Question:
"Many people observe the stars using:
A a telescope
B a microscope
C an X-ray tube
D a synthesiser?"
Congratulations, if you can answer the above correctly you are well on your way to achieving a grade in Nanny's new dumbed down science exams.
The only trouble is you will be qualified to do fark all!
Nanny has told examiners to set easier questions in some GCSE science papers. The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), says that exam papers should consist of 70% "low-demand questions".
A nation of thickos is born!
In the past five years, the proportion of students gaining a grade D or better in one of the combined science papers has leapt from 39.6% to 46.7%.
Nanny says that the two tier method will ensure that everyone has the opportunity to show what they are capable of, without being thrown off course by questions that are too hard or too easy.
But what's the farking point of awarding a qualification to everyone?
You still need to stream people in some way, so that the best are put into the best universities and the best jobs.
A convoy moves at the speed of the slowest ship, by catering to the dim instead of challenging them Nanny is depriving the more able of their chance to push their boundaries.
Jim Sinclair, the JCQ director, said:
"Part of the desire is that the student
can come out of the exam with a feeling of
success that they have actually tackled
a significant proportion of the questions,
and achieved the best grade expected.
The vast majority of candidates taking this
exam are going to achieve grades D to G,
and they deserve a positive experience of science.
They can only have that by being allowed to
attempt questions which are at their level.
It is making exams accessible to candidates."
What a load of bollocks!
Exams are not the Oprah Winfrey show, designed to make students feel good about themselves. Exams are there to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to stop morons being put into positions that far exceed their abilities.
PERIOD!
Regrettably the current morons in government seem to have bypassed the streaming system.
How very PC. Makes a mockery of the whole education system really....no wonder the "results" are getting better and better each year. Only problem is we in the real world can hear the newly educated lack of ability everytime they open their mouths. So like don't dis me yeah, der yer know wot i'm saying init.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid I'd fail on that question as my answer isn't there.
ReplyDeleteI always observe the stars using.......my eyes.
Pete
Imagine in just a few year's time:
ReplyDelete"Doctor, I keep getting these pains in my chest; I think it may be my heart."
"I didn't do nuffin about 'arts in my science exams darlin', I'm a bleedin' surgeon not a painter"
Dying patient falls to the floor!
Since 'science' covers all sorts of disciplines, like aeronautics, engineering, nuclear physics, how confident are you going to feel in future, when you consider how much of our daily lives rely on some branch of the sciences?
grumpy,
ReplyDeleteI rather suspect that for some years now drugs companies, mostly not unconnected with our health treatments, have been run (at the middle management level) by people who have not quite made the grade in degree level chemistry but had to be awarded a degree anyway to make 'targets'.
My opinion counts for nothing of course. However it is based on my understanding of the problems faced by someone at the senior end of the academic 'trade' within the industry.
Grant
"Exams are there ... to stop morons being put into positions that far exceed their abilities."
ReplyDeleteKen, You usually have more insight than this! Nanny's just trying to create a larger pool of potential successors to herself.