[etni] Fw: re: questions on unseens

----- Original Message ----- From: "maxinetz" <maxinetz@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: questions on unseens


As usual, it boils down to money. More questions means the pupils have to be given more time to answer them. The longer the exam the more money has to be paid to people to proctor the exams! I honestly think it is that simple. Plus, of course, there is the pedagogical consideration: how many questions can a pupil answer and remain conscious? Even on the old 5-point Bagrut ("old" is a relative term, of course; I still remember the Bagruts with dialogues, rewrites, 25-word clozes and 250-word compositions) when there were three unseens, there were no more than 8 questions per unseen. It just seemed like more then, because the exam was longer and
each question had a value of 2-3 points.

I personally would prefer to have more questions per unseen and give the pupils more time to answer them in, let's say, 2 hours per exam like Math gets. (although they finish at 8:00 PM!!) At least the G exam, ostensibly the most difficult one, should be two hours long, with a longer unseen, more questions and a proper, 250-word essay.

Regards, Maxine Tsvaigrach 


From: "Erich Lewitus" <erichl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: questions on unseens

Can anybody p- l -e- a -s- e give me an answer to why there are so few questions on the unseens, which carry so many points. I have been begging for an answer since the NBA started, and no one, official or not, has given me an answer. I often discuss this with my students and I feel a real idiot that I have no logical answer. Not to mention my feeling of embarrassment at the questions themselves, which don't reflect their true knowledge of
English. The extremely clever kids just have to go down a few notches to be able to relate to the logic of the question.

What would happen if more questions were asked? Is there something that only exam- paper writers are aware of and we poor uninitiated mortals are kept in the dark about? Well, please enlighten me on the subject. Some of us have
actually studied how to be teachers and would love to be in on any new theories.

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