Farewell to 67 years of School C English

By ANDREW LAXON

In School C English, some things change, some things are forever the same.

Yesterday's paper - which formally marked the end of external exams as our main measure of academic achievement for school pupils - spoke a different language from that of 1934 when the exam was introduced, or 1945 when School Certificate became a general fifth-form exam.

There were CD-Roms and search engines and new terms like "mind maps" (brain-storming ideas through word association).

There was less preoccupation with income levels and social status than in the 1945 paper, which asked students to place navvies, errand boys, clergymen and professors into appropriate categories.

And there were 28 pages of questions linked to cartoons, photos and media images, compared with only four pages at the end of the Second World War.

But in the essay section - now known as transactional writing - tradition was preserved, even if the length had shrunk from at least two pages to at least 200 words.

In 1945 the choices included the merits of literary versus scientific education, whether fame was a true test of greatness and "popular songs". This year students could write about cloning or cellphones but the 1945 intake would have felt right at home with "education develops important skills" and "there is still a place in this world for honesty".

To mark the end of School Certificate, the Herald has compiled a selection of questions from the 2001 and 1945 English papers.

School C English - 2001

Time allowed: Three hours. Size of exam booklet: 28 pages.

Extracts:

From research skills section (6 marks)

1. While researching a topic, a student might do the following activities:

A. Compile a list of words connected with the topic.

B. Process a questionnaire.

C. Focus the research on three aspects of the topic.

D. Find a list of websites connected with the topic.

E. Refer to a list of books that has been helpful to someone else.

F. Find several newspaper articles on the topic.

G. Assess methods, activities and results.

H. Find a number of facts on the topic.

I. Record the steps taken.

J. Contact an expert for information.

K. Use the written copy of a speech.

L. Visit a special library.

Write the number of the word or phrase below which best matches the activities described above. Use each word or phrase once only. Not all words or phrases need to be used.

1. Transcript

2. Search engine

3. Archives

4. CD-Rom

5. Evaluation

6. Catalogue

7. Mind map

8. Survey

9. Key questions

10. E-mail

11. Subject index

12. Research log

13. Glossary

14. Vertical file

15. Bibliography

16. Key words

From expressive/poetic writing (12 marks)

5A. Select one of the following topics (two photographs were also shown to students) and use it to tell a story, describe an experience, memory or place, or write a description.

1. The southerly wind whistles around the headland.

2. Good for them!

3. Now I really stand a chance.

4. I couldn't help thinking "awesome".

5. It's so frustrating.

6. Burnt sausages and tomato sauce!

7. The only people who had time to listen were us grandchildren.

8. I was looking forward to ...

From transactional writing (12 marks)

5B. Present a written argument of at least 200 words for or against one of the following

1. New Zealand's national day - Waitangi Day versus Anzac Day.

2. Cloning should be allowed.

3. Education develops important skills.

4. We put too much value on getting money.

5. We are ruled by models, music and the movies.

6. There is still a place in this world for honesty.

7. Cellphones - an absolute necessity!

8. Are we really clean and green?

School C English - 1945

Time allowed: three hours. Size of exam booklet: four pages.

1. What do you understand by a fallacy? Give your reasons for considering the following arguments sound or unsound. (You are not asked to consider whether you approve or disapprove of the conclusions themselves, but merely to consider the method of reasoning by which they are obtained). Choose any three

a) The French are a disgusting nation; they eat frogs.

b) A small meal well digested does us more good than a large one eaten hastily; so it is with reading.

c) His salary must be over £200 a year; for I know he paid income-tax, and you are allowed £200 free from income-tax.

d) When rain falls it wets the grass; therefore if the grass is wet we may conclude that it has been raining, and, if it is not wet, that no rain has fallen.

2. The following are in common use. Select any six and define their meaning as closely as you can: the law of supply and demand; a totalitarian regime; non-vocational education; indirect taxation; unearned income; fauna and flora; a living wage; wishful thinking; a pact of mutual assistance; a vicious circle.

3. Classify the following into four different categories, each category containing four names. Give the grounds of your classification: a joiner; a clergyman; a teacher; a navvy; a printer; a dustman; an errand boy; a policeman; an author; a silversmith; a stock inspector; a labourer; a soldier; a professor; a motor mechanic; a railway porter.

6. Write an essay (not less than two pages) on one of the following topics:

(a) You have taken part in a discussion on one of the following topics. Briefly review the points made for and against and state your conclusions.

1) That "if you wish for peace, prepare for war" is sound advice.

2) That day-schools are, as educational institutions, preferable to boarding schools.

3) That a literary is to be preferred to a scientific education.

(b) Fame is no test of greatness.

(c) "Well made, New Zealand". Describe any New Zealand industry you consider deserves this phrase.

(d) The year just past.

(e) When I am twenty-one.

(f) Popular songs.

* * *

Welcome to the educational revolution

School Certificate and Bursary exams will be replaced from next year by a qualification called the National Certificate of Educational Achievement.

The new system was designed in the early 1990s to replace external exams with so-called standards-based achievement. Students would learn skills in subjects like English and maths in the same way they learned to drive. When they had reached enough standards, they would pass the subject, rather like passing a driving test.

These potentially radical changes have been gradually watered down over the years by both National and Labour Governments, after many schools and universities complained that they would destroy academic excellence. As a result the shift from exams is more gradual, even though some schools argue it is still too great.

For instance, next year fifth formers will no longer sit School Certificate but they will sit an external exam for part of their mark in most academic subjects. Internal assessment is not new either, as School Certificate already uses it for between 20 and 40 per cent of marks in about two-thirds of subjects.

However, there will be a greater shift towards internal assessment when Bursary disappears in 2004.

Arguably the biggest changes will occur in the way students' work is taught and marked during the year. Each subject will be broken into five to eight achievement standards setting out what students are supposed to know and do.

The Qualifications Authority, which runs both the new and old systems, illustrates the new system on its website using the example of a student called Alex.

Instead of simply getting 64 per cent for School C English, Alex will be assessed on nine skills, including formal writing and reading and understanding texts (tested in an exam) and creative writing, speaking, drama and research (internally assessed by the school throughout the year). For each skill, he gets a grade of either "not achieved", credit, merit or excellence.

In the website example, Alex fails a comprehension test in the exam but gets an excellence mark in creative writing.

NCEA supporters say this practical approach will give students, parents and employers much better information about what students can actually do.

In an opinion piece in the Herald in May, Education Minister Trevor Mallard noted that the 1999 School Certificate English examination had a four-mark question asking students to describe a speech they had made that year and how they achieved certain effects.

"As a politician, I would love to win marks based on my version of what a speech was about. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in the real world."

However, Mr Mallard has also followed the advice of education officials who warned him in February that the public could lose confidence in the NCEA if there were no marks showing how students compared with one another (a major concern for universities wanting to pick top students for courses such as law and medicine). A month later he announced that students would continue to get marks out of 100 - a decision which infuriated NCEA supporters and did little to placate schools opposing the system.

As a result, Alex's grades will now be converted back to a percentage mark of 64 per cent.

NZQA insists that there will be no more scaling, the system which makes student ranking much easier by adjusting marks to keep them constant between subjects and from year to year.

This commitment puts huge pressure on the authority and schools to teach and mark consistently. But if they can do this without scaling, we should all be able to tell if standards are rising or falling.

Critics, such as Auckland Grammar headmaster John Morris, have two main complaints. They say NCEA cannot be trusted because schools effectively mark their own students - a point acknowledged by Education Ministry and NZQA officials, who told the minister "the general public, and very many teachers, rightly or wrongly, have greater faith in the objectivity of external examinations than internal assessments".

The officials added that secondary teachers' complaints about workload were another good reason for keeping more external exams than planned.

Mr Morris and other principals also worry that even the rejigged system will not be testing enough for top students.

"If they use the same scale as they do now for Bursary, 42 per cent of all the grades we get here will be excellent - which means over 70 per cent," he told the Herald in July. "Where's the challenge in that for the real top academics, the few who want to get 96 or 98 per cent? They can cruise quietly through and get their 70 per cent, and that's excellent!"

* For more information on the NCEA go to www.ncea.govt.nz