Extra Time in Exams

Dude

As I just said in my post above, people with disabilities don't have an advantage when it comes to extra time, it puts us on level with the rest of you. Why should our grades suffer because it takes us longer to understand a question or because we write slower then the rest of you?

However, I do agree that it should only be given to people who really need it, like me: and I'm not just saying that. I know plenty of people who were granted extra time in exams and didn't even need it and there was me who didn't get anything and I genually needed help.

Thats the whole point of the argument.

Examinations are supposed to be something through which potential employers and/or universities can use to distinguish between applicants. That is why it should in my opinion be a level playing field unless under extreme circumstances. By extreme I mean like someone I know who after treatment for cancer suffered several strokes and has now lost alot of control of their body.

Its for the best as well people who go through school and university with extra time when they dont really will surely find it more difficult coping when they can't get any special dispensation and are put under pressure in a position where they have limited time as they will have little or no experience in a situation like that.

A surgeon cant tell a patient to stop dying because he gets extra time.

It would be fine if employers or universities took into account a person's disability when looking at their grades, but everyone should get the grades they get tested at the same level as everyone else - thats the whole point of it, grades are a reflection of your ability to perform a task under pressure in a certain time limit - if you start playing with these conditions then it devalues the system.

Reply 22

JH08

12

Cathie86

But, I then think that employeers/universities/colleges etc should take into account disabilities when they look at the persons results. I would have thought that would be a better way of it being looked at rather than giving a set amount of time extra to everyone who 'needs' it.

I agree with the majority of what you have said, but my one worry if we abolished extra time in favour of letting employers decide would be that you never know what employers talk about behind closed doors.

Extra time is out in the open, and it ensures all that "need it" are getting the advantage that they need. If we scrapped this, and left it to employers, some would be loyal to their obligation to consider disabilities and others would not be.

Extra time, for all its flaws (and there are many :p:

) is universal, leaving it to employers would not be.

Reply 23

Square

OP

I think in general the whole system needs to be tightened up and run by the offical exam board. At the moment (In Scotland anyway) I think its the schools who decide who gets extra time and who doesnt? Anyway I think that is being abused and far far far too many people are now getting it.

Its not even mentioned on the exam certificate if a candidate gets extra time, reinstating this would at least be a start in my opinion.

Reply 24

Slender Loris

3

I can't believe that people are actually against people having extra time :/ you're all mad.

Reply 25

Leigh

15

Dude

As I just said in my post above, people with disabilities don't have an advantage when it comes to extra time, it puts us on level with the rest of you. Why should our grades suffer because it takes us longer to understand a question or because we write slower then the rest of you?

But if your disability, be it your slower writing or interpretation of text affects the way you'd perform in a work environment, you are not on a level with the rest of us, and should your grades not reflect that?

If two people went for a job in film journalism, both with identical grades in English and Film studies, yet one had been given extra time in the exam, the other would be better for the job but this would not be shown in their qualifications.

I'm all for support being given to those less able, don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm saying, but I think it does almost devalue the worth of qualifications as recruitment criteria when they are ability-adjusted in this way.

Reply 26

kookabura

JH08

I agree with the majority of what you have said, but my one worry if we abolished extra time in favour of letting employers decide would be that you never know what employers talk about behind closed doors.

Extra time is out in the open, and it ensures all that "need it" are getting the advantage that they need. If we scrapped this, and left it to employers, some would be loyal to their obligation to consider disabilities and others would not be.

Extra time, for all its flaws (and there are many :p:

) is universal, leaving it to employers would not be.

I agree with you.

I think employeers/colleges/unis etc should be able to make their own decision when they have the grade(s) the person achieved and their 'special circumstances' and can come to a conclusion based on them. I meant to then put something in my previous post (but obviously forgot!) about how this could be 'regulated' in someway to prevent some employeers then giving a lot more consideration to things than others. Also, to prevent 'discrimination' for want of a better word against certain conditions, again, as in my case, some of the vet schools were saying how if I was that bad then I wouldn't be up to doing the course and were trying to use that as a reason they wouldn't consider me. When if they would shut up long enough to listen to me, I was telling them and had countless doctors letters to say, that I was then fully recovered, and that they only lasting issue as it were, was my alevel results. I don't know how that kind of issue would be got round, but I don't see as it could be much worse than the current one is, in my opinon!

Reply 27

Slender Loris

3

King Leigh

But if your disability, be it your slower writing or interpretation of text affects the way you'd perform in a work environment, you are not on a level with the rest of us, and should your grades not reflect that?

Exams are not to show how you'd perform in a work environment; they are to show that you have learnt the course content and can answer the questions, so that is what your grades should reflect.

Reply 28

kookabura

King Leigh

But if your disability, be it your slower writing or interpretation of text affects the way you'd perform in a work environment, you are not on a level with the rest of us, and should your grades not reflect that?

If two people went for a job in film journalism, both with identical grades in English and Film studies, yet one had been given extra time in the exam, the other would be better for the job but this would not be shown in their qualifications.

I'm all for support being given to those less able, don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm saying, but I think it does almost devalue the worth of qualifications as recruitment criteria when they are ability-adjusted in this way.

I fully agree with you! The way the world works is that people need to be able to carry out what they have said that they can! So basically if you need extra time to be able to produce work of a certain standard, you are at a lower level in that subject than someone who can produce the same standard in the set amount of time. If you have a certificate saying that you have a grade A in english, your grade A should mean exactly the same in real terms as the next persons grade A does. Not that one person can achieve a grade A in the set time, another person can acheive a grade A but needs extra time, another person needs a dictionary etc. They should all mean the same.

Reply 29

Artemidoros.

3

Malcolm Kane

I think in general the whole system needs to be tightened up and run by the offical exam board. At the moment (In Scotland anyway) I think its the schools who decide who gets extra time and who doesnt? Anyway I think that is being abused and far far far too many people are now getting it.

Its not even mentioned on the exam certificate if a candidate gets extra time, reinstating this would at least be a start in my opinion.

I concur, especially up here in Scotland, people seem to get it quite needlessly, many who do get it aren't disabled and it does give them a serious edge in exams, 45 extra minutes would surely do me wonders in English, History etc.

Reply 30

kookabura

elyim

Exams are not to show how you'd perform in a work environment; they are to show that you have learnt the course content and can answer the questions, so that is what your grades should reflect.

That is another question entirely in my opinion! Exams shouldn't just show that you have learnt the content of a course and managed to churn it back out in the exam. They should test the ability of a student to apply the knowledge of principles etc in the context of the question, rather than learning a set answer. Unfortunately, exams have gone that way whether we like it or not.

Its not that exams show how you would perform in the work place, but they are often the only example a potential employeer has of what you are capable off. Therefore they will judge candidates by the grades, and compare people with each other. So if you have the same grade in x subject as another person, the employeer would assume that both people are off the same standard, when they are not.

Reply 31

NSiky

And besides, it's been stated already that dyslexics will often have a higher than average intelligence. Why should it be that people get extra time to do exams because of a disability that makes them more able to complete it?

What sort of link was that? ^o) How is it that a higher intelligence has to equal an ability to process information as it is presented on an exam paper? Often a higher intelligence means a different method of processing information.. that's why more intelligent people come up with innovative, out of the box solutions to things. So it is more than likely that they could be slowed down by perceiving and processing problems in exams entirely differently to how a normal person would process them. This doesn't mean they don't know the information asked of them... it means it takes them longer to understand what information the paper is asking them to submit.

Reply 32

Employers do know that one person's grade is on extra time and anothers' is not because they know that the person they are employing has a disability and would have had extra time. They can also ask this in the interview.

The skills required in an actual job are totally different to the skills needed to pass an exam. They are not comparable. It is a totally different pressure. Exams often require you to solve new problems presented from a different angle to test your understanding of the facts you know. In very few jobs except research are you required to break down a new problem in such a short space of time. In the vast majority of jobs you are required to learn a routine and build up gradually. If you have a disadvantage in adjusting to these tasks.. you usually have the time to develop your own coping mechanism which you can then apply to that situation. It takes you years before you climb up the ladder in any job enough to need to break down problems from random angles in small spaces of time.

Furthermore.. the employer would know of the person's disability. If that job was not suitable for a person with such a disability they would not get the job. If the job was suitable.. there WOULD be provisions made in that job.. just like extra time is a provision.
However you feel the world SHOULD be, the UK right now is a country of 'equal opportunities', and this extrapolates to the work place as well as the schoolhouse.

As for Universities.. once more.. they will know the applicant has a disability and assume that their exams were taken with extra time.

Reply 33

FyreFight

14

Craghyrax

What sort of a logical link was that?^o) How is it that a higher intelligence has to equal an ability to process information as it is presented on an exam paper? Often a higher intelligence means a different method of processing information.. that's why more intelligent people come up with innovative, out of the box solutions to things. So it is more than likely that they could be slowed down by perceiving and processing problems in exams entirely differently to how a normal person would process them. This doesn't mean they don't know the information asked of them... it means it takes them longer to understand what information the paper is asking them to submit.

You've misunderstood the "higher intelligence" part. By that, I meant that (on average) dyslexics can process mathematics and the likes faster than the average person. It doesn't stand to reason at all that they should get extra time for not being able to read as quickly, and then just ignore the fact that having the "disability" makes them more able to answer the question once they've understood it.

And what you're proposing, if I've understood right, is that people with a high intelligence should get more of a time limit because they "come up with innovative, out of the box solutions to things." That's just insane. People who do that should learn to work to a time limit, not expect to have extra time because they're incapable of processing information efficiently.

What's the point of an exam if people are going to get allowances to give them an artificially improved grade?

Reply 34

dyslexic_banana

1

To be honest, it depends what exams are seen as hoping to measure. I used to think that people shouldn't have extra time in exams; people don't get extra time in life, so to speak, so why in exams? The whole point in exams is to measure mental abilities, to be applied in 'real-life' situations, after all. If exams are set to measure things which some people struggle with, then clearly it is absurd to give extra time to these people. However, if the exam aims to measure something else, and, say, the facts that questions have to be read, and answers given in writing, are purely irrelevant to the assessment, then it makes sense to award extra time. To be honest, though, giving people extra time in English exams seems ridiculous; the whole point of which is surely to measure one's reading and writing skills, so to give people extra time for............not having very good reading and writing skills, defeats the purpose of the object; you might as well just give them extra marks, automatically. However, for subjects such as Mathematics and Science, it is more about reasoning and memory, and, hence, not so much about reading and writing, so it is perhaps unfair for students to be hindered greatly by a lack of verbal skills, when it comes to these subject areas.

In my opinion, it all depends as to what the situation will be, when outside of the classroom; reading and responding accordingly in writing, is going to be important, whatever the area of study. This may not be strictly related to any given field, but it will still be essential; if some people struggle with this, then, well, they struggle with this, and may not achieve quite as much as those who don't; and exam results should reflect this, for potential achievement in later life is surely what they aim to measure.

So, I suppose I'm undecided, on the matter, but do feel that extra time is awarded too easily, and too generously. Besides, people vary in the speed at which they read etc, anyway; you can't account for everybody's abilities. I also think that the 'dyslexic' label is awarded too easily; with all respect, when I was at school, most of these so-called dyslexics were just stupid. I'm not doubting that the condition exists, affecting people regardless of intelligence level, but do think it is open to some considerable misdiagnosis, to be used as an excuse for those who generally just aren't very bright, and are, accordingly, crap at reading. Find any idiot, and you can bet your last dollar that s/he's 'dyslexic'. And these people, effectively, will be being awarded extra time in exams, for stupidity.

As Rory McGrath said: "You'll never hear anyone say 'my kid's not dyslexic; he's just stupid'".

Reply 35

dyslexic_banana

So, I suppose I'm undecided, on the matter, but do feel that extra time is awarded too easily, and too generously. Besides, people vary in the speed at which they read etc, anyway; you can't account for everybody's abilities. I also think that the 'dyslexic' label is awarded too easily; with all respect, when I was at school, most of these so-called dyslexics were just stupid. I'm not doubting that the condition exists, affecting people regardless of intelligence level, but do think it is open to some considerable misdiagnosis, to be used as an excuse for those who generally just aren't very bright, and are, accordingly, crap at reading. Find any idiot, and you can bet your last dollar that s/he's 'dyslexic'. And these people, effectively, will be being awarded extra time in exams, for stupidity. ".

I agree that extra time is given too readily, and it would make sense to give candidates extra time in some of their exams but not others depending on how they are affected. However, the fact that some people are mis-diagnosed is not a strong enough reason to deny it to those who need it.

Reply 36