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Oli

Disturbing In So Many Ways

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Thought this might be of interest to people- it’s the GCSE* exam for “Citizenship Studies”.

More disturbingly still, I know someone (who I must stress is not a friend, merely an idiot I was forced to work with) who failed this exam.

http://www.ocr.org.uk/Data/publications/as...Studies_SAM.pdf

*Note for American readers: GCSE=General Certificate of Secondary Education, i.e. a bunch of exams you take at age 16.

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Ha. Multiple choice questions.

Ooh, if only we had those at A-Level level.

That's not really a real subject, i'd scrap it.

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It is quite disturbing but the younger members on here will know that contray to what the media say, GCSEs and A Levels are not getting easier. They are actually getting harder and being a pupil that just say the May/June 2008 round of papers I know this. Citizenship Studies is not even offered in our school its a soft subject for the academically challenged. What one must remember is that exam boards need to provide courses for all types of students so they leave with atleast 5 A*-C GCSEs.

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Hmm. Are kids getting smarter? Or are the papers easier? Or is the pass mark lower? One of these must be true. Observation tells me that it's not the first one.

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Multi guess aren't always easy either.

I'm studying towards my aircraft mechanics licence and all the exams for that are multi guess but they are very difficult.

They always have a question with difficult wording followed by 1 answer that is way out there and another 2 that are very close to being the correct answer, then finally the correct answer.

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Thought this might be of interest to people- it’s the GCSE* exam for “Citizenship Studies”.

Yeah it's depressingly laughable. But it's always been this way surely? I took an A-level in something I never went to a lesson for.

Hmm. Are kids getting smarter? Or are the papers easier? Or is the pass mark lower? One of these must be true. Observation tells me that it's not the first one.

I think all of them are true! Plus kids/families work harder on average at education. The exams are easier, but then the results have increased so fast that there is genuine improvement in education as well, imho. IQ scores have steadily improved, and almost as many adults as 11 year old kids fail basic numeracy and literacy tests.

Also I think education today is much more relevant to real life: sure it's harder to have to memorise Shakespeare rather than take the play into the exam (as we do nowadays), but which way is best to assess someone's understanding of the play, rather than their short term memory ability. If raw intelligence or memory capacity are to be assessed, imho it would be better and fairer to just add on an IQ/memory test.

Multi guess aren't always easy either.

I'm studying towards my aircraft mechanics licence and all the exams for that are multi guess but they are very difficult.

They always have a question with difficult wording followed by 1 answer that is way out there and another 2 that are very close to being the correct answer, then finally the correct answer.

Well, if the correct answer is always the final one they don't seem too tricky. :whistling:

PS Congrats on post number 69. *Cue schoolboy snigger*

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Multi guess aren't always easy either.

I'm studying towards my aircraft mechanics licence and all the exams for that are multi guess but they are very difficult.

They always have a question with difficult wording followed by 1 answer that is way out there and another 2 that are very close to being the correct answer, then finally the correct answer.

The most difficult exam I ever did is the multi choice Pharmacology exam I did in my final year. Every question was like this:

Which of the following statements are true:

1) X can cause Y under circumstance Z

2) The cause of Y is always X

3) Z increases the likelihood of Y

4) X always causes Y

5) Z increases the likelihood of X

A) 1, 2 and 5

B) 2 and 3

C) 1, 4 and 5

D) None of the above

E) All of the above

The exam was double negatively marked, i.e every question you got right was worth one mark. Every question you got wrong you lost 2 marks. Fiendish.

Yeah it's depressingly laughable. But it's always been this way surely? I took an A-level in something I never went to a lesson for.

General Studies? Physics? :rolleyes:

I think all of them are true! Plus kids/families work harder on average at education. The exams are easier, but then the results have increased so fast that there is genuine improvement in education as well, imho. IQ scores have steadily improved, and almost as many adults as 11 year old kids fail basic numeracy and literacy tests.

Also I think education today is much more relevant to real life: sure it's harder to have to memorise Shakespeare rather than take the play into the exam (as we do nowadays), but which way is best to assess someone's understanding of the play, rather than their short term memory ability. If raw intelligence or memory capacity are to be assessed, imho it would be better and fairer to just add on an IQ/memory test.

Agreed. I do think exams are a lot more relevant today than they were 30 years ago. This makes them easier by nature, but I don't think that diminishes their value as some do. Understanding becomes more important than memorization.

Having said that I'm not really so worried about the easiness of this exam, more the way it seems to be telling people how to think.

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Hmm. Are kids getting smarter? Or are the papers easier? Or is the pass mark lower? One of these must be true. Observation tells me that it's not the first one.

You forgot one; Are you getting older? The answer is yes. I am too. I can't help it. It makes me see the worst in people. As society and situations change i am often of the opinion that things were better how they were before. I deride the changes and see the negative effects, rarely the positive ones.

I too think that kids are no smarter. But that's just what i think because it's my lot to think that way. I don't know for sure. I base it on my perception of the down turn in moral standards, increases in violent crime, that sort of stuff. Has that made a generartion of idiots? I'm not sure. I think the idiots are more prominent now because we like to highlight anti social behaviour and the Vicki Pollards. When was the last time we had a news flash saying "Today, there were lots of kids behaving, not playing truant and not smoking absolutely any drugs whatsoever....and from all the news team, goodnight".

My niece is eight years old. She is ridiculously perceptive and gave me a talk the other night about the Viking invasion. It made me feel uncofortable on two fronts. Firstly, i didn't like the fact that she is so grown up for her age and spoke to me with a natural flair not becoming of an eight year old girl. Secondly, she knows more about the Vikings than i did when i was eight. Is the shift in her standards from my generation a bad thing? Or is it just different and that's why i don't like it?

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Hmm. I wasn't trying to denigrate the youth of today with my post. My own neice is 10 years old and scarily intelligent - certainly more than I was at that age. I enjoy talking to her - she's keen to learn. (14 year old nephew is a different kettle of fish, and scarily familiar). But I don't think she's any smarter than we were. Year on year of government figures telling us of increasing pass rates. Higher grades. It begins to devalue the achievement of getting an A* if everyone has got the same grade. Raise the pass mark. There must be differentiation. And I'm an old git and all this was fields.

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sure it's harder to have to memorise Shakespeare rather than take the play into the exam (as we do nowadays)

It is perhaps more disturbing that spelling and grammar are no longer taken into account in English examinations. Especially if they have the fricking book in front of them. :P

Next they'll be saying that getting the correct answer in an arithmetic test is not absolutely necessary, as long as you've scribbled some random numbers on the page.....

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Learning by rote can be beneficial. Multiplication tables for example. Just 'cos it's old fashioned doesn't mean it's bad. Don't get me started on spelling and grammar or I'll have an aneurism.

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General Studies? Physics? :rolleyes:

Yeah, General Studies. What a joke that was! Oh and I'm now entitled to a 2nd master's degree for which I never even took an exam or did coursework, let alone learnt anything. Honestly, it does make you laugh how easy our education system is to manipulate.

Agreed. I do think exams are a lot more relevant today than they were 30 years ago. This makes them easier by nature, but I don't think that diminishes their value as some do. Understanding becomes more important than memorization.

Having said that I'm not really so worried about the easiness of this exam, more the way it seems to be telling people how to think.

Oh I see. Yeah I hate the way school preaches rather than stimulates. In my day, Environmental 'Science' was the killer example, but this citizenship thing looks similar. I can't help but wonder if they have similar classes in Iran about the dangers of democracy and ignoring God's will. Probably the reason we're introducing these things is because we want to copy the American patriotism and national spirit that is lacking here in comparison.

My niece is eight years old. She is ridiculously perceptive and gave me a talk the other night about the Viking invasion. It made me feel uncofortable on two fronts. Firstly, i didn't like the fact that she is so grown up for her age and spoke to me with a natural flair not becoming of an eight year old girl. Secondly, she knows more about the Vikings than i did when i was eight. Is the shift in her standards from my generation a bad thing? Or is it just different and that's why i don't like it?

:lol: Yeah. Kids do grow up so quickly these days. Most 8 year old girls sound more mature than I do already. The last 14 year old that I propositioned told me I was just 'silly' and went back to her Britney Spears video.

Hmm. I wasn't trying to denigrate the youth of today with my post. My own neice is 10 years old and scarily intelligent - certainly more than I was at that age. I enjoy talking to her - she's keen to learn. (14 year old nephew is a different kettle of fish, and scarily familiar). But I don't think she's any smarter than we were. Year on year of government figures telling us of increasing pass rates. Higher grades. It begins to devalue the achievement of getting an A* if everyone has got the same grade. Raise the pass mark. There must be differentiation. And I'm an old git and all this was fields.

Oh yeah sorry if my post was a little over the top. I agree with much of that. The exams are definitely easier and universities have a hopeless task selecting people.

It is perhaps more disturbing that spelling and grammar are no longer taken into account in English examinations. Especially if they have the fricking book in front of them. :P

Next they'll be saying that getting the correct answer in an arithmetic test is not absolutely necessary, as long as you've scribbled some random numbers on the page.....

Copying Shakespeare's spelling won't get you very far because the man could hardly spell his own name, and his grammar was awful, even by the standards of the day. :lol: But yes, spelling and grammar should count for something, I agree - they did in my day at GCSE. Much to my dissapointment.

Learning by rote can be beneficial. Multiplication tables for example. Just 'cos it's old fashioned doesn't mean it's bad. Don't get me started on spelling and grammar or I'll have an aneurism.

:lol: Yeah I know. We need to learn more grammar these days. Having said that, I don't go along with the prescriptive attitudes of Lynn Truss and the teachers of the 1960s either!

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Deleted. For no reason other than I decided I didn't agree with what I just posted.

Deleted. For no reason other than I decided I didn't agree with what I just posted.

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