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Thread ID: 115397	2011-01-17 00:41:00	Cambridge School Exams	Digby (677)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1170308	2011-01-19 02:03:00	As far as I can tell, the prime purpose of scaling in New Zealand was ensure that 50% of entrants passed and 50% failed. As I said before some misguided idea of egalitarianism. It may have been used also to provide equal standards of achievement in different subjects after the event...but that should have been taken care of by proper moderation of curriculum and exam standards before the exams were set. The main difference between UK and NZ as it affects the Cambridge exams for example is that the percentage of pupils taking SC in the UK was much smaller than here. It was only expected that the top streams would pass, and the standards were set appropriate to Grammar School level. This was what caused angst among the trendy left reformers. Schools didn't enter pupils who they thought had no chance of passing, unless that is their parents paid.	Terry Porritt (14)
1170309	2011-01-19 02:42:00	Years ago the School Certificate exams were set by a group of examiners on the basis that they would be as near as possible to the difficulty of previous years . Indeed many of the questions had been asked previously, but the difficulty was knowing which year to look back on . If you studied all the exam papers for the previous 10 years and could answer all of them, then you weren’t going to have any trouble . The scaling of 50% pass and 50% fail was just fine tuning to make the results as standard as possible and didn’t make any significant adjustment . However, your School Certificate results were respected by employers who in a lot of cases weren’t interested in the exact mark achieved, but could see from your results just exactly where you fitted into the scheme of things . More importantly, the qualification was well recognised throughout the world . However, NZCA has turned out to be nothing but a joke . Getting marks for picking up rubbish and being able to use “txt speak” to answer questions has made us an international joke . A few years ago now friends of ours sold up everything and headed for Aus . However, their eldest daughter was in her last year a college and wanted to finish her NCEA with sights on going to University and becoming a Lawyer . To facilitate this she stayed here with us for six months and duly passed her exams with flying colours . Can you imagine her dismay when arriving in Australia they looked at her qualifications and told her that she would have to sit their entry exams as NCEA wasn’t recognised over there? Frankly, I don’t blame them, having seen first hand some of the rubbish she brought home by way of homework . However, I understand that the Cambridge Exam is an effort by some of our responsible schools to get the kids a qualification that is recognised outside of NZ and is of some use . Good luck to them I say regardless of whether the marks are fine tuned by scaling or not .	B.M. (505)
1170310	2011-01-19 03:24:00	Whilst there is a pig-ignorant Education Ministry there is little hope...... Quote from stuff.co.nz regarding the furore over Auckland Grammar's decision to utilize Cambridge exams: "The Education Ministry clarified yesterday that schools were not legally required to offer NCEA, despite initially saying they were. However, they were required to offer a "nationally and internationally recognised qualifications system", which the Cambridge system was not. " my emphasis www.stuff.co.nz Are these people on a different planet to the rest of us? Now take a look at the Cambridge International Examinations site: http://www.cie.org.uk/ Quote:University of Cambridge International Examinations We are the world’s largest provider of international qualifications for 14-19 year olds. 9,000 schools in over 160 countries are part of the Cambridge learning community.	Terry Porritt (14)
1170311	2011-01-19 06:07:00	It would be extremely unlikely, unlikely in the extreme. They are regarded as international exams with absolute standards, that's why schools like Auckland Grammar sit them, not exams subject the political whims of those who don't want to see anyone fail. Remember, the old UK School Cert/General Certificate of Education exams were taken predominantly by grammar school pupils, and as such were regarded as elitist by the left wing brigade epitomised by Labour Education Minister Anthony Crossland who famously said in the 60s... " I'll make sure every f......g grammar school is destroyed if it's the last thing I do " . It came to pass and most grammar schools were destroyed. ( We noticed you were having difficulty with simple percentages :rolleyes: ) I went to a Secondary Modern School (lowest in the three tier system). I actually sat both School Certificate (I think we were the last year to do it), and GCE O Levels - it meant nearly three weeks of exams morning and afternoon (and kids today think they've got it hard :horrified). The weird thing was I got the harder O Level Geography and somehow failed the School Cert one :stare: Went on to " Technical School " to do A Levels in the 6th Form (you had Lower 6th and Upper 6th - no 7th Form). My two younger brothers went to one of the new " Comprehensive " schools that replaced the Three Tier system. It was 2000+ pupils - they, understandably, got lost in the crowd and did bugger all academically. In those days you knew there was the big possibility of failure if you didn't put the spadework in!! We had to be motivated - funny that! About 5 years after I left, the school was bulldozed and turned into a housing estate. Oh, and we had " Prefects " as well!	tuiruru (12277)
1170312	2011-01-19 06:43:00	I hadn't heard of scaling until I came here . Neither had I - I couldn't believe it . And then, what I couldn't believe more, was that in NZ a school's School Cert results for one year had a direct effect on what grades were available for that following following year's 6th Form Cert results ie less top grades available even if the kids did pull their socks up and improve things!! :illogical	tuiruru (12277)
1170313	2011-01-19 07:38:00	I did Cambridge School Certificate all those years ago, 1966 in Zambia, we also did all the preparation for G.C.E. (General Certificate of Education) 'O' levels which were considered harder to pass so in the end the school only sat Cambridge S.C. (standards were dropped after Independence). Later I went down to Southern Rhodesia and did Pure Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and 'Use of English, which you had to pass to get credit for the other subjects, at 'A' levels, we could do 'S' level as well but you had to be really dedicated to pass them. To get into the best Universities in England at the time you needed 4 'A' level passes at A standard and 2 'S' level at pass 1 standard, two people in our class got that, Martin Bolton and Tom Sensky, Tom was a thalidomide child and had an underdeveloped arm with a tiny hand on the end of it, Martin always called him 'the one armed bandit', lol.	zqwerty (97)
1170314	2011-01-20 23:50:00	Hi Guys Years ago when I sat School Cert it was well known that the marks were scaled up or down depending on the toughness of the exam so that 50% of the sitters got above 50% and 50% got below 50%. (that was well known as the Half pass half fail system.) Does anyone know if the same thing happens with the Cambridge Exam, or is it just you get marked and that's it. I don't believe School Cert was ever scaled for a 50% fail rate, certainly it wasn't across the board and in some subjects the pass rate was well over 50%.	Twelvevolts (5457)
1170315	2011-01-21 00:00:00	NZOQ website seems to confirm that School Certificate was never scaled for a 50% pass/fail rate (I'd remember hearing this was a myth), it was adjusted for "national consistency" of marking only. Presumably this was to avoid markers in one part of the country not being softer than in another part.	Twelvevolts (5457)
1170316	2011-01-21 00:33:00	Neither had I - I couldn't believe it. And then, what I couldn't believe more, was that in NZ a school's School Cert results for one year had a direct effect on what grades were available for that following following year's 6th Form Cert results ie less top grades available even if the kids did pull their socks up and improve things!! :illogical Your lucky, my school in Kent (all boys) had no 6th form it ended at the end of fifth form (girls school next door had 6th my sister went there). So my birthday being in the school holidays I ended up leaving school at 15 1/2 with no chance of 6th form study anywhere in my area. My folks couldn't afford to send me out of the area and being under 16 I could not work full time or get the dole illegal as still technically a minor so I learnt to windsurf that summer was on the water everyday then got an apprenticeship	gary67 (56)
1170317	2011-01-21 01:32:00	NZOQ website seems to confirm that School Certificate was never scaled for a 50% pass/fail rate (I'd remember hearing this was a myth), it was adjusted for " national consistency " of marking only. Presumably this was to avoid markers in one part of the country not being softer than in another part. Er.. you mean NZQA, NZOQ is the quality organisation. However NZQA are being economical with the truth as they omit to say that 50% pass/fail scaling of School Cert. in NZ was carried out before 1992: " Advocates of standards-based assessment also believed norm-referenced examinations were unfair to a large number of pupils, since, for example, 50 percent of pupils were made to fail School Certificate each year when School Certificate results were scaled before 1992 " . From here: www.maxim.org.nz When I previously said that in the UK SC was sat by predominantly Grammar school pupils, this was truer in the early 50s when I was at school, as at that time up until 1972 the school leaving age was 15, and earlier on some Sec Mods didn't even offer much opportunity to sit SC. Many of the pupils at Sec. Mods. left at 15. Many took Ordinary National Certificate if they were apprenticed, and then went on to Higher National Certificate, which was the backbone of engineering. I did not mean to demean Secondary Modern schools. This page on NZQA more or less confirms what tuiruru says about allocating grades in the 6th form certificate according to how well they did at SC. www.nzqa.govt.nz	Terry Porritt (14)
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