To tell you to tell your teens to read the f*****ing question!

[BorrowedThyme]

I'm spending hour and hours and hours combing through GCSE papers back from the exam board cos mum says Jonnie has told her he had written loads of high quality answers and should have got higher than a 5...

YES! Jonnie has written loads and loads of very high quality content, showing excellent understanding, recall and application of the subject

NO! his answers don't in any way match the question that was asked, so no! he gets no marks for said answers.....

FGS - what a total waste of time and energy for everyone.

And I have spent my entire weekend on these wastes of time

Believe me surgeons get angry when things go wrong.

On the OP I wouldn't be passing comment that it's not the job for them. That's just rude and making huge assumptions.
I think it shows the OP is passionate about what she does and cares about her students exam results and their futures.

Do you wish you could give better marks? I'm a lecturer and we often get very very good essays that have not quite answered the question but are brilliantly put together nonetheless. I will often mark these highly, knock a few off for missing the question but I wouldn't necessarily hammer them for it. But I make up my own marking criteria and will discuss cases like these with the moderator directly. I do like having that freedom to apply a bit of flexibility.

No

None of the papers I have reviewed are my own students, in line with school policy.

And I have taught endlessly about reading the questions, as have other teachers

If I was fed up of the whole topic of reviewing and advising on this, would I then actually spend my free time writing more about it? Probably not as that appears completely irrational to me!

Not unreasonable.

Loved the comment earlier about students marking one another's work at university.

How practical would a session like that be with your students? I'd have LOVED something like that when I was a student. My ego wouldn't have enjoyed it but it's exactly how I learn from reading and understanding where others have gone wrong and where others have done a better job than me.

I wonder also if a session for parents might help where you invite them in to grade mock exams. Suspect that requires more free time and will power than teachers or parents have right now.

Good luck to everyone over the next few weeks of returning to routine! 😬😬🤞🤞❤️❤️

I always tell my GCSE groups that the #1 cause of students not doing as well as they hoped in exams (I try to avoid the words 'fail their exams') is not answering the questions they were asked. (And that answering the questions you 'thought' or 'wished' you'd been asked doesn't cut it with the examiner)

(I also tell them that the #2 reason students don't do as well as they hoped is losing control of their timings...)

OP I'm so with you on this!!

yes, we do quite a lot of marking each others exam questions

Perhaps if they do it again and again, it's time to think why they do it?

It's easy to assume that they are stupid or lazy or just don't listen, and yes, they are all of those. However, there are other reasons, and teachers should reflect about those rather than write angry posts on MN. Don't you tell the students to write what they know hoping to get some marks when they can't answer the exact question?

and I have started this thread for one reason only!

Parents! who want their children to do the best they can in their exams, and want to know how to help - Here is something you can do to help!

Help drum it in to them to READ the QUESTION!

It costs the average student several grades every exam time

Did you mean to be so rude?

A teacher is working through the summer holidays when they are most likely wanting and needing to plan for next term re looking at papers where students haven't answered the question properly because a parent has asked for a review because the child said they did well.

Maybe a bit of empathy?

This. If you feel the grades are low for the child and they feel they did well in the exam get the parent to pay for a review. Don't waste your own time it's ridiculous.

Ignore the idiotic comments on this thread OP - some people seem to have very limited lives and get their kicks from writing rubbish on MN.

Even when I was sitting exams, nearly 50 years ago, it was drummed into us to read the questions properly. It's not difficult.

Second post isn't it? Although this time you sound even more angry and resentful.

My dear old Dad was very fond of this phrase "Piss, or get off the pot" It sounds like you need to get off the pot, it's obvious that at least some elements of your job are making you unhappy.

Agreed.

If you’re a lecturer in HE, it’s appropriate that the criteria are broader, as the scope is much broader. For national exams, I think it’s appropriate that everything is fairly standardised, particularly at GCSE level. There will be exemplar responses, but you’re not looking for them to reproduce that exactly and you can reward appropriate answers that don’t appear on the exemplar. At A level, they might try to formulate more complex arguments of their own and evidence them. There’s room to start developing a voice. I know it sounds like it lacks creativity, but many many students are still struggling with the basics at this age (such as answering a question).

Yes, the contempt for pupils from the OP with not one post but two on the topic does appear to reflect a disproportionate frustration.

Yes exactly this

Johnnys parents are deluded. Quite a few of them about.

As others have asked, do your really need two threads within a space of days of each other about exactly the same thing? I actually don’t disagree with your point but needing to go on about it twice in a week on what must be a very rare break this close to school starting again seems like a huge waste of your energy…

Name me a job that doesn't have drawbacks.

Also, the OP is doing someone else's job for them, on top of her own job, for no extra money and no TOIL. She has a right to be upset. The fact that she's doing it anyway probably means she is in the right job because she's putting the kids before her own needs.

I totally support what you are saying OP. We now live in a world where there is a tendency to place blame somewhere and in your case it is teachers and examiners - it is never because the child might have messed up on the day. Therefore we have endless demands for remarks which is why you are snowed under with work. You have every right to post about it - 2,3,4 times if you want...and yes students should answer the question if they want good marks.
Unfortunately this is MN and plenty of people seem to be looking to make the snarky remarks tonight.

Oh for goodness sake!! I know a lot of people, adults, who don't read things properly.

In fact I was on a course from work once and we were asked a question which we had to solve in pairs. We were all tearing our hair out, until I took another look at the question and realised the answer was simple. My team-mate and I were the only ones who gave the correct answer, everyone else had made the mistake of reading the question once and not taking a second look to see the obvious answer. It's quite common to not actually read things well - and if kids are sitting exams then they need to slow down and read properly. But no, too easy just to blame the teachers.

I remember that paper too - I think I was about 12 at the time (mumblemumblefortyeightmumblemumble years ago).

Trust me, teachers have to do many things that they really don't want to do but which they are forced to do because of government policy etc. The thing most teachers love to do most is to actually teach.

Kids and adults who sit exams often don’t read the question properly and lose marks. Or they do read it but shoehorn in the only info they actually know. It happens and has always happened. This is hardly big news!

It is like a doctor writing a post about telling people not to smoke or they will get lung cancer. I mean it’s true, but people know this stuff already and I am not sure an angry rant will achieve much!