*Everything HPAT and Medicine 2015*

sleepyheadh

Lads you have lost it... I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. Talk of legal counsel, pro bono cases, and consumer contract violations???

What would the ideal solution to this be for people? You are about as disadvantaged as anyone who went to the toilet in the exam, I know that is voluntary to an extent but the point stands.

I know tensions are high at this stage in the process, I've been there twice myself. But all I can say is that people would be best served at this stage by focusing on trying to increase their LC score by the 15points, instead of wasting time, writing "sworn affidavits" of the events.

You will have a much better case to argue, when you miss out by one point, rather than now, when it is a theoretical loss.

Gallagher1

sleepyheadh wrote: »

Lads you have lost it... I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. Talk of legal counsel, pro bono cases, and consumer contract violations???

What would the ideal solution to this be for people? You are about as disadvantaged as anyone who went to the toilet in the exam, I know that is voluntary to an extent but the point stands.

I know tensions are high at this stage in the process, I've been there twice myself. But all I can say is that people would be best served at this stage by focusing on trying to increase their LC score by the 15points, instead of wasting time, writing "sworn affidavits" of the events.

You will have a much better case to argue, when you miss out by one point, rather than now, when it is a theoretical loss.

This.

dalta5billion

sleepyheadh wrote: »

Lads you have lost it... I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. Talk of legal counsel, pro bono cases, and consumer contract violations???

You paid €120 for the privelege of sitting an exam which you weren't given the full time to complete. If all else fails, people might be able to recoup this substantial fee. I'm simply laying out all the options for people.

sleepyheadh wrote: »

I know tensions are high at this stage in the process, I've been there twice myself. But all I can say is that people would be best served at this stage by focusing on trying to increase their LC score by the 15points, instead of wasting time, writing "sworn affidavits" of the events.

No-one's swearing affidavits. I'm looking for people to sign their name to accounts of ACER's incompetence. That allows us to go to journalists, and kick up enough fuss to force the Department of Education into taking action.

sleepyheadh wrote: »

You will have a much better case to argue, when you miss out by one point, rather than now, when it is a theoretical loss.

This attitude of "sure it won't do anything" and "why bother" is terrible. As evidenced here, people are fully prepared to walk all over one another to get into Medicine. You know full well that if it was you who got 5 minutes less you would be screaming from the rooftops. Attempting to bully others into submission like this is something I find quite distasteful.

sleepyheadh

dalta5billion wrote: »

You paid €120 for the privelege of sitting an exam which you weren't given the full time to complete. If all else fails, people might be able to recoup this substantial fee. I'm simply laying out all the options for people.

That fee is for the writing of the exam, hiring of the venue, provision of staff, correction of the exam..not for each minute, you sit the exam! ACER provided you with everything, you paid for.

dalta5billion wrote: »

No-one's swearing affidavits. I'm looking for people to sign their name to accounts of ACER's incompetence. That allows us to go to journalists, and kick up enough fuss to force the Department of Education into taking action.

I was being, slightly hyperbolic there, but sadly it wouldn't surprising if you went that far. Heres a definition of an affidavit, so you can see its not a million miles off., ..."An affidavit is a written sworn statement from a witness in a case. It is a document that sets out in paragraph form the evidence that the witness wishes to give."

dalta5billion wrote: »

This attitude of "sure it won't do anything" and "why bother" is terrible. As evidenced here, people are fully prepared to walk all over one another to get into Medicine. You know full well that if it was you who got 5 minutes less you would be screaming from the rooftops. Attempting to bully others into submission like this is something I find quite distasteful.

No one is bullying anyone into submission, all we are saying is that, from the outside the situation appears less grave. I know how you feel, but I also know that this forum is over-exaggerating the possible effects, and the gravity of the situation. Its just a perspective thing.

dalta5billion

sleepyheadh wrote: »

That fee is for the writing of the exam, hiring of the venue, provision of staff, correction of the exam..not for each minute, you sit the exam! ACER provided you with everything, you paid for.

Except the same amount of time as everyone else taking the HPAT.

sleepyheadh wrote: »

I was being, slightly hyperbolic there, but sadly it wouldn't surprising if you went that far. Heres a definition of an affidavit, so you can see its not a million miles off., ..."An affidavit is a written sworn statement from a witness in a case. It is a document that sets out in paragraph form the evidence that the witness wishes to give."

Answered your own question really. There's no court case here.

sleepyheadh wrote: »

No one is bullying anyone into submission, all we are saying is that, from the outside the situation appears less grave. I know how you feel, but I also know that this forum is over-exaggerating the possible effects, and the gravity of the situation. Its just a perspective thing.

Oh really?

As I've said before I too would be fuming it happened to me but you realistically cant expect much (cancellation of exam, ACER giving students extra points) because it simply is not fair on everyone. Hate to sound pessimistic and/or mean but, in terms of luck, everyone in that Goldsmith hall just drew the short straw in what happened to them..Another day and this probably wouldn't have happened..

I know you feel outraged (and rightly so!) but the invigilator is at fault;not ACER nor the concept of the HPAT exam itself. It was just horrifically cruel bad luck...

The thing that makes it worse for you guys at Trinity is that I remember the last 2 pages were the 'next in the series' and some of them were really simple compared to the rest of the section. But dw everyone was guessing tonnes of questions anyway on S3.
My best advice would be for all of you to focus on your Leaving Certs and try and forget about the HPAT.

The way this "Aptitude Test" makes people turn on each other is really beginning to get me down.

sleepyheadh

Sorry Dalta5billion you are just missing the point.

You know what the 120euro is for..and anyway, if they handed the money back, it would make no difference to you I'm sure..you are looking for faults.

With regards to the affidavit, i was not being serious, i known there is no court case, I was merely remarking that what you are asking people to do is like making a affidavit!

Again, no evidence of bullying in those comments

Gallagher1

dalta5billion wrote: »

Except the same amount of time as everyone else taking the HPAT.

3 mins in 2.5 hours is 2% of the total exam. The exam cost €120. ACER owe you €2.40.

dalta5billion

Gallagher1 wrote: »

3 mins in 2.5 hours is 2% of the total exam. The exam cost €120. ACER owe you €2.40.

You really don't get it.

sleepyheadh

dalta5billion wrote: »

You really don't get it.

Sorry Dalta, you are just not in the right here. Explain your argument again!

spurious

There has not been fair play here.

Now you can say 'Well it didn't affect me so boo hoo' as many here seem to be prepared to do, or you can say 'Oh well, that's life', or you can make at least some attempt to have people recognise that things were not done fairly, EVEN IF nothing comes out of it.

Fast forward twenty years and let's hope some here will be more active in standing up for the rights of patients to get a fair go.

Xyzta

To be perfectly honest, it sounds as though people are just looking for excuses to moan about the exam (and to shift the blame of their theoretical lower mark onto acer). Was is 3 minutes or 5 minutes or 10 minutes less you got? Because we've heard so many different stories.
Also, whereby the idea of a 'media storm' is swell, acer have made mistakes every year and every year the media doesn't bat an eyelid. Here's the kicker - people who don't want to study med/don't do the HPAT don't give a rats furry ass about how wronged you feel you are.
Finally, it's the same 5 or 6 people posting all the time, how can you guys possibly represent all of goldsmith hall and how do you expect to reach everyone involved? Basically, all I'm saying is that your ideas are great and all but they lack the basis to give an argument any stability.

EoghanIRL

Just because it only happened to affect one group of people though doesn't make it ok.
Even if their mistake only affected one person it still wouldn't be ok.
Acer are a business. The exams cost money to sit. Mistakes shouldn't be made.
If the mistake didn't affect you then it's easy to say how the argument isn't great etc. if it did though and you miss out on a spot well then it's a different story. These mistakes actually affect peoples lives. People who don't get in take a year out , spend more money preparing , do one year of a different course just to fill the time.

You can't pretend that mistakes made by acer have no effect just because of their "magic solutions".

futuremedic19

EoghanIRL wrote:

Just because it only happened to affect one group of people though doesn't make it ok. Even if their mistake only affected one person it still wouldn't be ok. Acer are a business. The exams cost money to sit. Mistakes shouldn't be made. If the mistake didn't affect you then it's easy to say how the argument isn't great etc. if it did though and you miss out on a spot well then it's a different story. These mistakes actually affect peoples lives. People who don't get in take a year out , spend more money preparing , do one year of a different course just to fill the time.

EoghanIRL wrote:

You can't pretend that mistakes made by acer have no effect just because of their "magic solutions".

Well said mate

Nonoperational

3 minutes out of 2.5 hours? Steady on lads.

AtomicKoala

Nonoperational wrote: »

3 minutes out of 2.5 hours? Steady on lads.

The issue is that this is not like a Leaving Cert exam, where one would be looking over answers in the last few percent of the time of the exam - people are generally still trying to answer questions in section 3 in the last 5 minutes.

Personally, I went to the toilet during section 1 - as I had finished 10 minutes early and needed to go. I'd never have risked that in section 3 as I was dire at it, and I can empathise with the ~250 or so compromised students.

Personally, I think ACER should undertake a statistical analysis of the results and seek to compensate the affected students with a slight marking adjustment.

blue_velvet

Everyone here can complain all they want but that won't change the fact Acer have already come up with a solution. In the email they sent me they stated that the last 3 Qs of section three will not be scored for ANY Hpat candidate.

futuremedic19

blue_velvet wrote:

Everyone here can complain all they want but that won't change the fact Acer have already come up with a solution. In the email they sent me they stated that the last 3 Qs of section three will not be scored for ANY Hpat candidate.

As I said earlier that's rediculously unfair on all other candidates.

I hate the way ACER said the last 3 questions "Just happen to be unscored".

So many people must've done what I did which was to prioritise their time on the last 5 questions as they were relatively much easier and then come back to intelligently/blindly guessing the other questions in S3 that we skipped in order to focus more on the last few.

I atleast have my UK med schools aswell so it doesn't affect my med application entirely however if the irish applicants who now miss out on Medicine by 1-10 points have every right to be fuming in anger !!!!!!

JF77

May I just add that personally, I don't think Acer's "solution" to the time issue in Goldsmith Hall was satisfactory at all, especially for those who were in all the other test centres.

I believe that these candidates have been disadvantaged more so than the Goldsmith Hall candidates. We shouldn't be penalised for a mistake made in one test centre, which affected a small minority of the overall hpat candidates. I absolutely agree that the time issue was unfair for those in goldsmith and that something should be done to fairly (to all candidates) rectify this mistake. But I and others candidates shouldn't have questions which we spent precious time on and hopefully got right, taken away from our total scores. It's ridiculous and grossly unfair.

I missed medicine by one single point last year and took a year off to focus on my hpat. Last year, I remember some of the questions (as I'd seen similar questions before from a course I did) which were removed from the scoring. I believe that I got the right answer to these questions but despite spending time and effort on them, they were removed. Perhaps, if these hadn't have been removed, I and others could have been in college studying medicine. But instead, I had to sit the exam again to get into the course I wanted to. So, I decided to take the year out and focus solely on the ever important exam. I literally spent exhausted all the resources available to me and spent at least 20 hours a week studying for it.

So, when I heard that candidates in goldsmith were unfairly disadvantaged, I was disappointed in acer for not ensuring a smooth running of a pivotal exam two years in a row. Then when I heard their "solution" (if it's to be believed) I was outraged. Thus, I can absolutely understand the fury and disappointment felt by my fellow hpat candidates. Let's hope that other aspiring medicine students won't have to endure this horrible exam in the future.

Thank you for reading:)

blue_velvet

futuremedic19 wrote: »

As I said earlier that's rediculously unfair on all other candidates.

I hate the way ACER said the last 3 questions "Just happen to be unscored".

So many people must've done what I did which was to prioritise their time on the last 5 questions as they were relatively much easier and then come back to intelligently/blindly guessing the other questions in S3 that we skipped in order to focus more on the last few.

I atleast have my UK med schools aswell so it doesn't affect my med application entirely however if the irish applicants who now miss out on Medicine by 1-10 points have every right to be fuming in anger !!!!!!

They never said the last 3 questions "just happened to be unscored" they said in the email and I quote "Candidates who did not complete the last few questions of Section 3 should not be concerned. When ACER develops HPAT - Ireland, a small number of unscored items are included in the test. These can appear at any position in the test and ensure that HPAT -Ireland is developed according to the highest standards of test development. For HPAT - Ireland 2015 the last three non-verbal reasoning items were included as unscored items. No HPAT - Ireland 2015 candidate will receive a score for the final three non-verbal reasoning items." You say these last few questions were easy therefore even if they were being counted they would not have been worth many marks. In fact the questions intended not to be scored before the Goldsmith Hall issue was raised may have even been harder. Acer have reviewed all the reports from the Goldsmith Hall test centre and have reached this decision because obviously it is the fairest.

mhf55

The thing is I guess we'll never even know if they actually don't count those last 3 questions! No way of finding out

spurious

For a company that has ONE job to do, once a year....

sleepyheadh

JF77 wrote: »

I believe that I got the right answer to these questions but despite spending time and effort on them, they were removed. Perhaps, if these hadn't have been removed, I and others could have been in college studying medicine.

You don't know if you got them right or wrong!

If wishes were fishes!

randylonghorn

Xyzta wrote: »

To be perfectly honest, it sounds as though people are just looking for excuses to moan about the exam (and to shift the blame of their theoretical lower mark onto acer). Was is 3 minutes or 5 minutes or 10 minutes less you got? Because we've heard so many different stories.
Also, whereby the idea of a 'media storm' is swell, acer have made mistakes every year and every year the media doesn't bat an eyelid. Here's the kicker - people who don't want to study med/don't do the HPAT don't give a rats furry ass about how wronged you feel you are.
Finally, it's the same 5 or 6 people posting all the time, how can you guys possibly represent all of goldsmith hall and how do you expect to reach everyone involved? Basically, all I'm saying is that your ideas are great and all but they lack the basis to give an argument any stability.

Sorry, but having previously registered an alt account to troll this thread, you don't get to have an opinion on this one.

dalta5billion

I still haven't received any written accounts of what happened in Goldsmith Hall, and we can't really proceed without them, given that ACER has chosen to dispute the fundamental facts.

Even if you all forward the emails you sent in complaint to ACER to hpatsu@gmail.com then I can make a start on the process of contacting journalists, writing to the IMT etc - as I'll need the full facts in hand in order to move this thing on.

Also, like all of you, I'm absolutely swamped by study. If anyone would like to help out with the running of the union I'd be very grateful.

dalta5billion

ACER are ignoring my emails now.

From: "HPAT Students Union" <hpatsu@gmail.com>
Date: 22 Mar 2015 23:20
Subject: Re: Questions from HPAT Students Union
To: <hpat-ireland@acer.edu.au>
Cc:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I contacted you on March 13th with a list of questions as posed by the HPAT Students Union.

I would appreciate answers to these questions as soon as possible.

Regards,
HPAT Students Union

On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 10:06 PM, HPAT Students Union <hpatsu@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Sir/Madam,

I represent the HPAT Students Union, a newly formed group to advocate on behalf of students who have taken the HPAT Ireland test.

We have a number of questions regarding the running of the HPAT in 2015.

Q1. Are you aware that candidates in Goldsmith Hall, Trinity College Dublin were forced to hand up their exam five minutes too early?

Q2. Do you plan on making a public statement regarding this incident? Why/Why not?

Q3. How can this years exam be marked fairly, given that some candidates had less time to complete the exam than others?

Q4. Will a marking scheme be published to ensure transparency, given the occurrence of the above incident?

Q5. Many candidates are feeling distressed after this incident. Why should they trust ACER to make it right?



Regards,
HPAT Students Union.

EoghanIRL

I'm pretty sure it states on their website that they won't answer questions about the exam.

mhf55

EoghanIRL wrote: »

I'm pretty sure it states on their website that they won't answer questions about the exam.

But sure they replied saying that the last 3 questions in section 3 were unscored questions

sleepyheadh

Have my posts been deleted?

Any mods no anything about this?

dalta5billion

sleepyheadh wrote: »

Have my posts been deleted?

Any mods no anything about this?

I'm a bit surprised, you're certainly entitled to express your views (the ones that I've seen anyway), no matter how much I disagree with them.

sleepyheadh

dalta5billion wrote:

I'm a bit surprised, you're certainly entitled to express your views (the ones that I've seen anyway), no matter how much I disagree with them.

Would be helpful to know why they got deleted? Do you think I was out of line?