Why don't they label parts in Physics exam?

worm00111

One of the reasons I can think of is so that you read through it carefully, but wouldn't they just not use labels for any other exams as well?

Lara_15

Nah apparently it's in case you answer one part of the question within another part so you can still get the marks
That's what my teacher said anyways

dalta5billion

Stupidest thing ever. I''d love to hear the justification for it.

TimeToShine

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

OMGeary

It's so when people are doing the questions, they miss parts and lose marks. Seriously, It's so easy to do. I mark the (a), (b), (c) etc... so I don't miss a part.

rainbowtrout

worm00111 wrote: »

One of the reasons I can think of is so that you read through it carefully, but wouldn't they just not use labels for any other exams as well?

I tell my students to label it themselves in the exam as they read through the question.

Mark each part after they read a sentence if it requires an answer. At least then they won't miss a part by accident which could easily happen.

Peregrine

Physics had the most annoying layout of any LC paper. No matter how carefully I went through it, I used to miss parts all the time. It took a while to get used to it.

TimeToShine wrote: »

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

But it is broke.

EoghanIRL

Nim wrote: »

Physics had the most annoying layout of any LC paper. No matter how carefully I went through it, I used to miss parts all the time. It took a while to get used to it.



But it is broke.

I don't see how myself. It's not hard to read a question. You have more than enough time in the physics exam to answer everything properly and read all the questions thoroughly .

rainbowtrout

EoghanIRL wrote: »

I don't see how myself. It's not hard to read a question. You have more than enough time in the physics exam to answer everything properly and read all the questions thoroughly .

People panic and do silly things all the time in exams. I've come across a number if students over the years when viewing scripts in august where they missed part of a question. And it's not usually because they left a gap in their answer book and forgot to fill it in.

A student of mine ( not in physics) answered a question structured with an A, B, C structure this summer. Viewed the paper in august. A and B answered only. When he had finished part b he had finished at the end of a page. Turned over to start the next page and presumably just thought ' new page, new question'. Missed an A grade as a result.

Its very easily done and more so in physics where there is no labelling system

EoghanIRL

If it was a serious reoccuring problem in scripts then I presume the sec would have done something about it by now.

dalta5billion

EoghanIRL wrote: »

If it was a serious reoccuring problem in scripts then I presume the sec would have done something about it by now.

Just because students have adapted to a broken system doesn't mean the system isn't broken.

What is most frustrating IMO is the mixing of lettering & no lettering, this causes even more problems. It's also a cop-out so that the marking scheme can be bell-curved without prejudice to the marks stated on the original examination paper.

spurious

dalta5billion wrote: »

It's also a cop-out so that the marking scheme can be bell-curved without prejudice to the marks stated on the original examination paper.

In that case it's in the interests of the candidates as it ensures the top 20% or so of candidates get their A1 or A2. If they just went on marks and didn't apply the bell curve there would be some years where a very small percentage got an A. Using the bell curve means if a student is in the top 10-20%, they will get their A1 or A2.

evolving_doors

spurious wrote: »

In that case it's in the interests of the candidates as it ensures the top 20% or so of candidates get their A1 or A2. If they just went on marks and didn't apply the bell curve there would be some years where a very small percentage got an A. Using the bell curve means if a student is in the top 10-20%, they will get their A1 or A2.

The opposite is true too though. Just from marking I know if we have 'too many' A's then some borderliners will get bumped down!
So in that sense an ambiguous marking scheme serves the curve/corrector 'more so than the student.

spurious

Armelodie wrote: »

The opposite is true too though. Just from marking I know if we have 'too many' A's then some borderliners will get bumped down!
So in that sense an ambiguous marking scheme serves the curve/corrector 'more so than the student.

It's swings and roundabouts, really, but sometimes people like to imply 'people who should have got A didn't' and that's not how it works at all.

Raspberry Fileds

Armelodie wrote: »

The opposite is true too though. Just from marking I know if we have 'too many' A's then some borderliners will get bumped down!
So in that sense an ambiguous marking scheme serves the curve/corrector 'more so than the student.

That's very much my biggest objection to the way in which the grade-distribution is maintained - that the changes to the marking scheme are blind and often punish students who understood the underlying concept but who made a minor mistake. (An example I give is "colourless" vs "clear" - there is a semantic argument that a meaning of "clear" could indeed be "without colour". But even if it doesn't mean that, the student, in giving "clear" instead of "colourless", was evidently entirely aware the substance was without colour and merely confused the words; I can see an argument for writing a reminder at the top of experiments page to not confuse the two - it's a test of concepts not language.) If exams were made up of MCQs, the weightings could be adjusted based on how well-answered questions were, which would be a sounder way of doing it.