Poor TSA Questions

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-14 17:07
Territory-wide System Assessment 2015 - Question Papers (Primary)
Sub-paper 1

the question is reasonable. I don't know how your question is better.

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-14 17:12
Super Kung Fu Actor: Ben Tong
1954 – born in Macau
1958 – moved to Hong Kong

The original question is typical HK English but it is reasonably clear.It has nothing to do with TSA.

If you look at local primary school exam papers, they have lots of poor questions like this or questions worse than this.

TSA needs to be abolished becauseof this?Then 90% of primary school exams have to be abolished.

PS. Your question has a tense mistake.

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-14 18:30
"For more information, please contact Mrs Julie Chan" does not mean "Ben talks to Mrs Julie Chan to  ...

again, if you pick on these English issues in questions and say because of this, TSA should be abolished, then most primary schools will not have internal exams.

even your suggested question was wrong.

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-14 18:49
I criticized the logical issues but not the English issues.

中文「他只讀過小學。」清楚地有一個他沒有讀中學大學的意思。但直譯「He only went to primary school.」則沒有這意思。

It was English issues that created room for debate whether questions were logical.   Whether they were English issues or Logic issues, they are super easy to fix in the future.   We don't need to cancel TSA.

Again if this "logical" issues are your reason to abolish TSA and this is your standard, many primary schools in HK will not have English Exams.

shadeslayer

LeeCC 發表於 17-4-14 19:32
根據教育局的指引，小三應該系未學present perfect tense，所以你的建議是不適用的 ...

小三又好, 小六又好, present perfect tense in this context is wrong.  Either simple past tense (which I prefer) or past perfect.

shadeslayer

Jane1983 發表於 17-4-14 21:27
呢d唔係Tsa獨有。係就批評香港的英文教育，咁會公道d。

這是反TSA的人常用技倆, 當別人指出這些指控本地考試也一樣, 佢地一係視而不見, 一係說別人上綱上線。無第三招架。

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-18 07:52
回覆 Cheeselover 的帖子

You are correct that I didn't object TSA. I am neutral on it.

I agree the questions are not well written. But for P3 English, they should not get in the way and affect the results.

Instead your suggestion "adding can" is worse in terms of logic.  I will explain when I have more time.

shadeslayer

shadeslayer 發表於 17-4-18 10:48
I agree the questions are not well written. But for P3 English, they should not get in the way and  ...

本帖最後由 shadeslayer 於 17-4-18 13:41 編輯

Many English words have multiple meanings. "Can" has a number of meanings. Main meanings are "the ability to" and "the permission to". Using "can" to ask for permission is less formal.

Your suggested question:

"Ben can talk to _____ to get more information about the event".

Let's examine the two major meanings of "can".

1."The ability to"

Ben has the ability to talk to ______ to get more information about the event.

Of course Ben has the ability to talk to everybody. So all multiple choice answers given were correct since Ben has the ability to talk to any one of them, unless Ben is a mute.

2. "The permission to"

Ben has the permission to talk to ______ to get more information about the event.

The sentence "For more information, please contact Julie Chan" is an advice. It did not say anything about permission. If Ben bumps into John Lam, is Ben permitted to ask about the event? May be, may be not. It didn't say.

You see the use of "can" introduces so much more ambiguity in the question, it becomes impossible to answer if your focus is in "logic".

if the focus is in "understanding" the passage, the original question or your question are both fine.

"Can" is an over-used word in HK. The correct word to use IMHO, is "should".

Again, I have seen worse problems in primary school homework, tests and exam papers. It has nothing to do with supporting TSA or not.

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-18 13:43
回覆 shadeslayer 的帖子

According to http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/07/can-or-could/

correct. that falls into my meaning 1, "the ability to". that does not mean using can in the question is not logically troublesome.

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-18 07:52
回覆 Cheeselover 的帖子

You are correct that I didn't object TSA. I am neutral on it.

if "Ben Tong studied in Primary One in 1960" then "Ben Tong only went to primary school." - not "Must be True"

Cxxxxxxx

This is unreasonable.  The passage said much more than "Ben Tong studied in Primary One in 1960".  Your if-then statement is truncated.

In questions like this, we "have" to assume the question gives all the information that is important to the answer.

I also want to know which of the other choices in the multiple choice questions do you think are more reasonable than "Ben only went to primary school"?

shadeslayer

cow 發表於 17-4-19 11:59
回覆 shadeslayer 的帖子

Sorry that I have overlooked the information that "he stopped studying and  ...

it relates to my comment: "we have to assume all information relevant to the answers are already there in the passage."

Therefore "Ben won an award in Canada" is wrong because Ben won an award in HK (assume HK film festival was in HK). There wasn't any info given in the passagewhich suggested he won any other award in Canada.