Insider's Hsc View
Newcastle Herald
Saturday July 19, 2008
A SENIOR Higher School Certificate marker says there are probably too many school assessments throughout the year and that the burden may work against a good performance at exam time, when it really counts.
Keith McAlister, who was tutoring HSC English students at the University of Newcastle yesterday, said the biggest danger they faced was repeating what they knew and not analysing the knowledge they had acquired.Mr McAlister said part of the problem might be the number of assessments, set at the discretion of individual schools."Every subject has four assessments," Mr McAlister said.That was a minimum of 20 in a school year, when what students really needed was more practise in analysing set questions, Mr McAlister said.If schools decreased the number of assessments, perhaps they could introduce to students new and different points of view on subjects, Mr McAlister said.His experience showed that students went into the HSC with the feeling the questions were "out to trap them" but this was not the intention and they should not be intimidated."The biggest problem is lack of confidence in how to shape what they know in response to questions," he said.The tens of thousands of HSC exam papers are marked at least twice, and Mr McAlister said a marker processed between 40 and 60 papers over four hours.At yesterday's tutorial, Audrey Biel-Carlson, 17, who goes to Newcastle High School, said the HSC was "nerve-racking".For Giles Gibbins, 17, a Kings School boarder whose parents live in Newcastle, the HSC means having to prove how good students can be.Mr McAlister has been a senior marker for the past six years and he has applied to do it again this year. Exams start on October 16.
© 2008 Newcastle Herald