i think that the fact that these exams were relatively easy won't necessarily make it impossible to separate people, although they might be forced to do so in a different way. especially in subjects like english and history (and languages), those with a sound and perceptive understanding of the text/historical period/grammar, vocab, structure of lanuage will still be easy to distinguish from those who don't. i suppose it's different in maths and the sciences, but as i don't take any science subjects, and i consider myself an average but far from brilliant 4u maths student, the humanities are my main concern.
it doesn't allow for such an immediate differentiation, i agree. you can't walk out of an exam knowing that you've done well just because you managed to get some sort of handle on the question, which you might have been able to do last year, and so in that sense it's not measuring people's abilities to respond to an unexpected or challenging question or perspective under exam conditions. on the other hand, however, it creates a more 'level playing field' for *all* students to be able to display what they know, and not be limited so much by the need to think quickly in exams. which can be good or bad depending on where you sit in the scheme of things. personally, i would prefer the harder exam, but i can see the advantages of the former, and as someone said early on, you can't please everyone. but it's highly unlikely that you'll end up with most of the state getting similiarly high marks. it's always possible to differentiate between people and those who are brilliant will show it by their reasoning, sophisticated language and arguments, insight, knowledge - all the standard stuff.
what these exams really mean is that there'll be a lot more people walking around thinking that they've done pretty damn well, because they managed to answer the question and write a fair bit. that doesn't mean that they all have done well though.
it doesn't allow for such an immediate differentiation, i agree. you can't walk out of an exam knowing that you've done well just because you managed to get some sort of handle on the question, which you might have been able to do last year, and so in that sense it's not measuring people's abilities to respond to an unexpected or challenging question or perspective under exam conditions. on the other hand, however, it creates a more 'level playing field' for *all* students to be able to display what they know, and not be limited so much by the need to think quickly in exams. which can be good or bad depending on where you sit in the scheme of things. personally, i would prefer the harder exam, but i can see the advantages of the former, and as someone said early on, you can't please everyone. but it's highly unlikely that you'll end up with most of the state getting similiarly high marks. it's always possible to differentiate between people and those who are brilliant will show it by their reasoning, sophisticated language and arguments, insight, knowledge - all the standard stuff.
what these exams really mean is that there'll be a lot more people walking around thinking that they've done pretty damn well, because they managed to answer the question and write a fair bit. that doesn't mean that they all have done well though.
