english exams r more like a test of physical strength than testing ur english skills (1 Viewer)

[aurora]

i literally could not lift up my right arm after da english exam. not only does my arm hurt, my neck, elbow n back r all killing me!!

i was nervous for english paper 2 not cos i didint kno da texts, cos i was scared dat i might not b able to finish writing all my essays. its like a race but only for ur arms. i hope da BOS is enjoying torturing students like this every year, not.

 

[kyu_chan]

LOL

I soooo agreee.... sooo in pain... aching everywhere!!!!!

Arghh!!

BOS enjoy sadism, I swear~

 

[Counterfeit]

ha u summed it up perfectly.

Intelligence is not an issue, (ok maybe it is of slight consideration) Its all about "how fast can u write and how long can u stand the pain? Can u break through the wall? Can you keep it up? Woo, sadism.

hahah,

 

[bEAbEA]

i totally agree - you've hit it on the head!

 

[rnitya_25]

its not heavy if you can write super fast and have a machine for a hand. my hand did nearly break off by the end! god it was hectic, yet satisfying. i hate the way they test these speed abitilities rather than what you know in your head.

 

[taxman]

i literally could not lift up my right arm after da english exam. not only does my arm hurt, my neck, elbow n back r all killing me!!

i was nervous for english paper 2 not cos i didint kno da texts, cos i was scared dat i might not b able to finish writing all my essays. its like a race but only for ur arms. i hope da BOS is enjoying torturing students like this every year, not.

Hmmm..you obviously don't masturbate enough.

Funnily enough, I had no problems.

 

[Nadia-Jane]

Its not so much a test of your ability to analyse texts thoroughly and critically, as it is to test the abilty of your memory.

Which pisses me off, i have been arguing this for a long time now, that it is so easy for any schmuck to copy a perfect essay from a teacher or recourses like this on the net and learn it as thier own, and then excell in the exams due to them being able to memorise better than other people.

For example, student 1 is very intelligent, and very able to analyse texts and understand the concepts of each module taught in class. Student 1 is also very capable of sitting down and compiling thier own well written essay, and completes all set class tasks to a high degree, etc.

Student 2 however, is basically a dumbshit, stuffs around in class all year long and doesn't have too much motivation to do well, however through the sample and practise essays given out in class from teachers and off the internet or even through shared notes, student number 2 at the very last minute is able to get a hold of a top class essay that they no way would be able to on thier own account create for themselves, and is able to read over this essay multiple amount of times the night before the exam and recall most of the essay when in the actual exam situation, while perhaps not even understanding many of the components he/she writes about.

Student 1 however, unlike student 2 does not have the actual ability to recall his/her essay word for word, and despite the years of hard work and listening in class is able to be beaten by student number 2, not due to his/her english ability or intelligence, but due to the fact that they have a good memory.

I dont know if any of that made much sense, but yeh thats what i beleive lol

I don't know about anyone else, but it shits me to death how years and years of hard work in class can come down to whether or not you have 'memorised' a perfect essay. Any ol dumbshit can memorise work that he or she has no responsibility for, but when i get into the exam i have a mental blank and bad concentration which usually results in sketchy and unstructured work...damn board of studies losers.

70% of the HSC mark should come from the two years of in class assessments and hard work. It should be illegal that one test is representative of more than 30% of your entire schooling life.

 

[kyu_chan]

Hmmm..you obviously don't masturbate enough.

Funnily enough, I had no problems.

nah, seriously man, i do it alot and I'm still aching XD XD XD

...sounds wrong somehow

 

[_dhj_]

hmm I don't agree with you Nadia-Jane.

Student 1 will still have performed fairly well in the exam, while her internal assessments will be so much better than student 2.

Also, don't you think we should give student 2 a break? I mean, it's not her fault that she was born stupid, and student 1 didn't really earn the right to be born so intelligent...

 

[Megapode]

Hmmm..you obviously don't masturbate enough.

Funnily enough, I had no problems.

No, I think He's on to something there, I was fine too.
Then again I used an extra thick pen.

 

[taxman]

Its not so much a test of your ability to analyse texts thoroughly and critically, as it is to test the abilty of your memory.

Which pisses me off, i have been arguing this for a long time now, that it is so easy for any schmuck to copy a perfect essay from a teacher or recourses like this on the net and learn it as thier own, and then excell in the exams due to them being able to memorise better than other people.

For example, student 1 is very intelligent, and very able to analyse texts and understand the concepts of each module taught in class. Student 1 is also very capable of sitting down and compiling thier own well written essay, and completes all set class tasks to a high degree, etc.

Student 2 however, is basically a dumbshit, stuffs around in class all year long and doesn't have too much motivation to do well, however through the sample and practise essays given out in class from teachers and off the internet or even through shared notes, student number 2 at the very last minute is able to get a hold of a top class essay that they no way would be able to on thier own account create for themselves, and is able to read over this essay multiple amount of times the night before the exam and recall most of the essay when in the actual exam situation, while perhaps not even understanding many of the components he/she writes about.

Student 1 however, unlike student 2 does not have the actual ability to recall his/her essay word for word, and despite the years of hard work and listening in class is able to be beaten by student number 2, not due to his/her english ability or intelligence, but due to the fact that they have a good memory.

I dont know if any of that made much sense, but yeh thats what i beleive lol

I don't know about anyone else, but it shits me to death how years and years of hard work in class can come down to whether or not you have 'memorised' a perfect essay. Any ol dumbshit can memorise work that he or she has no responsibility for, but when i get into the exam i have a mental blank and bad concentration which usually results in sketchy and unstructured work...damn board of studies losers.

70% of the HSC mark should come from the two years of in class assessments and hard work. It should be illegal that one test is representative of more than 30% of your entire schooling life.

That's an extremely good point. I'm lucky enough to be able to remember all the work that I put into class and my study, but I agree that it is very possible for your scenario to occur, and it's very probably that this has happened many times in the past.

I suppose we have to be glad that the new HSC allows our internal mark to consist of 50% of our final mark, which IMO is good enough for me not to worry about your scenario coming into fruition as the current system is a hell of a lot better than it was a decade ago.

 

[jazzi_jess]

Yeah, you can't make a system entirely fair, and i'm pretty happy with what we've got. i'm currently trying to remember much of self-written essay though for x1 which is such a brain strain, as you can see i'm on the internet bludging...

 

[redd]

Its not so much a test of your ability to analyse texts thoroughly and critically, as it is to test the abilty of your memory.

Which pisses me off, i have been arguing this for a long time now, that it is so easy for any schmuck to copy a perfect essay from a teacher or recourses like this on the net and learn it as thier own, and then excell in the exams due to them being able to memorise better than other people.

For example, student 1 is very intelligent, and very able to analyse texts and understand the concepts of each module taught in class. Student 1 is also very capable of sitting down and compiling thier own well written essay, and completes all set class tasks to a high degree, etc.

Student 2 however, is basically a dumbshit, stuffs around in class all year long and doesn't have too much motivation to do well, however through the sample and practise essays given out in class from teachers and off the internet or even through shared notes, student number 2 at the very last minute is able to get a hold of a top class essay that they no way would be able to on thier own account create for themselves, and is able to read over this essay multiple amount of times the night before the exam and recall most of the essay when in the actual exam situation, while perhaps not even understanding many of the components he/she writes about.

Student 1 however, unlike student 2 does not have the actual ability to recall his/her essay word for word, and despite the years of hard work and listening in class is able to be beaten by student number 2, not due to his/her english ability or intelligence, but due to the fact that they have a good memory.

I dont know if any of that made much sense, but yeh thats what i beleive lol

I don't know about anyone else, but it shits me to death how years and years of hard work in class can come down to whether or not you have 'memorised' a perfect essay. Any ol dumbshit can memorise work that he or she has no responsibility for, but when i get into the exam i have a mental blank and bad concentration which usually results in sketchy and unstructured work...damn board of studies losers.

70% of the HSC mark should come from the two years of in class assessments and hard work. It should be illegal that one test is representative of more than 30% of your entire schooling life.

You need to realise memory is the major indicator of intelligence and thinking ability.

 

[nevermeantit]

Not only is the paper 2 exam one of the crappiest yes- they only practically test how well uve worked ur ass off during the year and wat the quality of ur final one page essay is! thats it! then ontop of that they test your memory... SO the whole year u learn stuff, u know it but who the hell cares about learing it in detail anymore- uve got one good essay!
So , after thinking about this and not wanting to die in the exam like the rest of you did i discovered the BEAUTY of GOOD pens! INK pens i tell you- Not those gel one that have the sticky grip. the felt tip ones - they glide like a swan on water adn you dont have to put so much pressure on the paper!
Its brilliant... if only i had discovered this at the beginning of the year. Practically saved a few minutes off each essay! awesome.. try it and tell me wat you think...

 

[jarro_2783]

I had a bruise on my little finger where it was resting on the paper after both exams and my neck and hand hurt.

 

[midnight_magick]

INK pens i tell you- Not those gel one that have the sticky grip. the felt tip ones - they glide like a swan on water [ QUOTE]

lol! nice simile

 

[Tynjail]

I would just like to say to all the sissies who complain about the "physical trauma" caused by the English paper 2 exam ---------- TRY ANY HISTORY SUBJECT!!!! i do modern and the whole exam is just non-stop writing essay after essay.


P.s. just to clarify the modern History exam is comprised of one short answer section, 4 extended respnses and 2 MAJOR essays one that is usally expected to be around 8 -10 pages at the VERY least.

 

[Captain Karl]

I have noticed that problem after the english exams. I'm lefthanded so by the end of the exam the side of my hand thats been resting on the paper was completely blue from ink. Felt tip pens are terrible for me coz i just smudge them unless i'm careful, which defeats the whole purpose of using them to write quicker.
History sounds even worse, I feel sorry for you guys

 

[The Aviator]

I certainly WILL agree. This system is in fact corrupt and I am sure Arny from Terminator would end up writing 10 more more pages if he knew his essay. And exams in general do not test your real ability in understanding the principles and taking them further in order to develop new things in the working world.

A UAI is not an indicator of how well you will do in your university course... It simply is how well you did in you exams and assessments in the HSC, however. My friend said to me that Sydney University is snobby because they want the "best of the best" and so they do not have any multiple criterea schemes. But I disagree with him, as he is being narrow minded like the university. There are people who only have academic abilities, but when it comes to a task where they are assigned to work on a new invention for example, they are likely to hate it. But what about those who got low UAIs but get there motivation from a new development, rather than just an examination that really only is a memory test? The University of Sydney really is missing out on the best of the best, because they are only getting half of the best. The other half they missed out on didn't get that UAI, and so what really is the "best of the best"?