What do you get if you cross the most dreaded type of exam Q with the one type of Q that’s almost always worth the most marks?
Nope, that was not the start of a joke – I’m useless at telling jokes.
And that would be a pretty dull joke, right?
I’m talking about a real combo that crops up in exams way too often for many students.
Here’s what it is and why these Qs are so dang tough!
(Just a heads up: There’s a lot I want to cover on this, so this is part one of two videos I’m going to do on this – so be sure to look out for the second one next week!)
For most students – or at least those who haven’t been through my exam technique training 😉
– this isn’t a good combo.
Because, who wants a situation where the one type of Q you don’t feel confident in,
the one type of Q you DON’T want to come up,
not only does actually crop up (pretty commonly) but also is worth a BIG chunk of marks on the paper.
And I can tell you, I was pretty clueless on how exactly to respond to these Qs when I was a student too.
You might’ve guessed what I’m talking about, because I’ve talked about these Qs before.
They’re right at the top of the pyramid of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Marzano’s Taxonomy.
They are the evaluation level Qs.
Go and check out my Blog entitled ‘Look out – these Qs are super common’ if you’d like to hear more about where and just how much they’re cropping up across all subjects right now.
But today, I want to explain WHY these Qs are so tough.
It’s not just because this is a command at the top end of cognitive processing.
Although that is the case and does in itself make these common high end exam Qs a challenge.
But, in the eyes of students, it’s because the wording of them just sounds so open or vague.
Or at least they do on first appearances OR if you don’t have a specific strategy and proven structure to tackle them.
These are the questions that just give a statement and then say – ‘discuss’.
Just that word, ‘discuss’, sends students into waffle mode, or worse, total mind-blank.
These are also the Qs that start with the words: ‘To what extent’… or ‘Assess’…
They may even have the word evaluate in them, like ‘Evaluate the success of’….
So students struggle for two main reasons – and over this and my next blog, I’m going to give you the reasons AND solutions to these struggles, so stick with me 🙂
Firstly:
Students aren’t clear on how to identify an evaluate level command in the first place.
They need the training in identifying and making sense of commands and cognitive verbs and the different ways they can be expressed.
One way they can do this is to research Bloom’s taxonomy and then find heaps of example Qs and fit them to each level.
Or, an easier way is to go through Catapults 6 and 7 in my 10 Week Grade Transformation Program 😉
And secondly, even when they figure out that they’re looking at an evaluation level Q, they don’t have a clear strategy to tackle it or a structure to follow in their response.
So, the first thing they need to know is that any evaluation Q or task requires them to make a judgement.
Think about it, look at plenty of examples, and you’ll see this is true for any type of evaluation.
EXAMPLES:
A science evaluation means your teen’s judging how well the experiment went – was their data read or measured accurately, was the methodology correctly carried out, are their results reliable?
Or if they’re evaluating a product in Design Tech– they’re judging how well that product meets the needs and demands of the target audience, how well it meets the specifications.
And to evaluate in the arts subjects, they are judging how well an author or message to the reader for a novel, or artist conveys a certain mood.
Or they’re judging how important a particular leader was in shaping events in History, or judging how effective a particular film technique is in making a documentary appealing or striking to an audience.
Be sure to catch Part 2 of this info in how to deal with those high level Evaluation essays and exam Qs in my next video next week where I’ll give you the EXACT words that’ll help ANY student make sense of these Qs, know exactly what they’re really asking AND be able to structure a response accordingly.
In the mean time, I explain ALL of this and give even more examples and full response templates for all subjects in Catapult 10 of my 10 Week Grade Transformation Program which builds on the Command Words training in the earlier modules and goes into this particular command in detail.
Plus we’ll be diving deep into evaluation level Qs in the Exam Mastery Workshop.
Can’t wait to see your teen in one of those trainings very soon!
Until next week, let’s make this a fantastic week.
Katie 🙂
