Exams

For a couple of fraught years before I retired I was secretary of the maths examinations subboard at Sussex University. Most people have a hopelessly naive understanding of what marks are, how they are derived and what they are supposed to mean. First of all, there are many modes of assessment; marking an essay is different from marking a multi-part maths question. Second, there are many inputs to the assignment of a mark: the setter of the question, an internal examiner, an external examiner, the exam board, subboards, … . Even were it possible to squash down to a single number the mult-dimensional answer provided by the student, all those different single numbers for all the courses relevant for that student, have to be squashed down yet again to a single number, a highly political procedure and a point of contention between subboards. Then the student’s medical record, gap years, and other factors have to be taken into account. The board has to produce algorithms describing how raw marks are combined to a final result, and protocols to be followed by those who produce the raw marks, in case puzzled onlookers need to be persuaded that every avenue to eliminate unfairness has been pursued. Of course, the whole monstrous time-consuming anxiety-fomenting engine is a monstrous hypocritical fraud on the public. I am not saying that it is impossible to discriminate bright from dumb, or conscientious from lazy students. By observant teachers over many years, maybe. By exam boards, civil servants or prospective employers, probably not. I encountered varying degrees of blindness to this situation among others that I encountered who were involved in the process. Some put their trust in tradition and their intricate algorithms, hoping for the best, but most, like me, were disillusioned, and saw how examinations corrupted students (more interest in marks than in the subject), teachers (cannot see the student, only her marks), the curriculum (not enough time left for teaching) and academic institutions (meaningless competition). Just ask yourself what sort of a lesson about honesty (intellectual or otherwise) this teaches students? What does it teach them about bureaucracy, or about the society in which they live? I spent all my life as an academic. I was proud of that .. at first.

You forgot the other bit of the equation parent power and how that can corrupt the eventual outcome.

As a society we have an adversion to not been seen to be doing well, particularly where our children are concerned, and everyone now has to be outstanding and deserving of the highest and if it is not so then we complain and those who are more socially adept/powerful corrupt things during any appeals process.

As you say honesty is something lacking on all sides and we are preoccupied on university as been the route to everything and it is not always the case and hence why vocational exams are frowned upon, by some, as something lesser when in effect they should not be seen this way as for some it brings an equally rewarding and fulfilling career.

The dreaded normalised curve and distribution of markings/performance based on criteria which is the flavour of the day when it is done also plays its part,I presume, as one year it might be “we have rising standards” and another we have “we have introduced more rigor in to the system”.

This year has in my view highlighted one thing and that is the absolute stupdity of adding rigor to the exam process by making it more of a one shot on the day process, yes I am looking at you Gove, when if they hadn’t played politics they may have got away with one less mess up by having a fair system that was based on a continued assessement over an extended period.

As you say the public may not know, understand or even care how marks are derived but all that the public do care about is if their little one has a bit of paper that says they are better than someone elses and has got in to the right university so they have bragging rights over the Jones next door.

It is reasonable for parents to want the best for their child, but they should be less sure of just what that is. Status (bragging rights over the Jones next door) is not necessarily good for the child. Unfortunately we have made a fetish of academic success, to academe’s great harm. Wilson did enormous damage with his speeches about the white heat of technology , by implying that higher education was (merely) a means to higher income. People vary in their aptitudes. Intelligent and observant young people are better assets to an employer than dumb and resentful. Before politicians stuck the boot in we had a reasonably efficient higher education system in the UK, that produced the requisite number of specialists in just about anything from Tibetan Studies to Elementary Particle Physics. Once you start mixing in snobbery, popularity or fashion, it all breaks down. Research and scholarship need leisure, oodles of it, and that costs. It is pointless to teach students who are not interested, and expensive. My own view is that universities should be asylums for nerds. The press should encourage the public to pity their inmates and regard them as curiosities. Vice-chancellors need to be virtuous people who have taken vows of poverty (and chastity, if necessary).

In conversations with erstwhile colleagues, since I retired, I get the impression that universities in the UK have become more like corporations, whose property portfolios, assets, and CEO’s remuneration, are the central concern. Teaching, research and scholarship have become secondary details. Even though a neo-mediaevalist revolution may not be quite the answer, COVID-19 is showing up the folly of prioritizing administration over teaching.

by implying that higher education was (merely) a means to higher income

Bits of paper open doors.
They do not imply anything resembling competence, they are just good under the pressure of an exam.

At work we had some sort of high-flying graduate come to want to do some sort of managerial position. I rolled my eyes when my boss at the time told me about it. He explained the person’s qualifications and said “don’t you know what that means?”.
I said “yes, they’ll expect a bigger salary than the site director receives”.
A week later, said person was gone and nobody had anything nice to say. I think I should have taught the Frenchies the expression “entitled little snowflake”.

For sure, there are great people coming out of universities. But now, since “a qualification” is a necessary part of the employment process if you want something over minimum wage, there are also an awful lot of dipshits coming out of universities. The sort that end up being employed by organisations like Ofqual.

But now, since “a qualification” is a necessary part of the employment process

I could give countless examples of the highly qualified promoted to a role that the qualification said they merit but actually couldn’t do it and the bosses thought it good to get rid of the person who had no qualifications but actual did have immense skills.

I had one person working for me who had a very high degree level qualification and I couldn’t even trust them with a simple clerical task or even making a cup of tea let alone doing the job someone told me they were highly qualified to do over the person who had it before and actual could do it and lots more but had no “qualifications” so got moved to a job their “qualifications” merited according to the powers that be.

they are just good under the pressure of an exam.

No long gone given the actual loop holes for the dear little ones to get extra time/assistance etc in exams because of x,y,z.

When they come in to a job they expect the same and if you don’t give it them then be prepared to have a complaint against you and never mind the fact you just lost a big contract because they had a reason they couldn’t met the timelines and criteria in the tender.

I fully agree we need to make allowances and be inclusive as possible but some where along the line we forgot about the real world and many have a unrealistic perception of what to expect.

Then again I could well just be a old unrealistic gxx who needs to be re educated in modern life or perhaps I have forgot how I was when entering the workforce for the first time as it was so long ago.

more like corporations, whose property portfolios, assets, and CEO’s remuneration, are the central concern

Isn’t that true of a lot of things now, just don’t get me started on the salaries and renumeration packages of many CEO of so called charities.

The public think they are funding good causes and don’t know the real background of what goes on in a lot of big household named charities and where the money flows let alone what other things the charities are in to other than the headline bit that the public think about.

Anyway going off track now so will stop before I wander off any more.

Around 25 years ago, I was the Design Authority of a big project. We needed more design skills and man-hours than we had; fortunately we had a research company whose skills we could buy. We needed two ASICs to do extremely fast (for the time) digital signal processing. Each ASIC was set up as a project in its own right, and I was on the design team as the customer.

I had the privilege of working with a number of their engineers, all of whom had a minimum of a first class honours degree, and most of whom had masters degrees or doctorates. They were far cleverer than me. They taught me so much, and in some cases re-taught me things I had learned at university and subsequently forgotten. It was an intellectually joyful time.

We couldn’t have designed our equipment without their knowledge, especially of the maths. People that clever can see difficult things much more clearly and simply. I wished I could have been as clever as them.

I’m also aware of decisions that my manager was making that made things more difficult for them. It was clear that he was jealous of their higher qualifications.

my manager was making that made things more difficult for them. It was clear that he was jealous of their higher qualifications.

Not a good manager then.

The thing that should be focused on is the best person for the job/task in hand and sometimes that is someone with qualifications and sometimes it is someone who doesn`t but just happens to have the skills and knowledge to do so.

To not do so is intelectual snobbery or prejudice i.e like classing all those who like football as low life working class hooligans whilst those who support say cricket or rugby are of a higher class.

I have known of some who profess the latter to fit in with what the boss percieves which is more a rather telling take on society.

It was an intellectually joyful time.

Good for you Dave. I too have had the privilege of working with people far cleverer than myself. I understand how Salieri felt about Mozart. But I take pride in being able to appreciate the work of those in the first rank, even if I cannot count myself among them. An army cannot be manned only by generals. The public has this false vision that mathematics is made only by lone geniuses. Some is, but the mathematical community could never function without its varied ranks of foot-soldiers. It is natural to enjoy what you are good at; I have no truck with idiot cliches like no pain no gain . The ill-informed hero-worship of genius by the press is usually a matter of distaste to their targets. Google Grigori Perelman or Alexander Grothendieck to see what I mean. I believe that Gauss was not particularly kind to some enquirers, but my impression is that humility usually goes with great genius. Look at Paul Erdős.

Though genius does exist, it is bad for education if there is a cult of it. The lazy student can simply shrug their lack of success off by telling themselves that they have the wrong genes, when what they really need is to read a book or learn how to concentrate. This may seem to contradict my statement about idiot cliches, but maths is one of those topics which is made the harder by the incessant gush of lies about it, whether dismissed as too hard, or enthused over by over-simplifiers. Generations of poor teaching means few good teachers now available. Let us hope that YouTube comes to the rescue.

But I take pride in being able to appreciate the work of those in the first rank, even if I cannot count myself among them.

There is a saying “promoted to the level that their incompetence deserves” :-)

Likewise “too many generals and not enough troops”

Years ago we had Secondary and Grammer schools and today we have University educated and those that are not.

What is in a post code or a name, the difference between getting through a paper sift for a job or even a interview.

Society likes its little silo’s doesn’t it?

Society likes its little silo’s doesn’t it?

We seem to need hierarchies and levels of status. Is it the fear of anarchy that makes us prostrate ourselves before tyrants? The need of those who have not received generosity to bully others?

Bits of paper open doors.
They do not imply anything resembling competence, they are just good under the pressure of an exam.

Yup.
I think the memories of yesteryear from Gavin reference a time when students were taught how to learn as opposed to the modern fascination for being taught “facts”

There’s also the whole issue of pushing the apparent competence in the academic aspects of life. As a CAMRA member who has been active in the planning of the GBBF (as well as working there) I have spent 40 years mixing with nuclear physicists, QC’s, bank directors, lorry and bus drivers among other “low level” jobs.

Covid 19 has demonstrated the worth of people who do things. My neighbours were surprised to find they were “key workers” (Pest control and M&S food sales) since they never considered themselves important or clever.

There is a saying “promoted to the level that their incompetence deserves” :-)

That’s actually a concept in a management theorem labelled with several theorists names¹ – they re-arrange the words and stick their own name on the theory (typical management I suppose)
They do actually keep the words “management hierarchy” in each version to assist in the recognition of the status of people who know how to do things as being outside of the promotional structure because they are needed where they are so the whole organisation functions.

¹ In management plagiarism is so common even the management theorists do it.

I recall a student at Sussex in its very early days, who commandeered a completed office in a partially completed building and stuck his name on the door, with the title Professor of Agricultural Psychology. It was many weeks before the porters rumbled him. You have to understand that in those times there was little difference in age or appearance between faculty, students or staff.

Well looks like England is the only odd one out for now of this years GCSE and A levels.

I suspect we will not have to wait long for that to be corrected.

This is a no win situation for everyone as the predicted grades are going to show a large increase in grade boundaries and you then have to question how realistic and honest some teachers and educational establishments were when they did those assessments.

Basically there is now a big question mark over anyones awarded grade this year and whilst some will rejoice that they have a grade they think they will be entitled to it will remain to be seen how those students progress in further years.

Having said that it is most likely the least impacting method, taking in also the emotional impact on students, other than perhaps in hindsight saying to schools/colleges “these were your grade percentages last year so now assess your students and come up with a normalised curve of grade allocations for your establishment this year that closely matches that”.

If the U turn is done then watch out for the hit on those establishments who have the highest grade inflation and I wouldn’t be surprised to see more “Must improve” schools/colleges or funding “reviews” over the next year or so.

As they say Revenge is a dish best served cold by a tory. :-)

I’m not sure there is a method that can be seen as fair to all students, including previous and following years. One was on TV the other day asking why it was fair to mark her with a ‘U’ for an exam she hadn’t taken, but by the same rule, how can you give any other grade without taking the exam either. Probably, a high percentage of teacher-awarded grades were valid, but not all. There has to be a degree of levelling out, but how to validate it and keep it fair and reasonable? No one has complained about their grade being upgraded either, so they are happy to be over-rated.

No one has complained about their grade being upgraded either, so they are happy to be over-rated.

So true and I don’t envy teachers who will still get the abuse becuase they didn’t mark a dear little one the way pushy parent A said was fair.

The thing around all of this is yes we want the best for our children but sometimes that is telling them the truth.

Lets just wait for the first legal challange against a university that withdrew an offer and now the student doesn’t want to go to the clearance or security choice they had as their new grades demand they are reinstated at the first choice and the counter legal claims when student B is bumped to make way…

Oh what a tangled web we weave when we bow to parent power.

We seem to have mob rule going on rather than a proper democracy.

I got into Grammar School in the 60’s by passing the Eleven Plus at a state school on my own merits, not tutored or coached. We used to have an annual exam called the Kent Test in Primary School that measured our progress through the education system, and in a way it prepared us for the ‘real’ exams. Now that would be seen as pressurising and stressing out the poor dears, but it was the opposite. If exams are correctly used throughout schooling to measure progress they can normalise the experience of exam-taking and guide development.

The loss of Grammar Schools and the ‘everyone is a winner, there are no losers’ attitude that was put in their place has been the root of this entitled society. Achievement hardly counts any more, with some parents proud to say that they weren’t any good academically. When I started school I could read, write and count, now we are seeing teachers complaining about kids starting school still in nappies. Parents seem to be neglecting their children and expecting schools to socialise, feed and teach their kids the absolute basics before they even start on educating them.

for the dear little ones to get extra time/assistance etc in exams because of x,y,z.

I was offered that for my exams. I declined because, well, the real world ain’t like that.

Besides, I had about three hours per exam. Giving me an additional three hours would be torture. Six hours with no toilet break? WTF?

who doesn`t but just happens to have the skills and knowledge to do so.

At work, many years ago, my offer to help fix some of the peculiar translations on the labels was politely declined because I did not have a BAC in English.
Sure enough, I don’t have a degree in English. I have something that no French university can provide…forty years (as it was about then) experience with English as spoken on both sides of the wet bit, a fluency sufficient to handle subtle sarcasm with ease, and since it’s my native language, I really don’t think that I need to be able to define the adverbial clause in order to tell them that some of their words are back to front (being a fairly literal translation from French, but coming across as borderline Chinglish).

But, hey, feel free to find somebody with papers that say they know English and can understand Monty Python. Because that’s the yardstick. If you don’t get Python then your English isn’t as good as you think it is… ;-)

were taught how to learn as opposed to the modern fascination for being taught “facts”

Firstly, “facts” are easy to look up – just pop over to Wikipedia for a treasure trove of “facts”. Knowing how to “learn” means knowing how to question. And successive governments have long wanted to mute this subversive behaviour. In the past, “questioning” was something that universities taught, where school basically wanted to churn out identikit clones (the video for Pink Floyd’s famous song makes this abundantly clear, and that was a long long time ago).
Now that universities aren’t able to keep the rabble out like they used to, far better to pervert education so that “facts are king” and curate who gets to present the facts.

After all, if more people had more facilities to question things, not blindly accept rubbish just because it is “in print”, and spot bollocks from a mile away…we might not be in the mess we’re in now. ¹

Professor of Agricultural Psychology.

I take my hat off to that person. That was a clever gag. :-)

[Doug] This is a no win situation for everyone […] [Grahame] I’m not sure there is a method that can be seen as fair to all students

It could be argued that the examination system is inherently unfair. It puts a lot of pressure on what a person does with the rest of their life in a number of short intense “complete this paper” sessions at fixed times (too bad if you don’t feel good), and a number of them usually in close succession to each other. Entire education to that point distilled down to a small number of hours of testing.
Far better are those few courses where half of the result is the exam, and half is the coursework and such up until that point. One may be unfairly marked if there’s a problem with the teacher, but on the other hand it’s a better evaluation of the student as a whole.

What is not fair in any way is to take an estimate of the sort of results that teachers felt a student might achieve and then weight it against other people and the performance of the school in general.

Angela’s result should be Angela’s result. How well Cathy did, and what score Denise received three years ago should have no relevance whatsoever on it.

One was on TV the other day asking why it was fair to mark her with a ‘U’ for an exam she hadn’t taken, but by the same rule, how can you give any other grade without taking the exam either.

It’s not fair to mark her a ‘U’. As for grading? Well, there’s prep/homework, there’s coursework, there’s mock exams. While students can improve and while their grades may vary slightly from term to term, it isn’t as if those grades given are plucked out of somebody’s backside.

Given that exams were cancelled, there’s no point arguing about “how can we fairly grade this”. There are basically two choices, and only two choices. Grade on past performance, or don’t grade at all. A ‘U’ for an exam not held is pretty much everything that is wrong with the current mentality.

Probably, a high percentage of teacher-awarded grades were valid, but not all. There has to be a degree of levelling out,

Firstly, I don’t agree that there needs to be “levelling out”. In an ideal world, each exam question would garner points. Those points would be totted up, converted into a percentage, and that percentage would be your score.
The end.

Years of dicking around with exams (they’re too hard/easy/short/long/blah/blah) has meant that the marking process is an arbitrary mess whereby the current method (clearly unfair on a significant number of students) has come into being. That people’s grades are marked down due to the historical trends of schools is a travesty.

I’m not sure there is a method that can be seen as fair to all students, including previous and following years.

I’m going to shrug and say “meh”. I was a second year GCSE. They were notably different to the previous O and A levels; frequently derided, and fiddled with numerous times. To give an example, Wikipedia says the scores are 9 to 1 with 9 (WTF?) being the highest. Wales and Northern Ireland use the A to G system (that mine are), but note that there’s an “A*” grade above “A”.

With that in mind, as much as one might like to pretend that exam results from one year to the next are directly comparable… they’re not.
Maybe if everybody stopped fiddling around with them, but education secretaries do like to exert themselves by refining/streamlining/modernising/harmonising the examination system.

BTW, my own exam results are barely remembered ² and the original papers lost. I guess I just got fed up of job interviews and the like telling me that they pretty much were not worth the paper they were printed on. It rather made me wonder why I bothered.

¹ Pick which mess you like: Brexit, 5G phone towers, CoViD, etc etc. It’s all symptomatic of a deeper malaise.

² Did good in chemistry and physics (the two lessons I liked), got a C in maths (the highest one gen get in intermediate level) which was a total surprise as I suck at maths, did poorly in English but then the teacher didn’t like me as my 500 word essays would often be closer to 5000 word essays (you might have noticed ☺). I don’t remember the rest…

Breaking news – yet another screeching U-turn from a clueless Tory government ¹.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/17/a-levels-gcse-results-england-based-teacher-assessments-government-u-turn

¹ That doesn’t narrow it down any…

In the past, “questioning” was something that universities taught,

I was questioning before that point. Somewhere in primary school as I recall. Fortunately when my teachers were not actively encouraging it the original team (father and grandfather) were on the case.

a clueless Tory government

I think we’ve covered tautologies before. The use of venal would also be tautological.

I got into Grammar School in the 60’s by passing the Eleven Plus at a state school on my own merits

Got that teeshirt as well but had a social conscious even then and hence elected to go to a local comprehensive. Don’t think Dad has forgiven me even now some 50+ years later.

The thing with Grammers is it gave the illussion that the lower classes could aspire to something but only a few as not to upset the middle and upper classes and then dumped the rest in schools that gave a education that was good enough for doing low end jobs for low end pay.

Today we have an illusion called Academies and those with money can get in to the catchment areas of good/outstanding ones by buying houses or buy to lets, that they give as an address to use, or they pay a tutor.

Selection by exam is replaced by selection by money for many and we didn’t even notice the change as we were told it was about raising results…

It could be argued that the examination system is inherently unfair. It puts a lot of pressure on what a person does with the rest of their life in a number of short intense “complete this paper” sessions

Agree as I said as much earlier..

This year has in my view highlighted one thing and that is the absolute stupdity of adding rigor to the exam process by making it more of a one shot on the day process,yes I am looking at you Gove

Those points would be totted up, converted into a percentage, and that percentage would be your score.

As long as each exam each year is the same in rigor then fine but they are not and hence a 62% one year could be a the same as a 50% the previous or 70%.

Some leveling is required but I agree in an ideal world all things being equal a percentage mark rather than 1-9 grades would help but just wait for the legal challanges because student A got 0.00001% more than your little darling..

The thing with Grammars is it gave the illusion that the lower classes could aspire to something but only a few as not to upset the middle and upper classes and then dumped the rest in schools that gave a education that was good enough for doing low end jobs for low end pay.

Quite correct. The ‘only a few’ were selected on the basis of their ability and only about 5% of the total secondary school population of any particular year went to University. A few more went to polys and CFEs. Many left at 16 and 18 (for whom there were plenty of jobs available) and only much later did their cumulative earnings fall below those who went to University (and thus got nothing for two years and then only a grant for 3 years). Grammar schools were an excellent thing – they got the better teachers (pay was better) and those with ability were pushed forward a bit. Secondary moderns did easier exams and were for more vocational people. The problem of passing exams has since been simplified by allowing everyone to pass – keep changing the meaning of the grades and parents are happy with a piece of paper saying their child has a ‘grade 5’ even if 5 is the lowest grade available, which used, in the harsh days of the 1960s, to be called a fail.

Things are far worse now, as you say. I have even heard of some schools not being allowed to select on the basis of ability but to have to take their fair share of morons in the interest of ‘fairness’. Renaming polys to be called universities, allowing children to go to university without any ‘A’ levels, making them pay for their degree course can all be said to promote greater equality. Everyone (the 50% who go to University that is – the rest are too dull to matter) will have a debt, a degree certificate of dubious utility and then the idle and feckless who never get to earn very much are rewarded by having their debt written off whereas the intelligent and successful pay the most.

Unusually the selection process in Hertfordshire in 1966 was not the 11+ exam, but was based on Primary School teachers’ recommendations, moderated a little by some sort of standardisation process so that a bright year locally would still only just fill the places available. Headmasters’ and headmistresses’ children appeard to be treated more leniently in this process. It was never clear to me whether children who were marginal for selection would do better near the bottom of the class in a grammar school or near the top of the class in a secondary modern. I do remember those going to the Secondary Modern were told that ‘a CSE grade 1 is as good as an ’O’-level’ a convenient lie that was generally seen as such at the time.

On application forms, the selection process gave extra points if you went to a grammar school, did ‘O’ levels rather than CSEs etc. so it was very useful in later life.

As long as each exam each year is the same in rigor then fine but they are not and hence a 62% one year could be a the same as a 50% the previous or 70%.

I’m open to correction on this, but I was told at various times that the IQ/learning ability of each year group passing through a school varies in a sort of cyclic way and that part of the moderation process deliberately smooths this down.

As to exam performance, a distinct portion of the available marks are lost by the student if they don’t analyse the question posed. Try and understand the examiners mind set.

Oh, and read ALL the exam paper – I’ve seen many exams where the answer to questions in the early part are actually given in the explanation/scene setting for a later more complex question.

Hmm – what is education for??

Keep kids off the streets.

And out of chimneys, pits, etc.

People have to want to learn – what ever the subject.

You can’t force them, some don’t mind killing, put them in the forces.

Unless you think they join to play cricket.