Do you think extra time in exams is fair?

Whilst it could be seen to be wrong you have to remember what he is basing his decision on:

For example if I am hiring a juggler, just because I don't hire all the applicants who have no arms, I'm not being a bigot or being discriminatory - they just can't juggle, so obviously I'm not going to hire them to be a juggler. What you've got to remember here is that I'm not not hiring because of their disability, but because of the fact that they can't juggle - anyone who can't juggle won't be hired.

So i guess it could argued that if the criteria for the job is being able to have extreme concentration, good work rate and high processing speed, one is not being discriminatory by not choosing someone with those qualities - even if it is because of their disability.

P.s - I do not believe this, but I'm just explaining why it could technically make sense.

Er what? In both our examples we both gave the two people the same IQ and although neither of us mentioned it I presume we were both doing the examples based off of the assumption that they studied equally as hard? Therefore I can't say I understand your comment about Steve having "to look at how hard bob works".

Also how the heck is being disabled having an unfair advantage? Here's a definition of disability "a disadvantage or handicap, especially one imposed or recognized by the law." The very definition of disability says a person is at a disadvantage so i'm unsure how Steve's suppose to of had the advantage?

Why do you not believe this it makes perfect sense?If a disabled person doesn't perform well enough at a test then thats the reason they are not getting hired not because they are disabled, to me increasing the time limit makes the test easier I think 100% of people would agree with this often employers deliberately make the timing strict and often brutal to screen out the worst applicants.

I don't think employers should have to make the tests easier for disabled people, after all what are disabled people in the context we are talking about people who are less able at something now if that skill comes up in the test I want to test applicants on then I'm not going to make those who struggle at that skill not have to be assessed on that skill thats not fair on the applicants who can perform well at that skill.

I would argue that extra time isn't a reasonable adjustment as thats a skill I will be testing hence the time limit.

In general I don't agree with people's comments on here you should always the person who performs the best I couldn't care less if they were female,black,chinese,disabled whatever but I want the best to be employed and extra time and similar adjustments seem designed to help weaker candidates/employees just because they have some disability(their disabilities mean they are not good at something).

That right there is disability discrimination in the work place, something which is completely illegal. So tell me, how does it feel to be a bigot?





How about i give you an example now? I'll use the names Bob and Steve

Bob and Steve both are taking the same Psychology exam and the same IQ, but Steve finds it hard to recall information normally when under heavy stress so he will need extra time for reading and gathering his thoughts. Steve also happens to have severe Dyslexia and therefore will need extra time to correct a huge number of spelling mistakes.

When Bob and Steve get their results Bob is still likely to get a higher score than Steve did even with the extra time. That's because the extra time is only worth 25%(The top amount of extra time you can get), and therefore Steve still didn't have enough time to answer all the questions and correct their horrendous spelling. This means that Steve will still lose at least 5% on every question due to poor spelling.

I'm taking the pissss.
Steve has the advantage because he has more time to complete the exam...how is that not an advantage?
But I hear you say that Steve has got "dyslexia".
Oh but I've heard "dyslexia" was created by the middle class because it was a clean excuse for why there child was not as bright as the next one. Or maybe that child with "dyslexia" is simply not that bright?

I can see where you are coming from but would advise you to phrase it more nicely - saying you don't care about disabilities isn't what you really mean and proabably is very offensive to many people.
What you believe is that a GCSE is designed to test how much a person can get right in an hour - testing their writing/reading/thinking speed, their knowledge, IQ and individual abilities in that subject, regardless of anything which may affect the above, right?
Now, while that is a valid way of seeing GCSE's, I, like many others, believe that GCSE's should solely test knowledge, IQ and abilities and therefore if someone with a disability and someone without have the same of the above, then they should get the same mark. Thus, the person with disabilities ought to have extra time to ensure that their losing time due to their disability isn't effecting their grade - thus levelling out the playing field.

Hope you can see where I am coming from.

By your reasoning Steven Hawkin and Enistein must have been idiots,because neither of them would be able to complete a paper within an hour time limit. Steven Hawkin wouldn't be able to due to how long it would take him to write each word using only the movement of his eye. Enistein wouldn't either because it's a well known that he had server dyslexia and would therefore need to take longer to write words correctly.

Extra time should only be given to people under severe circumstances. And that's that.

If we want to assess what you want to assess then we have got to give everyone enough time to write their answers and then those with disabilities will also have enough time and do better, so a more reasonable solution would be to give everyone a lot of time.However, its likely that most people's scores would increase quite a bit(very common for people to not finish an exam or have to rush through and not have time to check answers, actually the last part is often extremely common I have experienced it a lot and checking answers would likely boost marks and very hard questions can be done with more time, sometimes my homework took hours to do but I ended up getting it mostly right they didn't usually give as hard questions in the exam though) and I think while those with disabilities would see their scores increase massively.This would mean a massive dumbing down of the examinations.

There are also those people who get a laptop for illegible handwriting. I know one of these, he gets a laptop and extra time. Honestly, this is of no use to him. Yes his writing is illegible, but he also does not have the knowledge to apply so the extra time is wasted. In cases such as this, where handwriting is the only issue, a laptop should be granted but not extra time.

Completely agreed - quite confused why they do get extra time - the problem is not his timing, but handwriting, so surely extra time is unnecessary - unless his typing speed is much slower than that of his writing speed, I guess.

Well, I think that if someone hasn't been disagnosed they should immediately get diagnosed - there is often a tonne of help and advice from professionals concerning this. It could very well be affecting her learning and this could be what means whe has to do foundation tier rather than higher tier. On the other hand, the professionals may also say that it isn't affecting her learning - either way, she ought to find out.

I feel that its sad that people feel forced not to take extra time they are entitled to due to peer pressure/harassment.


Well said!

I don't think so unless you have a disability. Having extra time because you write too slow is wrong.

Although people don't get 'extra time' in the world of work, there are few scenarios where you are placed under timed conditions in anywhere near the same way you would be in an exam. And where these do arise it is unlikely someone who has difficulties would consider themselves appropriate/wish to work in such a role anyway, they're more likely to pick a role more suited to them.

Generally, in the workplace (and everyday life) you learn to adapt and manage your difficulties. When you know a certain task is going to take you longer, you give it more time and might stay a bit late at the office, maybe work through lunch or get other things done quicker to give this more challenging task more of your day. If you cant remember something, you can ask a colleague to help, or ask the person on the phone to bear with you whilst you double check. You can use a computer to write, software to help you, you can look up spellings, all things you can't do under exam conditions.

Exams don't reflect on real life and the situation is something you're unlikely to face in the workplace. It is likely your deadlines will be weeks, days, or 'by lunch', rather than in one or two hours. Yes you need to be able to get things done in a time frame but a larger one with resources to help you. Yes you need to manage your time but you'll be much more experienced in what you're doing and how to do it. Questions on an exam could be anything.

Taking someone like Steven Hawking is he had has his condition whilst at school... He's incredibly intelligent and obviously would deserve high grades. He would get extra time as he cant just quickly sprawl his answers like the rest of us. Extreme example as its a very severe disability but if we took extra time away from people such as him we could discourage/ fail to help the growth of some minds and overlook real intelligence that would be an asset to certain fields of work.