Today's kids marked on media savvy

By STUART DYE

Parents and grandparents may have been left shaking their heads over John Tamihere, Keisha Castle-Hughes and a Vodafone advert appearing in this year's English exams.

If you thought things used to be different, you were right.

The Herald has obtained a School Certificate exam paper from 1952 and the contrasts with today's NCEA level 1 tests are stark.

The first task for this generation's 15-year-olds was to present a written argument of at least 250 words for or against a chosen topic and with a singular or multiple view-points.

In 1952, candidates were simply told to choose a subject and write two pages on it.

The old School Cert is a far more basic paper featuring comprehension tests where students read and answer questions on a short text and fill blanks in sentences from a range of options.

But today's comprehension test is a booklet titled "read, study and show understanding of extended written tests", - and which includes Tamihere and Castle-Hughes.

In 1952, sample texts were from more traditional subjects including Shakespeare and Arthur Conan Doyle. The exam also featured memory tests with questions demanding the name of a Burns song and a Wordsworth sonnet and others asking for definitions of certain words.

Year 11 students this week had to demonstrate an understanding of a wide variety of media ranging from poetry to interactive, online hyperfiction.

The only obvious similarity between the two papers is the three-hour deadline.

Dr Alex Calder, from the University of Auckland's department of English, said it was very difficult to generalise on which exam was harder.

The difference was an "average" student would find it quite easy to reach the "achieve" mark in NCEA, but would not reach the pass mark in 1952.

But a very good student would find it difficult to reach NCEA excellence whereas a high pass mark in School Certificate would be easy by comparison.

Dr Calder, whose daughter sat the exam this week, said: "I think a good student would probably do well in both tests."

Meanwhile, a new education era dawned yesterday as students sat NCEA level 3 English for the first time.

But it was a paper that would go some way to placating the traditionalists.

Critical analysis of Shakespeare's plays has struck fear into the hearts of secondary students for years. It hasn't changed.

Yesterday's level 3 guinea pigs could earn four credits for writing about Hamlet, Henry V, As You Like It, Othello or The Merchant of Venice.

Other booklets in the exam asked students to write essays on drama, radio, television or electronic text, and analyse a New Zealand Listener article and a new poem published this year by Judith Dell Panny.


Exams past and present

SCHOOL CERT, 1952

Write two pages on:

* Training a dog

* In the woolshed

* Relics of the past in my own district

* Submarines

NCEA LEVEl 1, 2004

Present a written argument

* Part-time work exploits school students

* Texting is just a way of avoiding real communication

* New Zealand/Aotearoa deals well with race issues

* Experimenting on animals to improve life for humans is a good thing

Today's timetable

Morning: Accounting level 1, Science level 2, Accounting level 3, German Scholarship.

Afternoon: Science level 1, Accounting level 2, Science level 3, English Scholarship.