Thursday, October 8, 2009

Gr 12 Practical exam


The Gr 12s have just finished writing their practical exam.  Thank goodness we have spent the last 5 weeks going over the 3 old papers.  I just hope it helped the learners.  We will find out in January 2010!

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

The columns with the english oneside and afrikaans the other side required some cutting and pasting. How else could you ensure they are in separate coloumns?

Anonymous said...

eK WENS EK HET OOK 5 WEKE GEHAD OM HERSIENING TE DOEN. ONS SKOLE HET MAANDAG BEGIN EN WOENSDAG EN DONDERDAG MOES ONS TIK. EK IS OP ENGEDAAN. EK KAN GLO ALLES MOET SO AFGEJAAG GEWORD HET NIE. SO BAIE MAKLIKER GEWEES HET AS ONS VOLGENDE WEEK KON TIK.
DINK VRAESTEL WAS BIETJIE LANK VIR DIE LEERDERS WAT NIE SO GOED LEES NIE.

BGR said...

I think it was actually a really nice paper. The bright kids could do really well and the stragglers could pass.
The paper was not too long. It was easily achievable compared to last years paper which was longer.
I initially moaned about the early date but when you consider that most learners would not really use the extra time to study that much. I am glad it's over. It gives me time to give theory some time (which is often neglected).

Anonymous said...

The paper was easy enough for the learners, but... the learners had difficulty understanding a number of the questions. Bear in mind that most learners have weak literacy skills. This should be taken into consideration in the future. The Afrikaans learners had an advantage in that the questions were easier to understand. My guess is that the paper was compiled by an educator in the English speaking southern suburbs.

Anonymous said...

The yellow info sheets were fantastic and really assisted both the kids and teachers in checking that all files had been saved correctly. Although a few kids finished the paper on time, all considered it should have made provision for the fact that the kids don't read well.

Anonymous said...

With reference to the previous comments my kids could read all the questions. Which questions were difficult to understand?

Peter said...

The question with the columns was a big mystery. I also tried in OpenOffice but had no luck. Maybe it is easy to do in Office 2007 about which I know nothing - any ideas?

I felt it was a very fair examination. The only words which confused a couple of my Xhosa learners were "services rendered".

For those schools who finished exams on the last day of term, their was little time to revise. I tried to organise extra classes but they all said they had to study for the Science exam on the last day of term. I am aware of the reason for the early dates. Next years provisional timetable also has the same dates - I suggest that as many of us as possible request postponement to the following week.

Anonymous said...

One of the problems I had was to motivate my students for the last push, I don't think they really understand the gravity of a final practical paper because it doesn't fall into an exam. They just aren't in the exam "mood", if I can call it that. Personally I feel that the ideal date for the Practical Exam is the last week of the 3rd Term. Why not? Although most schools don't have exams in the 3rd term, most have either a test series or exam at that stage. We would have plenty of time for revision, the revision would be fresh in the minds of the students. I understand the problems relating to this, but Computer Studies SG/HG was always done in the 3rd term? Why not CAT as well? Either that, or move it on slightly to the 2nd week of the 4th term.

The paper was reasonable, in some sense actually easier than I expected. About half of my students struggled to finish the paper 100%, although most finished it and were busy going through the paper by the end of the 3 hours. Now I'm just hoping the Theory sticks to the same standard? At least I will have more time to revise for it. As said above, the Theory is often neglected.

Anonymous said...

It was a well balanced paper. Maybe too long for the second language learners. I really like the idea that we get about 2 weeks in which we can do theory. I make use of worksheets to do revision and the learners find it very useful

Anonymous said...

I agree that the paper was fair. I would suggest that all educators focus on using explorer and search in grade 10 and 11 and leave it out of an exam paper for gr12. This would automatically free up time for the slower learner to finish on time. It is not acceptable for any learner not to finish an exam practical. Papers should be set up to accommodate the slower learner too. We must remember that our subject suites the learner that struggles in all other learning areas. 40- 50% of all my learners come from other subjects that they sruggle with in grade 10, 11 and sometimes even in gr12. This is not Accounting where no one ever finishes on time. Give all an equal chance. Dividing the strong learner from the less skilled should be in the question-level of difficulty and not on their typing speed.

Anonymous said...

Typing speed has got nothing to do with a practical paper of this nature. Please...
It is about skills, not typing speed.

Anonymous said...

I concur. Typing speed isn't going to make much difference to how long a learner takes to do the File Handling question for example, which is where my students tend to waste unnecessary time. The idea is to limit the amount of typing needed in ANY practical paper to the bare minimum. This is CAT, not computyping. The paper was very nice. I am happy with the standard, though I feel it could do with a few more high level thinking questions for my performers. There was more than enough for my stragglers to pass the paper.

AA said...

Majority of the learners in my class do not have access to a computer outside of their CAT teaching time.

I was most disappointed that they had no access to a computer since the 7 September when prep exams began.

I would like to suggest that the paper be written closer to the "official" start of the exam period.

At least they would have a few weeks in term 4 to practice.

Anonymous said...

@ AA

The problem is with the logistics. You know that in each province those data CD's/DVD's must be checked if they contain the right data (if any at all) virus problems, etc. before the marking session starts. Last year we ran into the problem that when the marking session started we found many, many schools where some kind of problem came into being with the CD. (Only shortcuts, blank CD's, virus problems, etc.etc.) The problem being that those teachers don't check their work, and they are unavailable when we then want the "backup" CD (which in some cases wasn't even done!!). So this is one of the main reasons why the paper was moved ahead. In the future we should just accept this, and plan accordingly. The timetable was available in January 2009.

I know it's not the ideal solution, but it solves more problems, than it creates if we do some good planning.

Good luck to all the Gr 12's with the Theory exam!

mariettew4@absamail.co.za said...

My kids said it was a fair paper and the only thing that they struggled with was the Afr Eng columns. I would also like to know what was the correct manner of doing it because cutting and pasting takes too long.
The stronger kids did complete the paper in time but the rest didn't finish and reached only question 6. I would have liked an nested IF-statement because I really spend a lot of time teaching it to my kids.
The exam was tooooooo early! It really could have started two weeks later to give a change of revision. Bare in mind that because of this too early exam paper, some of the kids didn't attend school anymore because they had an "exam feeling"