Madam, – Am I the only one to be amazed by the hysterical reaction to the “English paper 2 Scandal”? Just a week after Michael O’Brien’s poignant outburst on Questions Answers describing the destruction of his childhood, we are treated to a barrage of weeping and gnashing of teeth over what is at best, an irritating inconvenience. My suspicion is that this is a creation of the media. If not, the class of 2009 will find life to be an entirely insurmountable challenge. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Some years ago I was required to sit an exam in Spain to convalidate my degree in geology from TCD which was not automatically recognised by the Spanish state at that time. I was advised by an otherwise reliable source that I could choose the exam question from about a dozen major geological systems and was plied with information on one in particular so that I could be coached on it and thereby do well in the exam.
However, I decided this was a high-risk strategy and proceeded to study all systems in the limited time available. This proved to be a good decision because on the day of the exam there was no choice and I was asked to “compare and contrast” two systems, neither of them being the choice of my reliable friend! The moral of this story is that students and teachers would be better served in the exam and the life thereafter by studying all the topics on the curriculum with the objective of understanding something of each of them, rather than attempting to predict the questions and then cramming set answers into short-term memory.
Memory is only one part of intelligence; the ability to process information, critical thinking and problem-solving are others. – Yours, etc,