FOR TEACHERS ONLY: Some notes on the exam

[Essam ABDOU]

I`m very sorry for being out of sight for quite a long time, but my main work is away from Thanwya Amma.

Teacher to teacher, the exam is fine and fair for the average student, but there are some points that should be noted:
- In Q 1, "answers will vary", so any student can answer all of it correctly.
- In Q 2, surely "aliens` department" and "embassy" have been studied throughout the year.
- In Q 3: MCQ 4: "plateau" is also not mentioned in any of the 3 books! Why do we insist on confusing the students when there are hundreds of words to use instead? Then, In MCQ 6: Look up "harvest" in Cambridge Advanced Learner`s Dictionary, you`ll find that one of the examples used is: grain harvest, but the official answer to MCQ 6 is "yield". You cannot say that "harvest" is wrong, because the meaning is the same in this context.
Harvest = the crops which are cut and collected.
the grain/potato/grape harvest
We had a good harvest this year
- In Q 4: The word "concerning" is not mentioned in any of the 3 books (TB, SB or W – There are "concern" and "concerned" though. So, many students used "concerned" as in "As far as I`m concerned". By the way "concerning" here just means "about" and in that case it is a preposition. Sentences 2 and 4 could have more than one answer, which is for the students` benefit.
- In Q 5: The passage is fabricated and shows the examiner`s gross INefficiency in writing, as if there weren`t any authentic English texts to use instead.
- In the first sentence we have both: "quickly" and "nowadays".
- In the second sentence we have a misuse of an idiom: "get acquainted with". Then, what does "this unimaginative and unlimited area" refer to? Is it "the web"? How come?
- In the third sentence, we have a misuse of the future perfect tense: The sentence should go like this: BY 2013, one out of every seven people on the planet will have HAD a Facebook account. Also, Facebook was not capitalized in the passage.
- In Q 6: Nothing to mention.
- In Q 7: We got used that students lose half a mark if a quotation out of nowhere comes in the exam. However, some students got it right.
- In Q 8: I guess every student has been trained to write a friendly letter.
- In Q 9: Some words may not be answered correctly by the students such as: Birth place (مهد) and self-sufficiency. "cradle" should have been used instead of birthplace (one word – not two words).

- Exams do not "harm the brilliant one" as some people say. There must always be differentiating questions in any exam. These questions show who is clever and who is not, who studies English as a language and who memorises only and thinks that any prediction by his teacher is a law the examiner has to follow, or that whatever comes in the teacher`s sheets will surely appear in the exam. We follow the set books and the evaluation book as well as the Longman website exercises plus the samples provided by the ministry. Students should deal with these first, then they can do other sheets for more practice. Again, Vocabulary is not TABLES and BOXES – vocabulary is context, and so is grammar.
- Our students need to study English as a language. What`s the use of all the resources of teaching English on the Internet? I think that learning English is much easier now for our students than ever before. Students need to READ and READ and READ genuine texts. Moreover, our students need to think well before deciding on the answers. They need to learn techniques of answering exams.

Best Regards