Quality of Principal Examiners

[deissi]

Finnish A1 has a relatively new principal examiner. She is a professor in Finnish and teaches at a French university. Seems okay on paper, doesn't it? In practice, however, she isn't very qualified. The first exam she prepared was the May 2007 one, which our teacher considered to be a poorly drafted one, especially in terms of Paper 1. There is one thing, however, that particularly makes me want to cry. This is a direct quote from the May 2007 Finnish A1 subject report:

[quote name='Finnish A1 Subject report May 2007, General comments on Paper 1']"It should also be noted that numerous candidates have illegible writing [b]and, instead of using an eraser, make deletions with the result[/b] that the marker is forced to spend a great deal of unnecessary time trying to decipher the text. [b]One would not expect this from baccalaureate candidates[/b]"[/quote]
Mind you, last time I tried it, nothing happened when I tried to use an eraser [b]along with my pen[/b]. One would not expect this from baccalaurate examiners..?

Anyone else noticed something as ridiculous in a subject report?

[Mr. Shiver]

There's plenty more where that came from.

Gems from the English A1 M08 report:

[quote]In the face of declining literacy and the attendant decline in the skills of perceptive reading and clear, accurate and graceful writing on the part of candidates, there is no question that the demands on teachers of English are considerable and increasing. It is more and more difficult to provide the level of skills and the depth of understanding that even an average World Literature assignment demands.[/quote]
Because OBVIOUSLY the "perceptive reading" skills of the students have nothing to do with how they were taught.

[quote][b]Matters of methodology[/b]

The [b]word count parameters are 1000-1500 words[/b]. Candidates should be clearly informed of these; falling outside these parameters will incur a penalty.[/quote]
Oh, so they got rid of the 10% rule then, did they? If so, then [i]why was my teacher told during an IB workshop this year that it still applies[/i]? Either the examiners who wrote the report didn't know what they were talking about, or they are deliberately misleading the teachers, or there is some serious lack of communication between the examiners about updates in regulations.

Actually the entire World Literature section was a complete farce.

Edited December 8, 2008 by Mr. Shiver

[deissi]

Mr. Shiver, there is no 10% rule in IB. They might have said that in a workshop, but there isn't one for any IB internal assessments (or WLAs for that matter). I do see your point, contradicting information does suck.

[Mr. Shiver]

Sorry, I guess it's not a "rule". But they've had a 10% [i]allowance[/i] for World Lit for a long time now. It's mentioned in the teacher support material, and is brought up in subject reports from time to time. For them to not acknowledge this in the most recent report is extremely frustrating.

[Ruan Chun Xian]

They're not really supposed to making comment on your handwriting anyway, IMO. Come on, woman, you're marking exams taken by 17-18-year-olds under extreme stress, from all over the world...one would think a little effort to read what was written wouldn't be too much to ask. Even if by the end of it, you still can't understand what they wrote, but unlike general exam-taking skill, I don't think bad handwriting is going to go away any time soon. It might even increase with the continuing dependence on computers etc.