Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
This year’s listening paper built on the progress made in the past three years
with the inclusion of semi-spontaneous spoken text, a widening of the range of
task types used, as well as efforts to increase the visual attractiveness of the
paper. This involved using items constructed around pictures, maps and
diagrams and task types including note-taking, table completion and visual
multiple choice. The topic choice and setting were also varied a little this year
to make them closer to everyday life and more motivating for students.
Performance statistics
The mean score of the test was 48% and the standard deviation was 18.9%
compared to 49% and 20.1% respectively in 2001.
Candidates’ performance
Markers’ comments were very similar to those of last year, i.e. that candidates
need more practice in spelling, pronunciation, dictation, neat handwriting,
note-taking, paraphrasing, grammaticality, vocabulary extension, the
importance of reading headings and instructions carefully, and proofreading.
Many markers also suggested that students should be encouraged to deduce
meaning from context, to use their common sense/knowledge of the world to
make sense of what they hear, to expose themselves to a much greater range of
2002-AS-UE
natural language use through radio, TV, reading, and conversation; and to
broaden their knowledge of the world.
From their comments across the sections of the report the markers give the
impression that they do not think that candidates approach the paper in a
helpful way. Candidates do not appear to try to understand the general
meaning or context of the listening text. They plump instead for using
strategies involving local retrieval and the deciphering of sounds, i.e.
bottom-up strategies. This approach leads candidates into making errors.
Candidates need to develop a greater awareness of context and better global
understanding, and use their common sense and knowledge of the world, i.e.
they should employ top-down listening strategies in conjunction with those
bottom-up strategies already employed.
Conclusions
Section B Writing
Table 1
The popularity of essay questions and general comments
Question 1
Question 2
– Some candidates wrote largely on the benefits of the Internet, and failed to
tackle the core argument.
– Many markers thought this a very suitable topic for candidates, with much
room for discussion.
Question 3
Question 4
– Some markers noted that candidates focused on their own preferences, and
failed to answer all parts of the question.
– Otherwise this question attracted a wide range of abilities.
Language errors
According to markers, the most salient errors among candidates are those
listed as follows. Here the percentage in brackets indicates the proportion of
markers commenting on a particular error: spelling (68%), agreement (38%),
word class (25%), incorrect choice of verbs (25%), tense/aspect/verb-form
2002-AS-UE
(23%), ‘confusion’ of vocabulary items (21%), pluralisation of uncountable
nouns (21%), prepositions (20%), determiner-noun agreement (14%),
auxiliary verbs (13%)
Memorisation
Only a few memorised answers were reported, and this was not a problem in
this year’s exercise. Some markers also reported that the use of ‘clichés’ and
‘stock phrases’, such as students as ‘the pillars of society’, were also less
frequent this year.
Conclusion
This year the marking of the examination once again went very smoothly with
the assistance of the highly experienced and efficient Assistant Examiners and
markers. Many of the markers’ reports were very positive.
2002-AS-UE
Section C Reading and Language Systems
General comments
The mean percentage correct for all of Section C was 49 in 2002; in 2001 it
was 51.
Candidates did worse on questions where they were asked to interpret what the
writer of the article feels, e.g. items 2, 3, 8, 10 and 12 (39%, 27%, 38%, 28%
and 22% respectively). When the question specifically refers to ‘the writer’s’
opinion or view, candidates should take care to find the writer’s slant, not the
view of someone else (e.g. not the definition of Trenholm and Jesen in
question 2 and not the feeling of the major computer companies in question
10). The most difficult question in this part proved to be item 12 (22%
correct). This was certainly a demanding question, as it required candidates to
correctly judge the cynical and scornful mood of the sentence: ‘How easy,
albeit cowardly, it has become to send a critical email liberally filled with
coarse expressions when your return address is nothing more accessible than
coolguy@hotmail.com.’
2002-AS-UE
Candidates managed to do well on the m.c. cloze (mean percentage correct:
48). However, they had particular problems with item 26 (only 11% correct)
and 27 (15% correct). For item 26, many candidates chose C. ‘always’ or D.
‘worrying’, but for either of these possibilities, the article ‘the’ would need to
be added (i.e. ‘always the possibility’ or ‘the worrying possibility’) for that
answer to be possible. For item 27, some 41% of the candidates wrongly
chose option D ‘with luck’.
The other ‘difficult’ items were ones involving the use of common phrases or
collocations, e.g. to answer the call of the wild (item 17), to succumb to the
call of Africa (item 20), to cling to power (item 25) and a fitting finish (item
33). To ‘learn’ such phrases or collocations, candidates have no choice but to
read widely; memorising wordlists seems futile; exposure is a more effective
and enjoyable method of expanding one’s vocabulary.
Candidates had little trouble with this exercise, achieving a mean percentage
correct of 61. Once the candidate established that the subject of the article
was the expanding and coordinating role of the new Environment and Food
Bureau (EFB), they found it easy to identify the threads of meaning running
through the article. They did a commendable job of answering the question.
A minor change in this year’s question paper was the use of the symbol ‘¶’ to
identify the start of each new paragraph. Because of the layout of the
questions in this part of Section C, it is sometimes hard to clearly delineate the
paragraphs. It is hoped that the use of the paragraph symbol will help.
Candidates’ performance on the summary cloze this year was very weak
indeed, with a mean percentage correct of only 34%. One possible
explanation for the poor showing is that the items in Version 2 appear in a
very different order to the information presented in Version 1. In other words,
to locate the information needed to complete Version 2, candidates had to be
familiar with the whole of Version 1 and to search back and forth through the
text to find what they needed. Candidates should realise that the order of
information in Version 2 may, in fact, not be parallel to the order in Version 1
and they must be prepared to deal with that difference.
As might be expected, the most difficult items, with a mean percentage correct
of less than 20, involved necessary changes to the language in Version 1 so
2002-AS-UE
that the answers would ‘fit’ in Version 2. For example, for item 48 (10%
correct) the answer ‘alarming’ is an adjective formed from the phrase ‘Many
experts note with alarm ……’ in Version 1. Similarly, item 50 ‘ten times as’
much dust (8% correct) comes from Version 1 ‘one-tenth of the dust’. The
answer to item 63 (17% correct) ‘indoors and outdoors’ or ‘inside and outside’
comes from Version 1 ‘inside the house or in the garden’. Similarly, the
active form in Version 1 ‘people who use pesticides indoors may expose small
children to significant contamination’ had to be changed to the passive in
Version 2, item 66 (11% correct): ‘children whose parents use these chemicals
inside may be exposed to high levels of contamination.’
Candidates did very well on the matching exercise this year with a mean
percentage correct of 65. All of the items were about China. As in past years,
candidates had to make use of a wide variety of ‘clues’ to make correct
matches such as pronoun and article references (e.g. K. ‘It plans ……’; J. ‘The
site ……’), adverbials (B. ‘So far, ……’), lexical coherence (M. ‘units sold
……’), etc.
Candidates didn’t do too badly in this part of the paper, with a mean
percentage correct of 43. However, some of the more ‘difficult’ items were
surprising.
For example, the use of the word ‘lack’ was tested in items 80 (14% correct)
and 81 (12% correct). In fact, the word ‘lack’ was also tested in the 2001
Section C examination (item 94). The various uses of ‘lack’ as a verb, a noun,
and an adjective (lacking), and prepositions used with the word (e.g. a lack of,
lacking in, to lack integrity (no preposition) commonly causes problems
among learners of English.
2002-AS-UE
Item 88 (13% correct) tested candidates’ spelling of the homonyms ‘waste’
(‘material which is not wanted or rubbish’) and ‘waist’ (the middle part of the
body’). Candidates should be aware that similar vocabulary/spelling items
have appeared in this part of the paper before and may well be included again
in future.
Another ‘difficult item’ was item 84 (18% correct) where candidates were
expected to change the modal verb ‘can’ to ‘should’. Modals can be hard to
learn to use properly. Here, the word ‘should’ is used to mean ‘recommended’
whereas ‘can’ would wrongly convey the notion of ‘permitted’.
As has been noted time and again in previous reports, the only way to
effectively prepare for the Section C Examination is to read as widely as
possible in English.
General comments
(a) Time
2002-AS-UE
Candidates are given 10 minutes to read the passage and take notes
for the oral presentation. Most of the candidates were able to make
an effective presentation with confidence, but a small portion relied
too heavily on their notecard, copying portions of text instead of
making notes. Even some strong candidates fell into this trap.
Candidates should refrain from presenting large chunks of sentences
copied from the original text.
(b) Passages
The passages are on average 300 words long. This aims to give
candidates sufficient material for their presentations while
discouraging them from attempting to copy or memorize the passage.
The moderation committees have an increasingly difficult job to find
new topics that are familiar to the candidates and yet avoid repeating
material from previous years. Examiners this year were generally
satisfied with the range of topics and language level of the passages.
(c) Problems
Once again, examiners found that the most common problem for
candidates was pronunciation of individual words. This problem was
evident not only in new and unfamiliar words, but also in more
common words such as ‘soccer’, which was pronounced as ‘saucer’,
‘betting’ pronounced as ‘beating’, ‘chef’ pronounced as ‘chief’, and
‘kitchen’ pronounced as ‘chicken’. In contrast, students are not
expected to correctly pronounce unfamiliar proper nouns used in the
passages, and alternative expressions are usually provided in the text
to assist candidates.
2002-AS-UE
Examiners also noted widespread problems with intonation and
grammatical constructions.
Candidates continued to show that they benefit from the two minutes
preparation time provided after the individual presentations to
prepare for the discussion.
Examiners felt that the range of discussion topics this year was
generally accessible.
(c) Problems
General recommendations
Candidates should not rely too much on the use of the notecard during
individual presentation, and should aim for a more natural approach. In the
discussion they should look at the other candidates from time to time while
speaking, and listen to others’ contributions so that they can fully explore the
topic.
In this year’s paper, candidates had to assume the role of a student who was a
member of a School English Club which was invited to help in preparing the
Anniversary Newsletter of the school.
Task 1
In Task 1, candidates were asked to write an article about the school for the
Anniversary Newsletter. A specific title, ‘Wah Fu College – Yesterday and
Today’, indicating what was expected in terms of content was provided.
Candidates had to write about the founding of the school and then contrast the
school at the time of its founding with the present situation in three major
areas: school premises; people; and school mission and philosophy.
The task was set in a familiar context for the candidates and the majority of
them managed to extract relevant information to complete the task as required.
Performance in identifying content points and relevance of the information
was generally satisfactory. Most candidates also seemed to know how to write
an article but quite a number of them included a complementary closing and
the writer’s name at the end of the article. These students seemed to be
confused between the conventions of a newsletter article and those of a letter.
As stated in the rubric, candidates should ensure that their comments could be
understood by readers who do not have copies of the Data File to refer to.
2002-AS-UE
Many candidates failed in this regard because of their wrong use of tenses and
lack of clear time references. This rendered unclear the contrast between
‘Yesterday and Today’, which should have been the main focus of the article.
The problem was worsened by the carelessness of some candidates, e.g. giving
1976 instead of 1967 as the year when the school was founded.
2002-AS-UE
Task 2
To complete this task, candidates needed to scan the material in the Data File
with the help of the clues provided to locate the appropriate year and
determine the appropriate fact to be reported. This task seemed to be
relatively demanding but discriminated well among candidates. Weaker
candidates were either unable to include the appropriate information in the
timeline or unable to locate the relevant information.
e.g. When the impact of a typhoon on the school was the expected
answer, some candidates wrote: ‘Students did not go to school’ for
more than a week due to typhoon damage. When the focus of the
event was the moving of the school to a new location, some
candidates wrote: The school held ‘an open day’. When the fact that
a specific American President gave a talk was the expected answer,
many overlooked the importance of clarity and precision and
provided the following answer: ‘Mr Clinton gave’ a talk about
international business at Wah Fu College.
2002-AS-UE
X ...... won the international school dragon boat races ( ...... won the
International School Dragon Boat Races.)
X ...... won International School Dragon Boat Races ( ..... won the
International School Dragon Boat Races.)
Instead of providing the exact name of the principal, some candidates wrote:
In general, candidates may have paid too much attention to the content without
considering the reader and hence produced sentences that were imprecise,
ambiguous and ungrammatical. More time should be spent in the pre-writing
stage to ensure that the register in the answer is correct.
Task 3
Of the three tasks, most candidates performed relatively better in this task.
The majority seemed to have successfully evaluated the correctness of the
facts. But many did not proofread carefully and produced factually correct,
but grammatically inaccurate, statements. Those who performed badly in the
task may have exercised poor time management and hence did not have
enough time to complete the task.
Statement 8: WFC’s NET, Miss Summers, is British but she was educated in
Australia.
The name, the gender and the place of education are inaccurate here. Some
candidates did not read the heading of this statement – ‘Current NET’ –
2002-AS-UE
carefully and hence provided information about the previous NET. Some
changed the factual information and included the correct surname and where
the NET was educated, but did not change the gender of the pronoun.
General comments
As reflected in candidates’ performance, it is evident that they should ensure
that they include a pre-writing stage before starting to write. They need to
analyse the requirements of the tasks and determine who their audience is and
write in a way that is sufficiently reader friendly. Only by going though
careful pre-writing preparation will candidates be able to synthesise
appropriately.
Many candidates managed their time well but others seemed to need to learn
to budget their time better. The design of this examination, in view of the
number of tasks to be completed and the amount of information to be
processed, requires candidates to spend their time wisely. Candidates with
poor time management may become careless and overlook the requirement of
some tasks. They are reminded to save time for adequate proofreading as
well.