| From: | Jonathan Drain |
| Date: | 28 Aug 2000 at 21:40:24 |
| Subject: | Re: OT GCSE Results |
Things are getting strange I'm starting to worry, '[amigactive] Re: OT
GCSE Results' could be a case for Mulder and adambell ...
> The biggest problem with maths papers is that you are often taught the
> biggest load of b*ll**ks ever. You get taught things that are of no
> relevance to anything it seems. What is the point. I still have not used
> much of the maths I learned at GCSE.
Same here. I got a B in maths (don't ask me how, I'm really crap at it!)
when I did it a year early, but when it came to doing the Additional
Maths GCSE (Statistics and Mechanics), I didn't even go in for the exam.
I hadn't a clue how to do it.
Biology, I passed easily, it's just about facts, naming parts of animals
and plants and understanding the basic processes of how they work.
Additional Maths though... it's pointless, I mean, they're teaching us
how to 'differentiate' and 'integrate' and how to find various numbers
>from various other numbers... what use, apart from perhaps Quantum
Mechanics, could this kind of maths have? More to the point, what the
hell does it all mean?
Got a D in English, 'cause it's all about writing long-winded answers
which have to contain various facts and things, only you don't just
write down facts, you have to waffle it and put your own opinions and so
forth into it. It's the same kind of 'comprehension' work we've been
doing for years now, only with more complex text to read and make sense
of.
Also got a D in Religious Studies, not surprising, since it's about
writing long-winded answers to questions, and while they only want you
to include certain points in your answer, they need it in a long,
waffling answer with opinions and everything - something I'm just not
good at. Biology, you write down facts, no opinion involved, and no
matter who marks the paper you will get the same number of points for
any given answer... but writing long paragraphs and extended pieces of
writing in English or RE, often depends on the opinion of the person
who's marking the paper.
> Exams are tricky things though. I hate them and love coursework. Other
> people prefer exams to couresework. I can produce A grade quality
> coursework for many subjects, but will not be able to match it in the
> exam. The fact is this same talking point of exams comes up every year
Same here. My English coursework was A or B grade by itself, but the
test brought that down to a D. There ought to be more coursework and
less exams, since a lot of people work perfectly by themselves but can't
handle it under pressure.
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