To get the top grades/highest marks in a response, students need to go over and above including the key points.
They need to be able to link them together to show interrelationships and develop references.
I give you some pointers and examples in this Video Diary entry on Day 3 of the 2016 QCS Marking Operation 🙂
Vague = bad
Specific = GOOD!
That’s me being clear and concise 😉
To get top grades or marks in an exam answer, students must leave nothing to be ‘filled in’ or inferred by the marker. Therefore terminology and descriptions need to be specific. Detail is key here and I give you some examples now in Part 2 of this year’s Exam Marker Video Diary.
Welcome to Day 1 of my 2016 Exam Marking Video Diary!
Yaaayyyy!!!
I seriously get very excited about exam marking and that is probably why I made not one, but two videos today that I have merged together for you 🙂
Makes me sound like a super-geek, I know (and I am a little bit anyway, so hey) but it is exam marking that has always been THE biggest source of revelations when it comes to tutoring and coaching students for their best grades and performance.
Exam marking is getting inside the ‘black box’.
Where all the nitty gritty is discussed in training – why this response got a D, how that answer got an A.
Anyway… today I introduce you to the criteria and skills covered in the unit I’m marking and why this video diary will be relevant for ANY student, in ANY state who will be sitting exams in ANY subject.
It’s that time of year again!
The QLD Year 12 students have completed their QCS (QLD Core Skills) exams and so now it’s time for us markers to kick in and get training and marking!
Here’s the intro to this year’s Exam Marking Video Diary…
I often talk about the importance of command words in tasks and questions, but it’s probably no surprise that there’s a little more to perfecting exam technique. (In fact there are 6 different key elements).
What about the smaller, less obvious elements that are clues to crafting a great answer?
This week I look at the less obvious points to look for – just like the subtle observations that Sherlock is so famous for in his deductions.
Watch the video to get some specific examples I came across lately that caught some students out.
When we’re all so short on time these days, I like to be able to make use of my ‘dead time’ in any way I can!
And there are many ways for students to do this too.
Find out how I used a car break-down to my advantage and my top ways for your teen to use their time on a bus journey to help them reduce their stress and get more done.
Model answers/responses are a gold mine of information and inspiration when it comes to figuring out how to write fab answers.
They can also sometimes appear a little overwhelming or ‘out of reach’.
So how can your teen get the most out of them?
What should they really look for and how should they dissect them to actually provide practical and tangible info and guidance?
We all have things we (maybe secretly) ‘geek-out’ on, right? Things that are super-interesting to us, things that we get excited or on our soap-box about when we get going on them! Politics, literature, tech-y stuff… pokemon???!
For me, my not-so-secret confession for an obsession most would find dull is exam marking.
Here is how and why I got so obsessed with this and how your teen can benefit from my geek-y-ness!
Why would anyone walk out of a room excited, after getting a D grade on a response they worked hard on?
Here’s what happened to turn a not-so-great result into an oh-so-good learning experience….
This was perhaps the quickest test in the history of school tests!
But it had a super-important lesson that has stuck with me over 15 years on.
And it is a timeless lesson, because it is one that your teen needs to learn too.
If they want to ensure they give the examiner/teacher/assessor/other marker-type-person(!) exactly what they have asked for (and therefore the maximum marks they are capable of).
