A-level exam facebook protest

Nitefly

Nitefly

Nitefly

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Apparently a biology exam has caused a stir and has caused an online facebook protest against the exam board AQA.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8480563.stm

Having read the comments on the facebook group, I'm highly amused and appalled. Apparently, the students were not asked to regurgitate the information they were provided with!!! :eek:

Surely it's only a good thing to expect people to use their initiative in an exam at this level? I mean, good grief, if a student cannot fathom what the difference might be between a caterpillar fed on a plant from a high CO2 environment and a caterpillar fed on a plant from a lower CO2 environment, then it really doesn't say much for that student in my opinion :o

How dare a scientist have to show common sense :p

What do you guys think? Am I being overly harsh?
 
I sat an engineering principles exam that took 3hrs, and had 5 questions. The average pass mark was 16%.

Those who didn't pass accepted they didn't revise hard enough, or didn't understand the questions.

GTFO.
 
Silly teenagers, they just want to be spoon fed subjects and can’t be bothered to learn and understand their subject. Another group of morons heading for university.
 
The problem with Alevels for me is that you are just regurgtating a textbook answer. This is not how my mind works and certainly not how people should be tested.

The answer to any question should show utilisation and understanding of the principle.
 
This "happened" back when I was doing my Biology A-Levels and you can see examples of it in past papers.

They expect to be able to learn facts and spew them out when needed. The people who found it easier are those who actually applied what they knew.

I do hope this doesn't result in them getting a different paper/free resit just because they've been able to voice their whining on facebook...
 
i can agree with it if it is something that isnt related to the syllabus, as that is unfair.
Really we need to see the syllabus and the questions to deduce whether ot not it was unfair or not. If its applying something that relates to what they have learnt then I see no problem though.
 
When I was school and taught A level physics we were taught the general principles and hence in theory could answer any question in the essay type

I know some people learnt everything as text book answers and then passed on the basis that enough answers came up which they knew the answer to.

And I don't have a facebook account so anybody got a link to where I can see it please?
 
stop whinging you utter babies

oh no im confusedz and i cannot answer the question !one!!!!one

They should have done more reading around general theories rather than regugitating exam answers
 
As above, no sympathy. last year I had to do a closed book, 3 hour exam (5 questions from 8) on Architectural cultural context. It was basically an exam on any random style of Architecture ranging from 8000BC to modern day in any country. It was ludicrously hard and we had, had no lectures either as its all office based learning.

This was one of 4, 3 hour exams over 3 days and all closed book and I had to revise solidly (30+ hours a week in addition to a full time job) for 4 months.
 
I'm all for making exams harder and more raising grade boundaries and all that, but in all fairness if the exam contained questions which aren't on the sylabus then they've got a right to be annoyed.

However it's more likely these students are just a bit thick.
 
Nitefly said:
What do you guys think? Am I being overly harsh?
Click to expand...

What you've got to remember is that if an exam bears very little relation to what you've been taught and is of a completely different format to previous papers, then it is entirely natural for people to feel less confident in their answers, and then take their frustration out on the exam.

It'll probably turn out that most people have done a lot better than they thought, and that it's all a big fuss over nothing.

One of the modules for my final degree had what I thought at the time was an incredibly unfair exam. I felt that all my hard work in the tutorials through the year had been wasted, as most of the knowledge and skills I'd learnt during them were not required for answering most of the exam questions.

In the end it turned out I got an excellent degree and must have done a lot better than I thought. But at the time I remember doing the exam and thinking how 'unfair' it was.
 
Steveh_monkey said:
I'm all for making exams harder and more raising grade boundaries and all that, but in all fairness if the exam contained questions which aren't on the sylabus then they've got a right to be annoyed.

However it's more likely these students are just a bit thick.
Click to expand...

The chances are that the questions themselves weren't covered during the course of the year, however they had been taught the information to be able to answer the question and many of them are too lazy/didn't revise enough to apply their knowledge to a question that didn't come up in a past exam paper...
 
Hey guys, I sat that exam.

I must say it "felt" random at the time, but I was able to apply what I could to the question. After all,t hat's what you do in Biology. There was probably one one really unfair question, but my friends were quite upset with it.

The paper lacked entire sections of the AQA endorsed book, sadly, I was hoping for a section on in depth genetics and Energy in ecosystems. The last questioned was a bit better by having some biological processes to describe.

I'll just hope I did alright.

You gotta love that fake paper someone did in mockery of it though. First question had me in fits for a while :P



Edit: I'm just saying, a fair few people didn't apply their knowledge in the right way, but it still gave me a laugh. My friends aren't the type to complain about papers (because they usually get awesome grades), but they did seem a bit confused after the exam :p
 
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I've read the paper. It was nothing I couldn't expect from people of that age group. In fact I thought it was a better exam than what I did mine ~6/7 years ago, which was regurgitating facts rather than demonstrating the ability to think.
 
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