to think people should stop complaining that exams are too hard?

[grimupnorthLondon]

DD's school is awash with parents sending angry emails to GCSE exam boards because their kids thought the questions were too hard? There is widespread demanding that 'something must be done'.

I think I'm partly annoyed by the continuation of helicopter parenting, wanting to swoop when a child, even in late teens, faces any challenge. But also there seems to be no understanding of the fact that some things just ARE difficult. If you don't 'get' physics, or you don't 'get' poetry, why should the exam be adapted so that you can pass it? Some people will do less well than others in academic areas (my DD is a very middle of the road performer), but may of course have amazing practical or social skills that will open up other opportunities for them.

In the case of some of the exams being complained about, I know from DD's experience that the teaching was very good and they covered the appropriate syllabus material so it is not a question of the school not preparing them.

Can't we just accept that sometimes things are difficult? That they need to be so that everyone is "stretched" to achieve at their own best level?

[chocshortbread]

YANBU. Exams have always had hard questions and been variable. Everything is a 'thing' on social media these days.

[booklooker]

I agree OP.

Exams should test knowledge and understanding, rather than whether you can get 90% on a previous exam paper.

I have found that the Int Bacc exams are very good at writing (maths) questions that really test true understanding if you want to get top marks

[grimupnorthLondon]

No Charlesroi. Applying your knowledge is an old, old thing that seems to be going rapidly out of fashion.

[grimupnorthLondon]

Hi GreenBeans17. What do you mean by not taught? That you didn't have the information to understand the question or that you didn't understand what kind of answer was expected?

Not being snippy - genuinely interested.

[thecitydoc]

an unintended consequence of social media. We had it last year in Scotland when the Higher Maths was regarded as being very difficult and all over social media as well as news sites, leading to exam body reducing the pass mark. For a challenge I did the paper a few weeks ago when I saw a book of past exam papers in the library and didn't find it too bad, for someone who did Maths A level in 1975 - I got 80%. So far this year in Scotland English and Biology have attracted similar attention - makes me think that will be a tactic in future to lower the pass mark.
In my - old fashioned? - view exams should be difficult - they were in my day.

[Foxyloxy1plus1]

I think that exams should test the knowledge and understanding of the students taking them. The trouble is, that because Ofsted blames every 'failure' on teachers, students expect to be spoon fed and lack critical thinking skills.

The minute an exam question deviates from what they expect, they lose all perspective and can't think about how to apply what they've learned, to the question.

So then it's all over social media that it's unfair because they weren't spoon fed. Not everyone can be academically gifted and I think the expectation that most can go to university, devalues higher education and the prospects of young people. We will continue to need practical people for all kinds of jobs and it's unfair to expect that a university degree will be the answer to everything.

[CrowyMcCrowFace]

I invigilated the 'drunk rats' biology paper (teaching overseas).

Perfectly legitimate data handling & scientific method questions - our y10s were unphased.

[arethereanyleftatall]

The problem with social media as well, is if someone posts 'exam x far too difficult for dc', you'd look like a twat if you responded 'I found it easy' so the only responders are sympathisers and it ends up appearing that 100% of people found it hard.

[FutureGadgetsLab]

I have an issue with exams in general. I don't think they test your ability properly and they favour a specific style of learning (by rote).

But demanding the exam is wrong because you don't like it isn't right either.

I don't know OP. I'm on the fence with this one. Because I'd examine people differently in the first place!

[FutureGadgetsLab]

Green the problem is the focus is on exam technique instead of teaching you how to apply knowledge. It's a fault of the system, not you.

[grimupnorthLondon]

I'm not sure FutureGadgets. Exams are often imperfect but if someone consistently does well in them over the years it's a reasonable marker (for universities and employers) that they have a certain level of intelligence. Of course that does not necessarily mean the reverse is true and that not scoring well shows lack of intelligence. Some people just can't handle exams, but to be brutal I often find that also means they can't handle stressful situations in the workplace either or that they are not prepared to put in the effort and concentration to prepare properly.

[Ginbucket]

It's difficult to 'teach' exam technique, beyond giving advice about reading the q, pacing ourself etc. Pupils are tested so regularly that they will have seen virtually every question available to them before the test so they become used to a certain style. Not blaming them, it's the way they have been taught throughout their lives in schools where results are very important. If schools weren't judged so much on exam results and so didn't feel they had to teach their pupils how to jump through hoops so much, there would be more time to develop the skills that would actually help them in higher education/ life.

[Ginbucket]

Sorry, irritated teacher rant there...

[Gide]

Some shocking questions on the French and Biology exams. On the French one there were questions on selfies and vaping, neither of which were on the syllabus or featured on the board's vocabulary list. Not convinced vaping is appropriate as a topic other than AQA trying to be down with the kids. Biology contained a lot of graphs and 'very little biology content' according to the kids. I think this video perfectly fits the mood of the kids.

[noblegiraffe]

Exam boards don't lower grade boundaries in response to social media whinging. The grade boundaries aren't set until after the exams have been marked and are set according to how well students did on the exam. If the students did badly, it is assumed that the paper is harder and the grade boundaries adjusted accordingly.

At the moment grade boundaries in England are set with one eye on the KS2 SATs data for that cohort, so it is known roughly how well they should do. Now they're introducing National Reference Tests to do the same job.

[RobinsAreTerritorialFuckers]

The idea of teaching exam style bothers me.

I know that it's done, and I know that school exams often really require teaching of question styles, because there's such a huge gap between people who have to figure it out on their feet, and people who'd been taught to recognise this 'type' of question.

It's tricky, though. I'm marking first year undergrad exams at the moment, and you can see so clearly how they've been taught for A Level - and the problem is that they now have to un-learn that. It feels really unfair.

A lot of mine have obviously, for example, been taught that the way you answer an essay question is to repeat the terms of the question in every paragraph, and to write 'in conclusion, ....' at the end, and to finish with some generalisations. It's a formula.

You talk about how the text is 'relevant' or 'important' or 'interesting'. You talk about 'the reader' and 'the author' and you never, ever use 'I,' even when you want to express personal opinions. You make sure you give a plot summary, so it's clear you know what's happening.

The problem is that children who went to schools that had the resources (and the small class sizes, and homogeneous ability groups) to teach beyond the exam, tend to do better. Occasionally, children who went to schools that didn't manage to teach exam formula do better, too. The ones in the middle, who worked hard at school to learn this stuff, get discouraged.

[Idliketobeabutterfly]

I'm still pondering why 'what is an independent company?' is a biology question though.

[RobinsAreTerritorialFuckers]

That's the sort of thing teachers say, though, isn't it? That's the teacher acknowledging that what people struggled with was understanding what the question wanted, not that they hadn't studied quadratic equations. It's sensible to distinguish between the two.

[noblegiraffe]

Average mark for the Hannah's sweets question part a) (the one where Hannah had n sweets, 6 are orange, the probablity she eats 2 orange sweets is 1/3 show n^2-n-90 = 0) was worth 3 marks. The average national score was 0.2/3. Part b where you had to solve the quadratic had an average national score of 0.81/3.

However, question 15b on the same paper (Hannah's sweets was Q19) had a national average of 0.28/3 and no one whined about that one!

[noblegiraffe]

Actually, I've just restricted the Hannah's sweets analysis to student who got an A* and the average was 1.49/3. The average for q15b) was 2.08/3 so clearly Hannah was considered tricky even by strong candidates.

I'm totally avoiding doing a pile of marking.