The Guardian reports that the new GSCE science exam is "controversial" because of suspicion that the questions have been "dumbed down" with multiple-choice questions that are insufficiently challenging.
They offer a sample of eight questions that a reasonably educated person could answer correctly while half-asleep and thoroughly intoxicated. There is of course no way to know how representative the questions selected by the Guardian are.
Take the quiz and see what you think.
There is a much more entertaining quiz offered by one of the British universities for Christmas break. It's lost somewhere amongst my thousand bookmarks; I'll see if I can track it down for a future blogpost.
Eight out of eight!
ReplyDeleteI missed two, number 1 and number 7.
ReplyDeleteHere are my wrong answers:
She is aware of a risk but decides to go ahead
The virus is not affected by drugs
I'm only embarrassed about missing #7
You're talking about the exam that is purposefully impossible to pass, right? It comes out annually printed in a local paper I believe.
ReplyDeleteYes, Monique. It's an exam that students take home during Xmas break and try to solve with their families. The questions are about impossibly obscure entities.
ReplyDeleteI'll find it this weekend. I'm the equivalent of a compulsive hoarder of bookmarks. As soon as I can dig myself out...
Found it! For those who can't stand the suspense, it's the King Williams College General Knowledge test. Here's a sample one -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/23/king-williams-quiz-2008
I'll blog this later. It'll take a while to sort through and organize...
The President says we're not going to dumb things down anymore so we can become competitive. Hope that's true.
ReplyDeleteeight out of eight. i guessed on seven and eight. yikes, that is a ridiculously easy quiz. the king williams one...not so much. i'm going to attempt it this weekend, but i don't have time now. btw, minnesotastan, thanks for running this blog, its very interesting, and keeps many people entertained and informed.
ReplyDelete