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HSC: My finals ruined by administrative blunders

kuroimisa

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From: http://www.petitiononline.com/englishb/

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To: Board Of Studies Administration
Dear 2005 HSC Students and Board Of Studies representatives,

I have recently become aware, as I am sure many of you have, that the integrity of this years HSC English Exams have been severely tainted. Our future careers may have been severely jeopardised by an incident that occurred early on Monday morning, just as the majority of us were sitting down to begin the gruelling process of our final exams.

Reports by the media, and as seen on the Bored Of Studies website, clearly show that a high school in Coffs Harbour was mistakenly handed the wrong English paper, the HSC English Advanced Paper 2, which is meant to be sat by all of Advanced English 2005 on Thursday.

Although the authorities claim that the incorrect examination papers were taken from the students before the 10 minutes of reading time even began, it can be argued that all it takes is one student to look at even one question, for our exams to be severely tainted.

Us, the Students of the 2005 HSC, have created this petition in order to let the Board Of Studies know that we refuse to let our exams be jeopardised by the examiners stupid mistakes and therefore demand for the papers to be re-written.

The students of 6 various schools in New South Wales would recall a recent similar incident in which their Trial HSC English exams had to be re-sat because of an administrative blunder at Cheltenham Girls High School.

Don’t force the students to have their UAI’s ruined by this recent administrative blunder. Let us have our say. It is our HSC and future we are talking about afterall.

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What is this?

Many of you know I am sitting for my finals. In New South Wales, Australia, it is called The higher School Certificate or the HSC.

It is these final exams that contribute to 50% of our total marks. Then the Board of Studies (people who wrote the courses and subjects) look at what subjects we do and my grade at my school on the whole to decided whether or not your ranking as a percentage of the state gets pushed up or down. It is this modified percentage which allows us to access the University course of our choice.

What happened?

Today was my first exam, English. It is a gruelling 2 hours of non stop writing.

Every student must sit the English course. It is divided into two papers, 1 and 2.

Today was paper 1, Thursday is paper 2.

At a school up north, the supervisors handed out paper 2 to the students, which is meant to be sat in 3 days' time.

My questions:

Has your school ever stuffed up by handing out papers by accident?

and

What are your thoughts on this issue? Should the Board rewrite and postpone the exam, or alternatively, continue on Thursday by handing us out this paper people have already seen?

*feels uber depressed now*

A whole year of study and it comes down that these people stuffed up -_-' Great... *sigh*

Edit: Just to clarify, all students in the state sit the exam at the same time. If you miss the exam, there is no substitute task- you receive an immediate zero. It doesn't matter if you encountered a car accident, or like last year's case, you were held up by storm floods, you still receive a zero. Hence, after the exam, you can take the test paper and distribute it because everyone in the state has done the exam.

The paper 2 was not completed by those students who got the paper, but they looked at the questions. At least one student would have remembered a question- a head start for Thursday.

If you like, Paper 1 and Paper 2 are confidential exams until the completion of the exam.

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shinsengumi

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Misa, that's terrible. This is a very interesting dilemma for the board, as the possibility of widespread fraud is very high. On the other hand, coming up with an entirely new set of questions and distributing them to all of the schools by Thursday would be prohibitively difficult, and postponing the exam entirely could throw an established schedule of exams and applications completely off course. Either way, it's the students who suffer.

Either way, there is no fair way to go about this without essentially penalizing either all students as a whole or students from the particular school in question. I'm glad I did not have to suffer through the same just a few years ago when I took my Advanced Placement exams in high school, but as someone who has gone through similar examination systems, I sympathize with you and wish you the best of luck, no matter how things turn out.

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speedfreek19

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that didnt happen to me when i sat my HSC exams, although having to do a 2hr exam again is a pain in the neck, that said, i didnt do too well overall T__T

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hope that doesnt happen to me, god damn SC in a couple of weeks
EDIT: i just remembered that goth teacher at my school, gardener or something, who was giving away an essay question for the HSC for$$$ got arrested, that was funny

aiya.

kuroimisa

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You're fine schimke.

Everybody passes the SC, because even if you fail they give you a jipped mark.

Argggg I don't want to tell my mum about this... I only found out this like half an hour ago... T_T


edit: haahahah that's funny... we had this science teacher who was selling papers and then he got transferred... and you didn't hear about the trials this year either schimke. Apparently like 5 schools had to resit 4 hours worth of papers because someone leaked it out. It was a purchased papers. Fools. That's why you should write your own :\

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Tenner

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Sucks to be you... never had something like that happen at my school. Best we got was the English teacher having a bookmark in the novel we were tackling so when he left the room for a while someone moved up to the desk and checked. The bookmarked passage was indeed on the exam... the results weren't any better though in the end. X)

Akaiken

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Sorry, never encountered such thing here in the Philippines and no such thing is being implemented here. But the way I understand it, it's kinda freaky! I used to love English but with that HSC thing... maybe I'll hate English more than what I hate most... Sciences! XD

Hmm... I guess some problems are on that particular exam or something like that eh... x_x

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PAche

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sheesh, from their letter, the only message i get is that the board is worried about their own reputation as well as the paper's credit, most prob since they get their salaries from it.it's ridiculous, i know.

it is unfair to the students, none of them are at fault for this blunder, it is entirely the invigilators' mistake.two whole hours of writing isn't very nice, that's for sure.at least your right hand(you're right handed right?) got some excercise and lost some fats XD.

however you must also see it from their view.even if they had good intentions, what could they do to make it fair again other than force you all to retake it? you might say you don't mind them just forgetting about it, but you have to bear in mind that reputation is a very important aspect to their decision. i bet they don't give a shi t how this turns out for you, but by doing this, they are also saving your credits.

if word gets out that such a scandal has taken place, the value of the certificate will go down. when that happens, you graduating from such an exam won't be as "wow" for employers anymore.imagine someone from harvard and another from some unknown university trying to apply for the same job. in most cases, the harvard student would win, maybe not because he's more capable than the other, but because he's got "harvard" on his cert while the other dude got "unknown".

you do have the right to be pissed and frustrated that such a foolish act by the invigilators themselves led to your suffering.but there really isn't much choice, and it would also affect you, whatever they did in response to this mishap.

besides, they are the ones in charge, and they are the ones that make the final decision.whether you shout and scream and wail or glare and take it in stride, they are still the ones saying "go" in the end.

i'm sorry for you.i truly am.maybe they sohuld try getting y'all to type instead of write.after writing for so long, i bet you're sick and tired of it like me

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lapuk

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i just don't get it why the students should suffer from the blunders of your admins.. here in the philippines(same as ken, unfortunately..hehe), we can not let that happen. if someone leaks out, then investigate first who and how they did that, then punish those involved, not everyone.. its just pathetic to think that you should suffer from one school's idiot teacher.

Kidder

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whoa that's ridiculous. This sort of thing has never happened at my old school, as far as I know. I really hope they sort it all out so that everyone has a fair chance at getting good marks. However I don't think they'd beable to rewrite the whole paper by thursday, but still wish you the best of luck.

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swiftsword420

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thats horrible misa! how could they mistake one test for another? i mean. it says test 2 on it does it not? otherwise they wouldnt be able to tell them apart!(besides the content that is) that gotta be one of the worst blunders ive ever heard of. they should not only rewrite the test. but also, give the students something in return for their sorry mistake!

that really unfortuanate! you guys mustve studied very hard for those tests.

tevi

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... Yeah, I heard about that on the news... They can't re-write the paper though... It took the whole year to write those several questions... [God knows why... But it's the English staff... Can't blame their crappy math skills... And lack of various other skills...] That and they need a bazillion check-overs of the exam paper to see if band-one people can still pass it... [That's what I call a fair system XD] ... So yeah... I wonder what'll happen if they put in the National system... That's one reason not to put it in, eh? XD Otherwise, we'd all have to sit it at the exact same time... So, we'd get a lot of morning exams, and west-coasters would get a lot of arvo-exams... Fun... [At least that would guarantee Sydney-sider Latiners wouldn't get two arvo exams... *evil stare...*]

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Akaiken

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Quote by lapuki just don't get it why the students should suffer from the blunders of your admins.. here in the philippines(same as ken, unfortunately..hehe), we can not let that happen. if someone leaks out, then investigate first who and how they did that, then punish those involved, not everyone.. its just pathetic to think that you should suffer from one school's idiot teacher.

This man said it just fine.

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EternalParadox

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If the order of Paper 1 and then paper 2 isn't all that much a necessity, I would have just let the students continue with paper 2 and then administer paper 1 on thursday. But of course, I know nothing of your school's curriculum or testing procedures, so that's just a wild hunch.

Nonetheless, I am very sorry to hear this. I myself have never had something like this happen except on regular class tests and quizes which are not nearly as important as an exam. However, a few years ago a shipment of my schools International Bacculareate Standard Level Mathematical Methods Exams got lost because in transporting the exams to the grading location at another school somewhere in Africa, the truck was hijacked on route and so everybody had to redo the whole thing. But of course, that's a very different issue than a "leaked" exam.

I would personally continue with the petition because I feel that an unfair advantage is the worst of evils in an academic situation. True, as shinsengumi said, pushing back exam dates to create a new set of questions would also make the students suffer, but I think that's still a much better result than allowing anyone an unfair advantage in the exams.

I do hope that everything is resolved in as well a manner as possible.

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kuroimisa

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Quote by EternalParadoxIf the order of Paper 1 and then paper 2 isn't all that much a necessity, I would have just let the students continue with paper 2 and then administer paper 1 on thursday. But of course, I know nothing of your school's curriculum or testing procedures, so that's just a wild hunch.

Hmmmm well actually the order of paper 1 and paper 2 does matter, because the whole state sits the paper 1 at the same time. At the end of the paper... students are allowed to take the test paper out of the room. Those questions could be publicised, and then shared with the rest of the state.

The catch is that the majority of us are yet to sit the test on Thursday. Those who have friends will have an advantage from knowing the test questions beforehand.

The school up north did not sit paper2, rather they looked through the paper already. I'm pretty sure with such an important exam, students would take the opportunity to absorb the questions as well as they can before the writing time even begins. It would be a shock to find it's the wrong paper.

So paper 2 has been looked over. And needless to say, there must be at least one student who can remember the questions.

The HSC also has a policy that if you don't get to the exam for any reason- being in an accident, falling sick, encountering floods and being unable to arrive at the exam centre- you immediately receive a zero, because there is no substitute task to make up for this final exam. That's why everyone must sit it at the same time...

So just to clarify, the HSC is not my school system but rather a state system... everyone must sit it at the same time because everyone receives the same questions.


Actually this year, we have been pretty unfortunate. In one of my previous posts I mentioned a leaked exam: that was with the trials. These are in the same format as the HSC and are to get the students familiar with the time given and the format. These are worth a lot out of your school assessments, so people try to do their best.

There was a paper called the Catholic Paper. It is written by some school (I think probably a Private school), and some other schools purchase this paper off the school to give to their students. That way, the staff do not need to write their own.

That paper somehow became leaked, and many schools had to resit at least 4 hours of exam time. I was lucky to have a school that writes their own papers... but that'd be horrible to think your exams were over, and then you would have to repeat them.

Well, the only thing to hope for now is that on Thursday when it probably goes ahead, that I'll just try my best. I guess when they mark it they'll keep in mind there are many prepared answers- but overall I still will end up with a good mark because I do good subjects which will push my overall mark up in the end. *shrugs* such is life... I can't do anything about it... just feeling a bit emo that they took a whole year to write the paper and then leak it out by doing something foolish like that T_T

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Akaiken

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Gee... that's one true problem, XD. And it's very bad.

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PAche

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seems like there are quite a few teachers selling papers.never happened in singapore far 's i know.maybe cos such stuff is considered corruption and corruption is a big issue here

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This kind of stuff has never happened in my school, at least. Not that I know if any happened in other school. The rules are strict here and they will re-check the exam papers to see if they're the wrong ones. And of course, definitely they have to rewrite another new question. I'd be happy to sit down for a test that questions I've seen if I'm given the chance. :p

You only use 2 hours just to complete those english papers? >.< I have 2 papers too. 1st paper is essay while the 2nd paper are objectives, literature and summary writing. And each is about 2hrs +. Sometimes about 2hrs 15 mins, sometimes 2hrs 30 mins. You can break your backbone, really. ^^

But I do hope problems will be solved soon. I wonder what's going on in the education department?

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DanTheGreat

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injustice!!!

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that thing was for real?? i thought it was a hoax the first time i read it........

damn the bos~!!!

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kuroimisa

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lol of course it was for real!

what's more dumber is that they claim very few people saw the exam... something I highly doubt... there were rumours that the questions are on the net or something o_0

*how come I can't find em* :(

The exam's tomorrow!

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cardmage

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Ok... I understand what you're saying... stupid administrative details... Just do your best I suppose. You can't really fight against stupid admin. And that paper of yours is already over, right? Hope you do well.

What should be done about this? The exam board should take responsibility I guess. I would think the way to solve it, since paper 2 hasn't been sat for, would be to postpone paper 2 and make a new exam script which everyone will sit for.

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sorry for that kuroimisa, I can´t give you my opinion because in my country we don´t have anything like that. and the other hand abuot lose it is very bad even if your parents die if you lose the exam you can´t do it later is terrible why don´t you make a meeting whith your classmate and talk about it and a huelga(when you lose class until they solve the problem)

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GOODLUCK!don't get angry with them, just go on with life, this thing won't kill you, at most simply paralyse your hand

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