Anyone else have 0 faith in the exam system?

Did his grade go up?

The exam system is fine for subjects like maths and science, but for any humanities subjects or more essay based ones it is very flawed currently

I despise exam boards, I despise the system of exams, the costs, the lack of information, the fact all the boards do is look to make profit (obviously) but the fact that creeps into negatively effecting so many peoples lives through education disgusts me. All the errors they make for example!!!

However, I have never believed exams require great knowledge, merely technique.

My personal example is AS Business, last year, I failed the second unit (received a U). I couldn't believe it, so I got a remark, and they made it a few marks into a E(Costing upwards of 40 quid...which I never received back!). So obviously, I applied to resit for the January exam period just gone, however because I decided to concentrate on my other subjects, I did ZERO business work all year, I dropped A2 Business right at the start, and I managed to get a high B?

How the hell is that possibly? When revising like a donkey and attending classes I get a U? And then doing no work and remember nothing I blad a high B? It makes absolutely no sense and further deepens my distrust of the exams system and especially AQA as they bear the brunt of my many negative experiences.

Anyone else feel like this or has experience this too!?

It did, although it wouldn't have if he'd asked for the (cheaper) original script rather than the photocopy.

What alternative system do you propose?

Hmm maybe I should request the paper for biol4...How much was it?

Well a system so that for essay subjects the examiners all know what they are giving out marks for exactly, we were looking through old scripts last week and there were some very very similar economics essays which were marked around 5 marks apart even though they were quite alike :P

This kind of specific mark scheme is exactly what people on this thread are complaining about though - people that are very intelligent and understand everything but get no marks as they didn't use keywords, or didn't mention a specific example, and examiners feel constrained by the precise mark scheme and so can't use their discretion.

Not that you are 'wrong' - just trying to illustrate that getting the balance between objective precise mark schemes and allowing examiners to use their discretion is difficult!

I hate it how to get decent grades and get a job/uni place we have to be taught how to pass exams rather than interesting parts of the subject.




It was mentioned somewhere on this site a few weeks ago that unis were planning on changing it in the future so you only applied after you'd got your final grade. Which does seem a lot fairer.

Why the hell do you think you're qualified to judge the system when you cant even PASS a monkey subject such as business as?

It goes both ways. In my experience, people that do sciences can't really get away with not learning the content, while people that do humanities (particularly English) can bs their way through A level and get a solid mark. A few of my friends did no substantial revision for their AS English Lit exam and came out with a solid A. Try doing that for a subject like Biology and you might as well already arrange a resit...