Oral GCSE exams: 95% scripted

Ekpyrotic

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8005405.stm

Makes me (i) sad, and (ii) annoyed.

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Reply 1

predius

Predictable, I guess.

Reply 2

Talexe

All I'm saying is this isn't happening with me! I must be missing out!

Pretty annoying

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8005405.stm

"If the entire oral exam is rehearsed and memorised from beginning to end, then that is not appropriate. That is wrong."

This is exactly how it was in my school. Was your oral exam scripted or was it a full on conversation?

Reply 5

<(".")>

What the hell? We had to do it all on our own.

Reply 6

Valkyrja

My Welsh Exam was like that but I didn't learn the script thing and just blabbed butchered awful messed up welsh.

But my German one wasn't - in German we got told to "practice everything" and then come in and do it...was Uber scary.

Reply 7

kjc_us

For German GCSE, mine was literally just a memory test, with the exception of the role play. Every question I was asked I'd already learnt off by heart, it was like my teacher just pressed a button and out came the perfect answer, it was so fake. We had to learn about 8 different sets of questions for each language and in German I was asked random questions from lots of different sets, in French 2 topics were picked for me. I had to slow down my talking in the German though so it 'looked more spontaneous', haha. The funny thing was that I was coming out with all these very impressive sentences, yet during the role play, although it mainly went well, I had a complete mind blank at one point and couldn't remember how to spell my name in German. Sooooo fake! My French wasn't quite so rehearsed, I learnt most of it but I equally made up a lot of it on the spot.

Reply 8

RightSaidJames

Our teacher just gave us a list of all the questions she might ask, then told us to go away and write answers to each of them. After that, she marked what we'd done and all we had to do was learn it.

Reply 9

Shayke

We got to chose questions we were asked. We got to prepare our answers beforehand.

Wasn't 'scripted' but we were allowed 'prompt cards' or whatever you want to call them. But if you read something over and over, you can just do it all from memory.

So yeah, my GCSE was pretty much all from memory, and nothing had to be done on the spot.

I got an A suffice to say =]

Reply 10

Psyche05

I have my french oral on wednesday and I'm currently learning the answers to all the different questions that I may be asked. So yes, it's scripted.

Reply 11

Teigan

Whole thing apart from the roleplay, was entirely scripted for both French and German. I'd imagine it was the same for Spanish too. We had to write the answers ourselves but we just literally memorised lots of perfect answers for LOADS of questions, it was nothing like a real conversation. And the bit where you have to talk for I think it was 90 secs about a topic was memorised too. My German teacher was miming at me to slow down because I was just reeling it out so fast.

Although this is nowhere near as bad as what happened at my friends school, where they had a sheet of paper with the answers under the table!

Reply 12

Ooo'Yeah

We learnt the presentation and questions off by heart, but she also asked us questions that we hadn't learnt, to see if we could improvise.
We still had to do the roleplay and flow diagram unprepared though, that was the worst part!

Reply 13

purple-girl

We had to write and memorise our own speeches in French, but for the conversation part we were given a list of questions that could come up and we could do what we wanted with them. Some people prepared and memorised answers for all of them, whereas some people, including myself, just though about what they could say and didn't make up any specific answers. For the conversation following the speech we had to make up and write answers to 5 questions though.

Reply 14

SuperSam_Fantastiche

Of course it is. Have people seriously only just realised?

Reply 15

DeTamble

My Spanish and French orals were sort of scripted in that we were given a list of about 100 potential questions and we could use it as we wished. I'm a major geek and I learnt answers for all of them and go 89/90 for my french and 84/90 for Spanish. So it was kinda scripted but I'd like to think that I put the work in, the teachers didn't mark my answers and I deserved my grades :biggrin:

Reply 16

Misteryom

I did French and German GCSE and for both of them we had to prepare 5 topics of about 20 questions each which we were allowed to memorise if we wanted but then the teacher would only actually use 2 topics, one of my choice one of hers but she wouldnt tell us hers until the exam.
Basically I think GCSEs are a big joke.

Reply 17

MrCynical

My French oral exam was basically scripted. There were only 5 or 6 possible topics, so everyone just prepared speeches on those, and through practice and checking said prepared speeches the teacher knew full well what questions everyone could answer.

Reply 18

SpiritedAway

My presentation was obviously a memory test, then we got to make 5 questions up with answers which were then marked and we learnt them. But for the general conversation we were given 10 possible questions from every topic which we learnt along with marked answers. So out of the 50+ questions and answers that we learnt, only 10 came up, and in no perticular order. Though before the exam our teacher said that were were all to number the topics in order of preference so he knew what topics not to choose.

Reply 19

Luca118

Memorised a piece of coursework for my presentation, and my teacher gave me 5 questions and answers after which I also memorised. Got given six topics to learn, about 15 questions each, memorised those as well. Then in the exam were given a role play which we didn't know about and wrote the answer and read it off.

Still got a low B, didn't bother with the six topics. And I'm supposedly meant to be getting an A* :smile: