Is my physics exam unfair? (1 Viewer)

MATHmaster

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Hello everyone I am very curious if the teacher is allowed to put several hsc past paper questions in a physics exam. Some people in my school have done all of them and knew the answers the whole time, providing model responses. Other people and myself haven't been exposed to as many as them. Is this system just?
 

nerdasdasd

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Hello everyone I am very curious if the teacher is allowed to put several hsc past paper questions in a physics exam. Some people in my school have done all of them and knew the answers the whole time, providing model responses. Other people and myself haven't been exposed to as many as them. Is this system just?
Yes, he/she is allowed to do that. If you do not know the answer, it means you haven't prepared well enough.
 

Macqncheese

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It is allowed though. Your fault though, you had equal chance to look up old questions.
 

Immortalp00n

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Hello everyone I am very curious if the teacher is allowed to put several hsc past paper questions in a physics exam. Some people in my school have done all of them and knew the answers the whole time, providing model responses. Other people and myself haven't been exposed to as many as them. Is this system just?
it's very fair and actually makes it much easier for u
most teachers just copy paste shit from old trials and stuff so nothing new there
and its not like you and the rest were denied access to these resources
u could have done the same work the others did, and found the exam easy.
 

brent012

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Questions are questions, not uncommon for teachers to reuse questions from past trials and stuff. Even though it it not a very fair exam if no students knew that past paper questions were going to be used then i don't think there would be any grounds for complaint. Past papers are a good form of study and your Physics teacher probably even reccomended you do them.
 

nerdasdasd

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It is allowed though. Your fault though, you had equal chance to look up old questions.
Nicely said. My teacher once said, it is our fault if we don't do well, don't blame anyone else (but yourself).
 

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Do you think it would be fair if the HSC Physics exam 2013 is a collection of past paper questions?

My point is, although these resources are available, they are not the only resources. Questions can appear from any school paper, but this is just past hsc exams. How is the paper any original to distinguish between the rote-learners and intelligent students?
 

Macqncheese

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Do you think it would be fair if the HSC Physics exam 2013 is a collection of past paper questions?

My point is, although these resources are available, they are not the only resources. Questions can appear from any school paper, but this is just past hsc exams. How is the paper any original to distinguish between the rote-learners and intelligent students?
It is fair. It rewards the students who bothered to do old papers.

I don't understand why you are complaining. Unless the teacher told people beforehand that the questions will be from past HSC papers, the test would not in the slightest have bias/or an aspect of being unfair.
 

MATHmaster

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It is fair. It rewards the students who bothered to do old papers.
But what if they got all of the questions wrong and blindly remembered the answer? If they answer the question right the second time, and do not know have any clue what they are saying, is it really fair?
 

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If you have the knowledge then you should be able to do them
 

Macqncheese

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They have been doing it for years.
Regardless. The simple fact is, if papers contain old HSC paper questions. It will rewards students who have bothered to do them in the first place. Although it is a poor method of developing papers, my point cannot be disputed.
 

Macqncheese

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But what if they got all of the questions wrong and blindly remembered the answer? If they answer the question right the second time, and do not know have any clue what they are saying, is it really fair?
If they got them wrong? If so, they are pretty stupid then- assuming the question is exactly the same as previous.
 

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It is fair. It rewards the students who bothered to do old papers.

I don't understand why you are complaining. Unless the teacher told people beforehand that the questions will be from past HSC papers, the test would not in the slightest have bias/or an aspect of being unfair.
It is not fair whatsoever

It doesn't reward people who want to sit and think. It rewards people who put in the hard work and don't think, and that is NOT the point of an exam. The point of an exam is to assess how well you know the subject, it isn't about how much stuff you can rote learn and spit out in 2 hours.
 

Macqncheese

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It is not fair whatsoever

It doesn't reward people who want to sit and think. It rewards people who put in the hard work and don't think, and that is NOT the point of an exam. The point of an exam is to assess how well you know the subject, it isn't about how much stuff you can rote learn and spit out in 2 hours.
In some aspects I do agree with you. However, I believe you are missing the wider point. Your argument relations moreso to the general structure of HSC exams. In essence, any student can rote learn stuff.

However, the main point is is using old HSC questions unfair. And the answer is no, simply because it does not provide any disadvantage to students.

You cannot simply compare 'sit and think' to 'rote learning'. As in HSC, students can always simply rote learn.
 

MATHmaster

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It is not fair whatsoever

It doesn't reward people who want to sit and think. It rewards people who put in the hard work and don't think, and that is NOT the point of an exam. The point of an exam is to assess how well you know the subject, it isn't about how much stuff you can rote learn and spit out in 2 hours.
I agree. Although to some extent the use of past paper questions reward people who have bothered to study, the point is to differentiate the intelligent students from the stupid ones. If this year's paper was an compilation of previous papers, by all means, anyone can get full marks, even an idiot who just does past papers without any idea what he is doing the first time, such that he/she gets it on the second time. There should be no second chances
 

Macqncheese

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I agree. Although to some extent the use of past paper questions reward people who have bothered to study, the point is to differentiate the intelligent students from the stupid ones. If this year's paper was an compilation of previous papers, by all means, anyone can get full marks, even an idiot who just does past papers without any idea what he is doing the first time, such that he/she gets it on the second time. There should be no second chances
But can't a 'idiot' simply rote learn the syllabus and achieve the same result without understanding the course work? You two are disputing the structure of HSC exams, which is flawed. However, to your original question, it is not unfair.
 

MATHmaster

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In some aspects I do agree with you. However, I believe you are missing the wider point. Your argument relations moreso to the general structure of HSC exams. In essence, any student can rote learn stuff.

However, the main point is is using old HSC questions unfair. And the answer is no, simply because it does not provide any disadvantage to students.

You cannot simply compare 'sit and think' to 'rote learning'. As in HSC, students can always simply rote learn.
You are right in that sense, however, it would be a roll of a die to know whether the student is doing past paper hsc questions as study, or past hsc questions from other schools. If the die rolls in favour of past hsc questions, how is it any fair to the student who was doing the hsc questions from various schools?
 

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