. If even one Further Pure paper turns out monstrous then I can foresee another student protest, and given the sort of peep who sits FP it'll probably be more serious than tacky "one does not simply show that tan x = (1/3)tan40**" memes on Twitter (bloody hell guys you're letting our generation down here.)
* for the record, the harshness of the paper is heavily exaggerated by students and heavily played down by the exam board - I'd say it was unfair. Questions gave you fewer marks than I'd have expected for doing reasonably tricky things. Many problems were non-standard and, yes, unfortunately required you to think, thus scuppering those who'd learnt only how to pass the exam based on what typically shows up. I'm all for awarding understanding over pattern-spotting, but for this paper there were two instances where without due care and calm thoroughness you'd have easily missed picky little details, both right at the end of your workings, and if these are harsly marked against then that really is unfair - that's not awarding understanding, but penalising those shaken by the high-pressure paper, and that's certainly what this was. It did not conform to the usual standard; consistency is really what this argument ought to be about...
Also question 8 will go down in infamy as the completely ridiculous mechanics question in a core paper a.k.a."why can't Kate just use her camera's zoom to take the photo rather than running out into the road in front of a frickin' marathon with a speed varying as a function of the reciprocal of a trigonometric function?"
seriously Kate get a grip and don't clumsily frame questions with bad context that wasn't separating wheat from chaff that was dealing with bright pink wheat that nobody wants to buy on account of it being bright bloody pink
...
I didn't even do this paper my C3 was two and a half years ago why the devil do I care so much (it's possible that I've spent too much time around the maths department this year because they give me tea in exchange for me teaching doing their jobs for them doing the papers their students just sat so they can see how bad the exam was without actually having to do it helping out)
** okay I concede that particular question was not simple and you deserved more than four measly marks for getting it but if yet another year 13 whines "how was I supposed to know that cos 40 = sin 50?" I will ram the Core 2 textbook they had last year right down their oesophagus whilst screaming "THAT WASN'T EVEN THE HARD PART"