Ok, I now have conclusive proof that the Science department at Baulkham Hills High are totally screwed. We are a selective high school, yes? So they set the Chemistry exam to a sufficient difficulty. No one had many complaints with the questions, besides the fact that one cannot get a proton on its own in order to accelerate it; and that dyes are not in the syllabus and should not have been included in the paper, let alone requiring students to specify one.
No, the questions weren't what the students complain about. It is the marking criteria that the science department have set for the answers. In order to get full marks for a question, one must write about more things than the marks actually ask for. 4 marks does not mean 4 points/issues that one must address. One may have to write five, or six points, as well as fully explain each of those points. Miss a particular word, and woops, there goes a mark! Or maybe the question will ask one thing, and the criteria will require an answer that touches on points where one would have to branch off into other areas, that are not directly related with what the question actually asks, to get full marks.
Average for Biology (which I don't do) was 52%.
Average for Chemistry (which I do) was 50% <= average <= 58%
Top mark for Chemistry, which Mary got - no surprise there, her academic record is scary - was 85%. Her other results are usually 90s; if it weren't for science, I suspect they'd all be in the 90s.
Many failed Chem, even after they'd studied their asses off. Tillius knows more Chem than I do; he failed in an ugly, ugly way.
I expect that the Science department are also going to fuck us over in Physics as well. I can't find a reason for them to do otherwise; they've done it all year.
At least the average and marks will be scaled up for submission into the BoS. And hopefully they will have better markers and marking criteria in the HSC!
And if you're wondering what I got, they gave me 52 (out of 100). I only counted 50, but my maths is crap (remember my maths mark? -_-; )
I'm currently trying to get more marks. Two of four chances are gone, still hoping that the other two will come through, because those teachers are SHIT at marking!
2 comments:
~smellthecheese~
I RECKON!!! A fast reaction rate is EXACTLY the same as reaching the equilibrium faster, I even used a technical term!!! It's SO not fair!!! If you don't word it the same way they want you to, you lose a bloody mark, that is sooooooooooo screwed. I didn't know the average for biology was 52%? But I got 64... I think, so :D YAY!! At least I did ok in one subject. I came 16th in biology out of a selective school grade of 187. (Ok, stop popping my bubble of ignorance, I KNOW there's only 36 people doing biology ALRIGHT??)
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- Hyde -
That's a pretty slack marking criteria they use! Is that what it's marked in the HSC - cos you know, for the Trials, they are supposed to mark like in the HSC. But for many of the English teachers, they don't mark like that. They put all the smart ones at the top and compare all other writings to the top ones. In the HSC, there are different ways to get top - either 30/20 but that's not possible, exactly 20/20, or just reaching 20/20. And so in the end, they all get 20.
Anyway, I think that (what I just said) was kind of boring. I feel really boring today. I'm a boring person, sometimes... Um yeah...
It's so hard to get to your blog located elsewhere from other blogs *cough*.
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