Of course NZ schools did not take the teaching-to-mastery approach.

Tests and exams generally had a few questions that had not been done in class or homework (more such questions the longer the exam). The original idea of testing in NZ was to rank students in order of ability. Stretch questions are a good way of separating out the top students.

But if 10% of the exam or test is deliberately set to push the top students, and you allow another few points for silly mistakes like the time I transposed two digits in coping a simple question over to my paper, then an 80% cut-off for a student who has only mastered the material presented in class makes sense.

-- TracyW - 24 Mar 2006

80-65-50.

Below 50% you've failed. I can't recall any distinctions betweens Ds, Es, and Fs, but then I very seldom got below 50%.

The Bursary exams for getting into uni had a different set up, with the cut-off for an A being 65%, but I think that was because they came with money. Unfortunately by the time my mum sat them inflation had reduced it to enough to pay for her books, and by the time I sat them, inflation had reduced it to enough to pay for one book. Most of my group of friends at high school got an A busrsary. There were Scholarship grades if you got over 85% in a subject and if you got enough of them you got more money.

78% was quite a good result in NZ for an average student. At my high school the girl who became dux and the girl who became proxima accessit would generally get something like 95% or more, the next layer of us would get mid-80s to 90s.

-- TracyW - 24 Mar 2006

"Gosh your school has high standards for letter grades."

?

The most common standards are (or at least were in the dark ages when I was in school) 90-80-70-60 and 93-85-75-70. I did have a Physics class in college where the rubric was 80-60-40-20, but that was remarkable enough to surprise nearly all the students in the class, even at the time.

From your comment, I'm guessing that NZ has a much different standard. What are you used to?

-- DougSundseth - 24 Mar 2006

Christopher got a C She gave him a 78

Gosh your school has high standards for letter grades.

-- TracyW - 24 Mar 2006

I found out what it is! (Oh — did she post it?? I just got an email from Joanne....)

THANKS! (I missed it in the thread...

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Mar 2006

"A 3-3-3 essay has a thesis statement supported by three topic sentences, each of which is supported by three subtopic sentences, each of which is supported by three specific and concrete details.

"Posted by Joanne Jacobs at March 20, 2006 12:09 PM"

(Second comment in the thread.)

8-)

-- DougSundseth - 23 Mar 2006

I'm back to thinking Civil Disobedience.

Christopher got a C on his 4-hour scale drawing, because he didn't 'show his work.'

By 'show his work' she meant he didn't write down all the calculations he did in his head. The formulas he used were all there; the adding-up of the various areas were there, etc.

His actual grade, on the content of what he did, was 98.

She gave him a 78 for not writing out equations like 6 x 1/2 = 3

Doing that, of course, would have added another couple of hours to the project.

I'm so ticked off at the moment I'm thinking of blowing off his math course altogether next year, doing the assignments myself (good practice) and teaching him a real curriculum with real problem sets here at home.

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Mar 2006

I assume it's 3 body paragraphs with 3 pieces of evidence per paragraph, but I don't know.

I'd like to know, since if this is a formula that works on the gazillion Forced Blah-Blahs he's going to have to produce in the next 6 years, I need to know it.

-- CatherineJohnson - 23 Mar 2006

From the linked article, I can see this advice to make things up for a test particularly being a problem for some students with mental disabilities.

It is a hard one to test for if you're trying to get down to pure writing skills. An advantage I guess of compulsory teaching of history, you can test students' subject knowledge and non-fiction writing skills at the same time.

Perhaps a solution would be to give some written material on a subject in an exam and tell kids to write based on that material.

I have no idea what the 3-3-3 rule is, sorry.

-- TracyW - 23 Mar 2006

what is 3-3-3?

Here's another one for the Kitchen Table Math brain trust: what is the 3-3-3 format for writing high school essays??

There's a 'Rule of 3' in comedy writing.....this sounds similar.



WASL writing: Make it up as they go along

-- CatherineJohnson - 22 Mar 2006

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• Posted by: CatherineJohnson
• LogDate: Mar 22, 2006 @ 14:54