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

@Inkpotlover She's deffo said she's a teacher

Extra message to parents (and students) - turn the last page over! Make sure you’re not missing questions because you think you’ve finished (absurdly) early! (And yes - then carefully read the bloody questions you’ve just discovered)

Gosh, me too! The amount of rubbish I would have written without that advice!

All very true, I know! This particular student just stands out in my memory because he was such an otherwise bright kid and annoyingly, actually did quite well on the question 🙄

Teachers just mentioning "read the question" a few times when the kids are in years 10 or 11, and have spent the earlier years getting good marks in more informal tests/markings, just doesn't have the same impact.

Isn't that what mocks are for?

She's not actually a teacher? I don't know why but I thought she was.

There was a poster years ago who came across in exactly the same angry, sanctimonious, self-important way that the OP has on both threads and this morning I thought I'd instantly recognised them, except the poster I was thinking of wasn't actually a teacher. Turned out she worked in the school office.

Couldn't possibly be the one I'm thinking of anyway as she got a ban in the end.

Schools don't seem to teach revision technique very well - possible there is no time.
I'm having to go through with dc about different revision techniques and actually answering the question not just writing what they know about subject. One of mine finds its helpful to underline parts of question then jot down quick bullet point list then expand on that

Oh, come off it. Our teachers dinned in to us 'read the question' 'ANSWER the question'. Thing is, under exam pressure, things go out of your head.

Teachers are realising that, actually, yes, they shouldn’t be doing that job (as in a task, or at least not doing a task to the extent we’re seeing now) and the job isn’t for them. Then leaving the profession in droves precisely because of the expectation they should spend their holidays or start of a busy academic year spending hours doing tasks like this.

The martyr narrative with teaching in insidious and too many suck it up without complaint. These teachers burn out fastest and leave first in my experience as a teacher who has seen too many talented colleagues leave to be treated better in another profession.

Why on earth are people saying the OP isn't a teacher?
Quoted from OP's post on about p4:

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.

In y6 the highlight everything, or start making pretty patterns or colouring in.

Plus, for essay type answers, they have PEEL drummed into them from Y7. The L stands for ' Link back to the question' but yet...

This.

I'm another one thinks you are in the wrong job. The kids deserve better than your contempt.

When I started teaching in the early 80s pupils’ exam performance was down to them.

When I left teaching 35 years on pupils’ exam performance was largely due to their teachers.

The truth lies between the two in varying proportions for different pupils.

I hammered home the ‘read the question’ year after year. Don’t answer the question you’d like it to be, don’t answer the question you expect it to be etc but the actual one.

As a teacher you can only do so much. They are by themselves in the exam.

Read the question is a fairly simple statement or instruction for a 16yo. Unfair to blame a teacher for a pupil answering a different, non existent question.

Don’t you ever get frustrated with your job? I do. Doesn’t mean you should give it up. There are things about my job that I hate and others that I love. Marking papers can be a particular kind of hell if you are marking awful essays. I can imagine how awful it must feel to fail perfectly good students just because they didn’t rtfq. Perhaps op can help to get parents to drum it into next year’s candidates.

RTQ imprinted in my brain from my GCSE days many moons ago- say the same to anyone else I know sitting any type of exam!

Loads of great tips on this thread.

I agree with the op.

It's the simple things that give the marks. And if the students are not doing the basics- such as reading the full question then it's very difficult for them to do well.

Op I agree but why are they not reading the question?
Why isn't this being drummed into them?

I heard of a job aptitude test carried out for a position and occupation where following instructions was important.
It was announced that ALL candidates must FULLY read the front page instructions then complete the paper in the booklet provided.
The instructions stated only to answer only the first and last question of 4 questions.
Needless to say there was a high attrition rate of prospective candidates who failed to correctly follow the instructions and answered all.of the relatively easy questions.
I concur with you OP, I have marked many exam papers with great answers but not for the questions asked.
Exam technique is fundamental to exam success.

I'm not sure what exams your marking but I was really shocked to hear a friend daughter talking about revising for her a levels, wordy long answer subjects. She'd been told to write a few broad answers that her teacher marked and help get to a high standard, then she was memorise this answer and basically edit it slightly to fit any questions. Seemed totally barmy to me but sounds like maybe this could be what a fair few teachers are teaching?

I taught English for 40+ years and always said there are three tips to exam success:

1. Read the question
2. Read the question
3. Read the question

The other one was that the answer to the question was always in the question, e.g. How does Fred and Wilma's relationship show the themes of fidelity and tolerance?
Answer: How = textual evidence for everything you say.
Fred
Wilma
marriage
fidelity
tolerance
if you don't address all of these you won't have answered the question.

RTFQ is indelibly seared into my brain, thanks to a particularly sweary teacher. Different times . It worked though!

He did always say the 'F' was silent, not that he followed his own advice...

The surgeon analogy doesn’t work for me.

it might if the ranter was a trainer of student surgeons who kept removing the wrong organs and the trainer, after reviewing their work, said they should read the effing patient notes. You wouldn’t say they should leave their job. You would probably agree that the students should read the effing notes.

What? Why?

Where did OP say they were doing it in their spare time for free?