History exam - unfair article?

What is education coming to when they can't assume that A level students will understand the word "despotic"? I take the point that perhaps "despotic tyranny" is a tautology to some extent, but it's hardly unfair to expect them to understand the question. And as for the students who thought it meant "choatic" (sic), or "weak"... what hope is there?

(And I wish the government's idea was that as many pupils as possible could go to university OR do an apprenticeship/study for a vocational qualification/any other reputable option rather than '50% must go to university' or whatever it is.)

Given the comments by some of the pupils, I think you are expecting a little more sophistication than actually exists, Anna.

As most of them seem to have never actually encountered the word despot in any of its forms , I don't think the trouble was in the phrasing. More in their limited vocabulary.

Indeed, I remember well being warned by every teacher or tutor of essay-writing subjects, right through my educational career, to take every word in the examination question seriously - that no word would be there without a reason!

I agree with you margotfonteyn. But as 50% of the population has, apparently, to go to university, what can we expect?

That was my thought too Anna. I would have spent the essay-time trying to find ways in which Hitler's regime was a despotic tyranny as distinct from a non-despotic one. It is a crap essay question just for that reason.

In fact tyrant is a more judgemental word than despot in its origin it implies wrongful aquisition and use of power; whereas despot just refers to the absulute-ness of the power. So an even more confusing question one that the examinees would totally be forgiven for trying to answer literally -- would be "How far do you agree that Hitler?s role in 1933-45 was one of tyrannical despotism??

I'm guessing that the system's expectations of students is now so low that the setters didn't even think to take into account that examinees would look ( and should) for the distinctions between despotism and tyranny in that question.

I have sympathy with the A level examinees, actually. "Despot" and "tyrant" are basically synonyms; A level examinees quite rightly would assume that the examination paper would not contain such a glaring misuse of English and, nervous from the examination situation, might panic and attribute/desperately search for a nuance in meaning between "despotic" and "tyrant".

Ok, I am prepared to be flamed but.....as a history teacher myself I think they are being overdramatic but I can see where they are coming from. It is undoubtedly true that we get some students on our courses who have scraped a C in their GCSE (normally with good coursework and rubbish exam) who really shouldn't be there but we have no choice but to take them if they got a C and we even have those students who haven't taken GCSE History. The purpose of an exam question is to allow a student to demonstrate their knowledge whatever their ability and complicated langauage within the question prevents some students from accessing that question which IMO is a little unfair.

Some students shouldn't even be taking A levels. The whole system is so dumbed down, it is ridiculous.

The History Teachers' Forum is slightly depressing too....

My thoughts exactly,edam but thinking is an optional extra these days and you're supposed not to frighten them.

A few years back a candidate in an A Level Economics exam I was invigilating put up her hand.
'What does dismayed mean?'
'Sorry, not allowed to tell you'

Looked at the paper and the question said 'Catherine was dismayed to find that she was £50 overdrawn on her current account'... blah, blah what could she do about it etc. For goodness' sake any half wit could've worked it out from the context, plus she was doing Economics not Serbo Croat.

I'm dismayed that the posters on the History Teachers' Forum are being a bit wet

Good grief.

What's all this stuff about lower ability A-level students? Why are they doing A-levels in the first place if they aren't bright enough to either know what a despot is after years of studying history OR work it out from the sodding context!

Talk about dumbing down...

Yet we are constantly being told that young people today are apparently "brighter" than ever before!

They must be thrilled to be in the national press (unlike us MNers who are now very blase about it).

Is this whole thing just based on a Facebook group some kids started though? Storm in a teacup.

Isn't it just another word for dictator? I did A Level history 6 years ago and you'd have to be pretty dense not to even be able to hazard a guess in the context of the question!

My 15 year old has just done his GCSE and he understood the question.

Bloody nora I did A level history and i would have liked that question.

I love the idea of a march though. I wonder ifthey will need a hand withtheir banners?

Link

I remember in one of my university exams (30 years ago btw, when supposedly standards were higher) there was a question on the English civil war, asking whether it was due more to 'God or Mammon' It was really just asking whether the reasons for the war were more religious or economic & was actually a really easy question, but I was amazed how many people avoided it because they didn't know what Mammon meant.

That is impressed not impresses

On the TES however, they were less than impresses with the student's complaints.

Alicia Luba, of Croydon High School, wrote: ?My life is destroyed because of this exam. Seriously.?

aw bless their little melodramatic cotton socks!

And my 9 year old has just read this over my shoulder and informed me that Julius Caesar is another example of a despot!

Ah yes, someone at work was moaning about this and canvassing everyone to see if they knew what the word meant. Unfortunately for her argument I did (once I'd worked out which word it was because she couldn't even pronounce it properly!)

Ah this reminds me of my mum invigilating an A level biology exam in the early 1980s - there was an essay question about the health disorders associated with the 'affluent society' and one candidate put up her hand and said 'I think there's a misprint - don't they mean 'effluent'?

Not much sympathy for students as according to the Edexcel spokesman quoted, it was explained in material at the end of the paper.

Ridiculous. Of course an A-level history student should have come across the term despot. Although I have to admit that I myself have never come across the term choatic.