History exam - unfair article?

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IS it me.... or is this horrible?

www.sundayexpress.co.uk/posts/view/108960/A-Level-exam-too-difficult

One of my students who also studies history, has a good vocab and is very articulate [oxbridge to do policitcs next year] had the same complaint.

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!

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.

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

(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.)

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?

Hear, hear, edam.

Are we not being a bit up our own middle aged backsides here?

I remember what I was like as a 17 year old doing A levels - we were all as neurotic as hell, and had facebook been in existence then, we would all have been posting like mad on the inequities of it all. But me and my mates still got good grades. In fact, the more you panicked and moaned, the better you tended to do.

And I'm pretty sure the teachers were doing the same.

Nothing's changed imho. And yes my eleven year old guessed correctly what a despot was - but under exam conditions, especially when followed by the worked 'tyrant' - I can see why it may have caused some panic.

possibly Myra but this is a genuine opportunity for us old farts to harrumph about 'we wouldn't have got away with that in my day'. Don't spoil it by being all reasonable!

(And anyway, I still think they should have been able to work out what the question meant.)

I'm so glad we didn't have Facebook. At least when you went home and closed the door you left it all behind at school.

It was bad enough the way some people would stand around after the exam asking you "What did you put for question 3?" in a panicky voice, I hate to think what it would have been like with email, FB, etc, having a thorough post-mortem with all your friends about the exam. I was only too happy to put that exam behind me and focus on the next one till they were all done, then forget the whole business till the envelope arrived.

oh Lord, memories of hovering anxiously by the front door for THE envelope...

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect an A Level student studying history, including apparently studying Hitler, to have come across the terms despot/desoptic/ despotism in the course of their studies. I vaguely remember writing an A Level History essay about despotism myself, in Russia iirc.

I am trying very hard to remember some of the many 'outrages' I endured as a neurotic A level student - I am sure there were loads that would rival 'use of difficult word in exam' for triviality.

On the general stupidity of A level students, me and the rest of my German A level group, in a bid to raise cash for a trip to Berlin, offered to wash the teachers' cars for £1 each. When we ran out of washing up liquid, we cheerfully resorted to using Vim.

I particularly remember the look of dismay on the face of Mr Carter, the economics teacher, when surveying the lack of sheen on his brand new top of the range black fiesta.

I was once part of a group of students who thought it would be a jolly jape to show one of our lecturers how much we would miss him when he moved away... by sneaking out before dawn to decorate his car. Only none of us had bothered to check whether silly string squirted out of an aerosol would damage his paintwork.

Bless him, how he restrained himself from having a real go at us I do not know!

I tried this on my children this evening - 13 year old dd knew both despot and tyrant and had a good stab at despotic.

Ds, who's 8, thought long and hard, and came up with "Is it a really big waterfall?"

When I asked why, he said "Well, I know that a tyrant is a lot of water flowing down......"!

The thing is, the dumbing down does NO-ONE any favours. The not so bright are made to feel they are doing better than they are, and the v bright can't reach their potential because they can't answer outside the 'set' answers. The whole system is ridiculous.

Some may argue, quite rightly, they don't know the meaning of the word 'despot' because they haven't actually been 'taught' it, but in the old days (crabby middle aged woman emoticon) one would have learnt different words just by reading books etc, talking to people, reading newspapers. 'Hard' and different words were in general usage and if one didn't know the meaning, one looked it up in a dictionary.There is such a dumbing down of vocabulary generally.

I suppose the real discussion is does it REALLY matter if one doesn't know the meaning of the word 'despot'? Possibly not in the whole scheme of things.

that no-one laughed at my ds......!

DD, who got an A in History A level last year, and also has As in English language & Literature didn't actually know what 'despotic' meant, but worked it out when I read her the question. She also said she would have expected them to pick up the meaning if they were studying Hitler (she didn't)

I think it was a superfluous word and that may have made them overthink it. DD1 doing A2 History next year isn't in so I can't ask her.

I thought your DS' comment was funny, seeker!

But too busy being old fogey to comment.

At the end of the article, where the board responds, they say that the term was used r explained in the supporting materials at back of exam - or have I misread that.

A level students should be capable of determining such phrases.

The teacher forum linked to made me wonder though. They were complaining that some of their lower ability A level students struggled with it - maybe this would indicate that some of those candidates are possibly not really A level standard candidiates???

My DH is a history teacher and writes A level exam papers, although thankfully not this one! and his view is that the students should have understood the question and have known the word and that it's a phrase he wouldn't think twice about including in his paper.

margotfonteyn - I live my whole life as a fogey!

DH is a history lecturer, and I reckon he'd take a pretty dim view of a first year undergrad who didn't know (or couldn't work out from context) what despot meant. The comments on the teacher site were a bit odd, I thought.

Yeah, good comment, seeker!