So what is this ACTUALLY teaching them?

nilagin said:
What you mean my whole school life was a dream then? Your comments are becomming more and more farcical. My education and the exams plus previous test papers that I took are testament that it wasn't a myth. Just because you weren't there, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just for your information, when a tree falls over in a forest without you there to hear it, it still made a noise.
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No, you've misunderstood me. I'm not claiming your school life was a myth - I'm claiming (and proving, with evidence from a reliable source) that your insistence that 'old' exams weren't grade adjusted is a myth.

Did you read the quote? Are you now claiming that the civil service doesn't know how exams were graded in the past? THAT is farcical.
 
That's hilarious.
Llamaman said:
Um, he wasn't making that claim. He was saying that no-one was making that claim.
Why argue against a claim that no-one is making? Do you really, really dislike windmills too?

Edit: this really should have had a smiley as it reads pretty aggressively without :) Sorry Carl. :)
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He's a she :-)
 
ghoti said:
You simply don't understand what you're talking about. No papers were successfully set to an identical standard (though they may well have tried; and still do, try) because it can't be done. There will always be unavoidable variations in difficulty.
We actually do reasonably well at it, as grade threshold adjustments are usually quite small. But there are always harder/easier papers and always have been.
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It's you that has no understanding of what I am saying. As I said test papers contained questions on the subjects covered for that level. There were no extra bits for stuff not covered by the curriculum for the exam level. So it is only "Hard" in the sense that some will have an understanding of it whilst some didn't. This allows for the different grades depending on your test scores and why, nothing had to be readjusted from year to year. I must have sat at least 6 maybe more past test papers prior to taking my exam and whilst the questions were different, there was no perception of any one test being harder than another. You either knew it or you didn't.
 
nilagin said:
nothing had to be readjusted from year to year. I must have sat at least 6 maybe more past test papers prior to taking my exam and whilst the questions were different, there was no perception of any one test being harder than another. You either knew it or you didn't.
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You're wrong. See my quote above from a government briefing paper that explains that exams were grade-adjusted even before 1980.
Just because it wasn't as well-publicized or as transparent doesn't mean it didn't happen.
 
viv1969 said:
That's hilarious.
He's a she :)
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Not sure it's THAT amusing :rolleyes:. I can't access profiles on my phone so either have to guess, or adopt a traditional approach of using the masculine when in doubt. I refer the honorable lady to The Interpretation Act 1978, s6(a). :D

Seriously, apologies for any offense caused to Ghoti for my faux pas.
 
Llamaman said:
You're wrong. See my quote above from a government briefing paper that explains that exams were grade-adjusted even before 1980.
Just because it wasn't as well-publicized or as transparent doesn't mean it didn't happen.
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So doing all those test papers and having them marked was a complete waste of time then as the goal posts may have been moved before we took the final exams. I still stand by the fact there was no difference in the degree of how hard each past test paper was nor the final exam. I twas all down to revision, whether you knew the subject or your nerves on the day.
 
nilagin said:
What you mean my whole school life was a dream then? Your comments are becomming more and more farcical. My education and the exams plus previous test papers that I took are testament that it wasn't a myth. Just because you weren't there, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Just for your information, when a tree falls over in a forest without you there to hear it, it still made a noise.
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How do you know that the papers you took were standardised across years and exam boards? What method was used to do this?

Seems like quite an advanced understanding of the educational system you had for a pupil!
 
nilagin said:
So doing all those test papers and having them marked was a complete waste of time then as the goal posts may have been moved before we took the final exams.
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Do you understand how moderation works? Your comment suggests you don't, so I'll reiterate what Ghoti and others have explained at great length already; they don't move the boundaries before the exam, they are moved afterwards, once the results are known. Have you spent this entire thread labouring under the misconception that grade-adjusting is done a priori?

But at least you're now accepting that you were wrong when you repeatedly and emphatically denied that any grade moderation ever took place. Apologies if this causes you an existential crisis, but education is too important to allow myths and fabrications to determine policy.

nilagin said:
I still stand by the fact there was no difference in the degree of how hard each past test paper was nor the final exam. I twas all down to revision, whether you knew the subject or your nerves on the day.
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If that were so, the variable results from year-to-year (which led to grade boundaries being moved) - must, by your reckoning - have been down to the whole cohort of students (tens of thousands) doing better or worse in a given year due to them being brighter or harder working?
That seems highly unlikely (unless you can identify the factors that would cause such a population fluctuation) - the more plausible explanation (normally the correct one, applying Occam's Razor) is that the exams varied in difficulty.
 
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Llamaman said:
Not sure it's THAT amusing :rolleyes:. I can't access profiles on my phone so either have to guess, or adopt a traditional approach of using the masculine when in doubt. I refer the honorable lady to The Interpretation Act 1978, s6(a). :D

Seriously, apologies for any offense caused to Ghoti for my faux pas.
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What kind of phone?
Tap the name....there it is :-)
 

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Yeah, ok, so I'm a muppet.

But my error is but a blip compared to the epic fail others have experienced in this thread, so I'll chalk it up as a partial victory :D
 
They probably don't teach the difference these days!
 
Llamaman said:
Do you understand how moderation works? Your comment suggests you don't, so I'll reiterate what Ghoti and others have explained at great length already; they don't move the boundaries before the exam, they are moved afterwards, once the results are known. Have you spent this entire thread labouring under the misconception that grade-adjusting is done a priori?
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Facetious :
adjective
adjective:
  1. treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humour; flippant.
My comment regarding changing the goal posts was in reference to your persistence that exam papers had a varying degree of difficulty, yet I keep saying that of the many test papers I did prior to my exams, there was no variation in difficulty. Don't you think if there were harder test papers we would have taken those too in preparation, just in case.
 
Horse
A
Flogging
Dead

Question: what connects these four words? (3 marks)
 
kendo1 said:
I should have said 'three words' :(
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That could be a fail.

But we'll have to wait until all the answers are in to really know.....but don't worry....we can adjust :-)
 
nilagin said:
Facetious :
adjective
adjective:
  1. treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humour; flippant.
My comment regarding changing the goal posts was in reference to your persistence that exam papers had a varying degree of difficulty, yet I keep saying that of the many test papers I did prior to my exams, there was no variation in difficulty. Don't you think if there were harder test papers we would have taken those too in preparation, just in case.
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It may well be the case that the teacher selected those papers that were the more difficult samples.
 
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