[etni] Fw: re: 4/5 point Bagrut dilemma

From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
To: "ETNI" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 07:42:18 +0200

----- Original Message -----From: "David & Ingride Lewis" <dlewis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Subject: Re: 4/5 point Bagrut dilemma


Hi David,

At our school, if a student is border line we advise them to take the 4
point so they have that in their pocket but to push for the 5 point. So in
the winter they will take C and D and then in Bagrut they will do the E in
winter and the F and G in summer.
I had a pupil who battled with 5 points . She did the 4 and passed and felt
much better, more confident and she tackled the 5 and just passed. But she
passed!!!!!!!!!

Hope this helps.

Sincerely
Ingride Lewis


David wrote:

This is a very important subject so I would like as many of
you to comment or advise on it as possible.
As a Bagrut teacher, I am often put into the situation in
which I have to decide whether a pupil is good enough to do
a 5 point Bagrut or whether he/she should do 4 points
instead. I know that this is a situation common to all
teachers and I thought that I had finally found the solution
to the dilemma, especially after a series of mailings on
this forum in the past year. However, it seems that many of
us had been misinformed.
I had been under the assumption that in the case of a
borderline 5 point pupil, the safest bet was to advise
him/her to sit the 4 point exam. The reason, as many people
have pointed out in the past, is that a high grade in 4
points is worth more than a scrape-through 5 point Bagrut
when all the bonuses are taken into account.
Truth be told, I had always been a bit puzzled by this. Why
should anyone want to slog their way through a 5 point
syllabus if, in the end,  all they had to do was the far
easier 4 point exam which would allow them to apply for
university?  Also, why were universities making do with
students who had only proved that they could read a text in
English at the level of Module E?
I was discussing this with a colleague the other day in the
teachers’ room [Note for Channel 10, we are working till
July 11th] when a young guy who has been doing an extra year
of national service before the army in my school joined in
the conversation. In his words any subject “that is worth
studying” (e.g medicine, law psychology) requires that
pupils will have done a 5 point Bagrut in English. As he has
recently looked into university acceptance requirements, his
information had to be accurate. What about the pupil’s
Bagrut average? I asked. After all, a good 4 point grade
would push it up. The answer he gave me took me aback as I
realised that I had been misleading my pupils. It seems that
these courses at university would not even look at a
candidate’s average if he/she had not done a 5 point exam.
What he went on to say was quite enlightening. If a pupil
has very good grades in all other subjects and the only one
that lets them down is English, then it is worth their while
staying in 5 points even if they will only scrape through in
the end. This will enable them to apply for the more
prestigious courses at university. If not, then they should
do 4 points to get their average up.
This information holds serious implications for us. It means
that we can’t make decisions based solely on English
performance but we need more data on every pupil we teach.
We need to know how well they are doing at school in general
and what their ambitions are. Most other subjects will
accept a 4-point Bagrut. (This in itself is strange as a
History degree in Israel, for instance, demands as much
reading in English as Law does. It seems that it’s all about
prestige.)
I would like to hear what others have to say on the subject
as it now appears that the decision whether to do a 4 or 5-
point Bagrut holds more significance that I had previously
understood.
Regards and Power to the Markers!



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[etni] Fw: re: 4/5 point Bagrut dilemma

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