Exams aren't fit for purpose

[littlequestion]

I have two DC and both are doing exams - one A levels and one GCSEs. The older only had a few, low-key exams for his GCSEs so this is the first time for proper exams in my house.

I honestly can't believe how dreadful, stressful and ultimately pointless these exams are - they are not fit for purpose.

The amount of content they have to learn is insane. What on earth is the point of learning 15 poems almost off by heart? What skill does that teach? Most importantly, how is it useful for life?

My other bugbear is that the exams just don't give them enough time. If you've studied a subject in massive depth for two years, why not give candidates enough time to write a considered essay instead of having to rush it and decide what are going to leave out? Why not give them enought time to check their work?

That's what I do in my job - I don't just dash something off and hope for the best. I don't mean exams shoiuld take half a day, but an extra half-hour of planning/ checking time built in would make the world of difference.

Nobody should be learning anything off by heart. If your children's teachers are encouraging that, the problem is there, not with the exam system.

Regarding time management, students are given X amount of time to do Y piece of work, because that's how much time (with leeway) that the average student would need to produce a good piece of work. It's not just an arbitrary number plucked out of nowhere. If they were given more time, the work wouldn't be concise and they'd go off-piste, etc etc.

Students will have been trained to complete the tasks in the amount of time given. (though I do find that a lot will finish early- if I had a fiver for every time I have to say "there is ALWAYS something more you can do", I'd be a very rich woman.

PS, students are advised to devote a certain percentage of the time they have for planning and checking. In my experience most do neither.

I also have 2 sitting exams, for the A level DC these are their first ever public exams.

DC2 has 23 separate GCSE exams and has already done a GCSE (state secondary) last year, there is no way I'd want the papers to be longer than they are.

I worked, however, like them mixed up a bit more, today she has 2 essay subjects, tomorrow only Physics, be nice if it could have been swapped for one of today's.

I agree the account of quotes for English they need is bonkers, DC A level Classics demands silly amount of quotes/citations too

It's the same for every student. It's not about producing your best ever essay - it's testing a range of skills. Recall, application, time management, context, and working under very specific (and quite stressful) conditions.
My DD is also taking GCSE's this year.
What I find a bit strange is the breadth of learning they have to do and then they might have little or no questions on certain topics.
I don't think overall though, that it's a bad system.

I agree with your premise but not your reasoning.

I think the English Lang/Lit exams are too long as it is. They are a test of stamina / concentration as much as anything. You shouldn't be learning 15 poems off by heart though.

I think they aren't fit for purpose for lower ability kids any more. Even practical subjects have a lot of theory attached, and the total volume of content across the GCSEs is too much for the lower end.
Furthermore the total number of exams again turns into a test of stamina rather than ability.

My eldest did GCSEs towards the end of the old system. So terminal exams, not modular ones, but a chunk of controlled assessments too. Coursework / controlled assessments was too open to abuse and I think needed to go, but in doing that they also seemed to up the total content which seems wrong.

I don't know how I'd solve it, but I would make functional skills for maths & English available to y11 for lower ability kids.

Nobody should be learning anything off by heart. If your children's teachers are encouraging that, the problem is there, not with the exam system.

There is a lot of stuff, in the English Lit exam particularly, that you just have to learn. How can you use an accurate quote in an essay, if you haven't learnt any?
How do do you choose a poem out of 15 that best compares to another without having a really strong memory of at least a good number of them? You can't.

My DD was very nearly put off English by the requirements of the GCSE. Fortunately A Level is open book, and she is not intending to go on and study it at university. My DS enjoyed reading and discussing the texts but was entirely put off by the hoops that had to be jumped through for the exam.

DD is now intending to study English at university ...

There are good arguments for more generous timing for exams. Most jobs these days do not rely on recall in perhaps the way it once was. Many students even if they do have extra time do not use it all so it is not as if the students will be in there until midnight.

The main argument against is timetabling and clashes, so a student with an exam in the afternoon would be penalised if they needed to finish sooner to have a break before the afternoon ones. Likewise a student with three exams already scheduled would usually have the third one squeezed in but with longer exams that would be more difficult. There is also the disruption of people leaving part way through an exam and keeping them in there until everyone has finished would probably lead to some students becoming bored and disruptive.

I imagine no GCSE open book exams are due to the extra cost of printing or providing clean copies. Open book exams still favour those who know their way around the materials anyway.

In short I agree with you but I am not sure there is the will to change it.

I certainly think English lit and lang is not suitable for lower-ability students, so in that sense it is not fit.

There needs to be a qualification that is accessible for those who will get a 1 or a U - at the moment they are entered for an exam they will fail.

No one needs to learn 15 poems off by heart tho - the skill of learning what you need, what can help the most is a key one. 5-6 poems covering the full range of topics is fine (realise this advice is a bit late and also a bit specific - but the general rule of learning what will be useful rather than everything still applies, and is certainly useful in later life.)

I think the current system sucks.
Far too many exam papers. Coursework needs to be bought back. Have a 50/50 system.
There has been several threads on here about children being ill when they are due to take an exam - or (on one thread) a poor girl broke her arm right before the exam.
All those years of learning all for it to be screwed up because of the misfortune of having a streaming cold/intense hay fever/period pains/stomach bug with the runs and projectile vomiting or whatever on the exam day.
Back in my day most subjects were a mix of coursework or modular (ie half termly) exams plus the final exam. All the grades were added together for the final grade.
If for some reason you couldn't do the final exam your coursework/module exam grades would be used as your final grade.

You really don't need to learn poems and quotes off by heart for English Lit. You just pick the questions that don't require this. DS2's school told them which questions they should be answering for English Lit. They were told to chose the question with the quote in the title which you then evaluate and discuss.

@Needmorelego Coursework was somewhat discredited though. Far too open to abuse by teachers / parents / tutors. Even CAs were dodgy. They also meant students were being assessed from early y10 which didn't leave much room for 'growth' during the course.

AI means that education systems that use coursework are going to be even more prone to cheating than they were previously.

None of my students learn poems by heart. A couple of quotes, sure. Not many though.

Plus "knowing" a poem (or any piece of literature) in depth, doesn't mean knowing it by heart. Ever.

The memory you have of the works you've studied are in the analysis, not the actual words on the page.

@TeenDivided yes it's a difficult one about coursework.
Maybe the modular exams are better.
At my school everyone did Combined Humanities. Each half term was one subject - so either a history one, geography one, RS one and Business Studies one. At the end of each module you did an exam and then that was that for that particular subject.
Then at the end all the grades were added up and averaged out.
We also did Combined Science. Again half term module on either Biology, Chemistry and Physics. Exam at the end of each module and then a final exam of a mix of all 3 sciences. Then all the grades added up and averaged out.
This meant if there was a module you weren't particularly good at (or interested in) you learned what needed to be known for that module but then could essentially forget about that because it was done and over with.

So true.

Mine sat a mock a couple of weeks ago and one handed in a perfect piece of work. They didn't have time for a rough copy, yet there wasn't even one crossing out. And you could see by how perfectly the pen pressure on the page was, that it had been written very quickly. No proof she had a second phone about her person obvs (as so many do) but there is no way on the planet that that student produced that piece of work. A lot of the word choices were American English for starters, which is a bit of a giveaway.

Perhaps more coursework should be done within classroom time.
I loved doing my maths coursework assignments. They were like little booklets with fancy graphics of pie charts etc (hand drawn back then). We worked in them in class time as well as at home.

I think there is a good argument for tiered exams, for those whose strength lies in other areas. But DD, for example, loved learning all the poems, she learnt them all, not because they had to, but because she enjoyed them. She loves Shakespeare too. She was also doing LAMDA gold at the same time, and Theatre studies, with performances elements, and Classics, so had a huge amount of text to learn. So it would be a shame to exclude all of that for those that thrive on it.

She then went on to do English Lit, History and Classics for ALevel.

If you think English Lit is hard, try History. It’s been brilliant but absurdly difficult remembering dates and timelines of Elizabethan England, Weimar Germany, Cold War, and 1000 years of Migration. The room is like some stranger things notes and timelines pinned onto his walls :) Thankfully DS likes history and teacher is great which has helped, and all that seemed to have helped him with the English Lit too. These are easy enough quotes to remember and I do think it’s so beneficial when they’ve analysed the poems and the books.

Was thinking earlier, no wonder British people can be some of the smartest people you encounter, this especially shows when you’re on holiday (and meet a range of people). Poetry is hugely underrated, and helps kids to understand and have awareness of the world around them at a deeper level. A lot of the poems in Power and Conflict really have massive themes and deeper meaning, it was actually nice to see DS get familiar with and begin to consider the political angles and the views and struggles of the poets at that time and how society and women even, in particular with Inspector Calls, also play a role in the whole ‘patriarchy’ debate.

random: I think in UK we take it for granted how lucky we are with such a high standard of education and great curriculum

@KnittedCardi I don't understand why English Literature is compulsory.
English Language definitely.
I love books. I loved books at GCSE age. I convinced myself that I "loved" English Lit and even chose to take it for A-Level. But actually I hated the analysing of plot and characters. I didn't like a lot of the books on the curriculum. For a teen who isn't a particularly big reader of novels GCSE English Literature is enough to put them off books for life.

lol saying all that let’s hope it hasn’t gone all tits up at the English lit exam.

To add.... I don't remember doing much poetry for GCSE English Literature. Was it such a thing on the curriculum in 1991?
Or have I just blanked it from my memory?

I took GCSEs in 1990 and we had to study an anthology of war poems.

Coursework done in classroom time cuts down on teaching time.

Exams with no coursework isn't a good prep for uni or work in general.

Noone seems to mind coursework for BTECs, or is it a snob thing that people who do BTECS aren't going to be in competition with top A level students so noone worries about outside help given?

I definitely think a small amount of coursework would be good. 30% of dcs PE a level is coursework, thank goodness.