STUDENTS’ ILLEGIBLE INK LEAVES GCSE MARKERS FEELING BLUE
(*GCSE = General Certificate in Secondary Education)
Call it the curse of cursive: poor handwriting has been the bane of many a teacher and exam marker, and now along with untidy penmanshipit seems using the wrong colour pen, could also be hampering students’ grades. As hundreds of thousands of pupils in Britain await their GCSE results on Thursday, complaints from examiners marking this year’s exam have highlighted the struggles that they face with illegible exam papers when they attempt to read them on screen.Most exam scripts or papers are now scanned and distributed electronically. They are then marked on screen using software systems provided by the examination boards. Although poor handwriting has been a curse for teachers and markers for generations, an examiners’ report for the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) exam board has shown that technological advances have brought other complications.
The report says that onscreen marking is made more difficult if the handwriting cannot be scanned clearly, particularly if pupils have used blue or green pens in the original paper. The report base on feedback from markers of this year’s A-level papers for AQA says: “Once again, examiners commented that the answers of many students were difficult to read. In some cases, this was the result of poor handwriting or untidy and disorganized presentation. In other cases it resulted when students had not followed the instruction on the front of each examination paper to use black ink or black ballpoint pen.” The report also warns: “Very small or faint handwriting can be difficult to read and may lead to issues when examiners are awarding marks.” Exam candidates are clearly told on the front of their papers:”Use black ink or black ballpoint pen.” But many pupils continue to use pens with blue ink, a colour that may become less clear when electronically scanned.
One teacher who marked scripts on screen said the problem appeared to have got worse this year. “Some of the ones I marked this year were really hard to read. It does make it harder when the writing is bad of course. Certainly it makes you earn your £3 for the script.” he said. In response, an AQA spokesperson commented: “Each year an extremely small number of scripts cannot be read on screen by examiners. Under these circumstances, we request the original script from our scanning centre and it is then marked on paper by an examiner.” One experienced teacher suggested that there was a problem with student handwriting in general: “While the scanning resolution isn’t great for online marking, some of the handwriting is so shoddy that if you saw it in real life it probably wouldn’t help much.”
Meanwhile, nervousness over exam results will be growing in families across England, Wales and Northern Ireland before the publication of GCSE results on Thursday morning.
- What problem with marking exams is NOT mentioned in the first paragraph?
- Pens used.
- Problems with new technology.
- Unreadable work.
- What students write. I.E THE CONTENT!!!! SO RIGHT ANSWER!
______
- In the second paragraph, it says that
- blue ink is the worst colour to use.
- marking difficulties may occur even when black ink is used.
- Examiners don’t mark exam papers which have not been written in black ink.
- Pupils are so nervous during exams they don’t read the instructions.______
- What do we learn in the third paragraph?
- Students may themselves make exam marking frustrating .
- How much teachers earn.
- Exam markers are fed up with scanned exam papers.
- The standard of exams is getting lower.
______
- In general, the text shows how
- the AQA exam board is too inflexible in its marking procedures. NO!!!
- there should be moves to make students type their exams in the future.
- scanning exams is making exam marking more difficult.
- the choice of pens used during exams isexacerbating modern marking process.
______
5.The text ends with the statement “nervousness over exam results will be growing in families.” As a student, would you say your family gets as nervous as you awaiting your exam results? Explain.
______
6. Traditionally, exams involving compositions have required students to handwrite their essays. In this day and age, do you think these exams should now require students to type their answers, or not? Explain. ______
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English and Maths GCSE results
There are unlikely to be any (1)______surprises from this year’s crop of GCSEs. The results in England are (2)______tied to the performance of the same year group of pupils in key stage two exams at the end of primary school. The 2011 key stage two results showed a small (3) ______improvement in English and Maths in state schools, which suggested a (4)______better performance in GCSEs. But grades at highest levels for English fell, which may mean a dip in the (5)______of As and Bs awarded .In Maths, the 2011 results showed a slight improvement at all levels, which would suggest a welcome (6) ______in grades in GCSE Maths if the policy known as “comparable outcomes” holds.
Last year 63.3% of (7)______across Britain gained a C or higher in Maths, while 65.4% gained a C or above in English. This year’s results mark the last of the current (8)______of GCSEs for Maths and English, which will be replaced next year by exams graded on a 9-1 scale in England. This year schools will judge their results on a new performance measure, known as Progress 8, which charts how well pupils performed compared with (9) ______based upon their key stage two results. School-level results under the Progress 8 measure will not be available until the Department for Education releases its official (10) ______in a few months’ time.
1. EXPECT______- UNEXPECTED
2._INTRINSIC______- INTRINSICALLY _
3. ALL______- OVERALL
4. MARGINAL ______– MARGINALLY
5. PORTION – PROPORTION
6. TURN- UPTURN
7. ENTER– ENTRANTS
8. FORM- FORMAT
9. EXPECT– EXPECTATIONS
10.___CALCULATE______- CALCULATIONS
4 QUESTIONS _____/4 POINTS
2 OPEN QUESTIONS ____/6 POINTS
10 WORD FORMATIONS ______/10 POINTS
TOTAL ______/20 POINTS