you are not dyslexic!

I think it is the way the system works that is slightly odd - my sister is not incredibly intelligent and she is very poor at spelling, and a couple of years ago was diagnosed with 'spelling dislexia,' which gives her extra time. Even she and my parents think that she simply isn't very good at spelling - not that she has any kind of disorder or learning disability. She is however incredibly talented at art and has no real desire for extra time because academia is not involved in the careers she wants to pursue, and we all feel that the school simply identified her as someone who would probably get lower marks in her humanity and language GCSEs and so just shipped her off to the educational psychologist almost as a precautionary measure in case my parents tried to blame her teachers/her syllabus.

oh boo hoo, youre just worried about the competition in getting to oxford.

reasons for getting extra time other than dyslexia, hm let me see...there's hand and arm injuries, mental illness, and basically anything else that can impact on your writing speed if you can prove it with a doctor's certificate. oh and personal circumstances like bereavement also count.

this is such a non-issue i dont even know why you felt compelled to create a thread about it.

these are people who have been given extra time specifically for dyslexia (some of whom i am suggesting don't really have it), stay on topic.
im not going to even apply to oxford so ...?
it obviously is an issue if people are wrongly getting extra time, you are probably one of these people, the only kind of person who this wouldn't effect negatively.

ok you're the one who asked me who else could get extra time so don't tell me to stay on topic.

it says in your profile "oxbridge hopeful"

I'm not "wrongly" getting extra time, you dont know anything about me so who are you to say that? do you want me to scan my report to prove it to you??

it doesn't affect you so what are you worried about?

get off your high horse. honestly, you're just as bad as the people who think that everyone who's on benefits is a "scrounger".

I ended up crying in one of my test sessions. It was the one where you've given an assortment of shapes, shown a picture of a larger shape and then you have to try to make that shape with the smaller shapes you've got.

I could not do it. Even the very first one where the picture had lines on it showing which shapes fitted together to make the larger one.

My non-verbal IQ (of which the above test was one assessor of) is in the 47th percentile. In comparison, my verbal IQ is in the 97th percentile.

I'm diagnosed as having dyslexia and dyspraxia.

People who fake it, if indeed there are people who fake it, annoy me. They annoy me a lot. Oh and I wasn't entered in for the tests by teachers wanting to cover their backs. I was fed up with struggling with certain things that my classmates could do easily, asked if I could get any help and was told to go to the learning support department. And it went from there.


EDIT: Just to clarify. I cried when the test was over because I was so frustrated with myself for not being able to do it. I just couldn't see it.

I think a greater level of hesitation should be given before branding somebody as having a mental disorder. Perhaps schools should attempt to give more help to children who struggle to spell properly or use appropriate grammar rather than suggesting that the school is not accountable.

You are the second person on this thread to call dyslexia a "mental disorder".

Get. Your. Facts. Straight.

Did your sister go to boarding school?

Is this a common phenomenon that british parents blame teachers?

Did your sister stick with art because she had talent in it?

Did she have no interest in other subjects because it would be more challenging than something she has talent for or because she really did not have interest in anything but art?