Friday, June 22, 2007

Lost!

Dear Learning Facilitators and Students,

It is with great regret that I must inform you of the disappearance of the Science questions which we had hoped to use in this year's exams. We are at present unsure of their exact whereabouts, but fortunately we have been able to replace them with some Media Studies questions of equal quality, which we hope you will find satisfactory.

Once again, my apologies and I hope that you will continue to choose us as your 'Science Without the Science' provider in the future.

Yours Faithfully,

T. Lysenko (Head of Curriculum Design, AQA)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't doubt that the Media Studies questions will be of equal - dismal - quality. Could any of you Teacher-types give us some examples of the missing science questions? It would be nice to have evidence when I tell my children it was much harder in my day.

Rich

Anonymous said...

Q8 AQA March 07 biology paper.

Toads eat flying insects.

Wasps have black and yellow striped bodies and a sting.

Hoverflies have black and yellow bodies but no sting.

A young toad which had never seen a wasp or a hoverfly before was presented with a wasp. The toad attempted to eat it but quickly let it go.
The toad was then presented with a hoverfly but did not attempt to eat it.

Question. The toad probably released the wasp because....

A. It had an umpleasant taste.
B. The toad did not like the black and yellow colouring of the wasp
C. The toad was not hungry.
D. The wasp stung the toad.

it then follows of course with...

The toad did not eat the hoverfly because...

A. Hoverflies do not taste very nice.
B. Hoverflies have a nasty sting.
C. it was not hungry.
D. It's colours acted as a warning.

Total 2 marks. It is purely a test of how much guff you are willing to wade through to answer a question.
The rest of the spec is basically GM crops, global warming ( without the chemistry behind it, alternative energy sources ( without the physics).
It could have been written by a politician.

Anonymous said...

Anon you're taking the piss right?
please tell me that is not a serious question.

Anonymous said...

Q8 AQA science paper B1A March07 multiple choice.

Poor toad.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, meant paper B1b.

Anonymous said...

anon - the sad thing is that I'm moving from an OCR science school to an AQA science school....and that's an improvement.

Anonymous said...

T Lysenko. Very good Mr. C

Anonymous said...

That looks like a starter question to me. So that you can properly work out a students level you do need some easier questions. Some of my special needs students would find that question very difficult. Worrying mainly because they're is too much for them to read and then interpret. If you verbally asked them why a toad wouldn't eat a wasp they could probably answer.

Anonymous said...

DavidMBaker said

What your students are especially in need of is a more competent teacher.

ba ba said...

Mr Chalk, can you please read this post of mine, im simply horrified by the state the poor girl is in. Is it really that bad in comprehensives?

ba ba said...

Of course, the post i want you to read needs a link, and here it is;

http://bnpandme.blogspot.com/2007/06/something-of-update-on-schooling.html

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
DavidMBaker said

What your students are especially in need of is a more competent teacher.

09:55

Anonymous, you are an ignorant twat.