Poor TSA Questions

cow

Territory-wide System Assessment 2015 - Question Papers (Primary)
Sub-paper 1

Part 2
Ben is reading a notice with his mum at home.
Read the notice.

Hanson Primary School
Clean Our Classrooms Activity
2 January 2015

Dear Students,
Let us start the New Year with a cleaning activity in our school.
Date: Monday, 12 January 2015
Time: 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
What to Bring
Towels and brushes
What to Wear
P.E. uniform and sports shoes
Prize for the ‘Super Clean Classroom’
$20 food coupon (Gigi Fast Food Shop) for each student
For more information, please contact Mrs Julie Chan.

John Lam
Teacher

6. Ben talks to ____________ to get more information about the activity.
 A. John Lam
 B. Gigi
 C. Hanson
 D. Julie Chan

[I regard this as a poor question, none of the answers is "Must be True"]

Suggestion:
Ben [can] talk to ____________ to get more information about the activity.

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.

cow

回覆 shadeslayer 的帖子

Sorry that I have overlooked the information that "he stopped studying and sold newspapers in 1965".

The best answer should be the answer with the highest possibility based on the given information. I should not have used "Must be true" as the standard.

Just for discussion, if we omitted the information that "he stopped studying in 1965". The infomation, "studied in Primary One in 1960", does not make the possibility of "he only went to primary school" higher than "He won a film award in Canada" (the other two options must be wrong).

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 17-4-18 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.

cow

回覆 shadeslayer 的帖子

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

When talking about what is possible in a given situation, or about an opportunity that is open to someone, use can or be able to:

By joining a club or gym, you can meet so many people.
Parents can save money by booking their holiday outside the peak season.
I can go to London tomorrow as I’ve got the day off.

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 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.

talknwrite

1960 – studied in Primary One
1965 – stopped studying and sold newspapers

希望小學生知道小學是要讀六年啦! 同埋社會大學唔算係正式返學囉!

cow

回覆 Cheeselover 的帖子

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

As I quoted in another post:
//-------------------------
A common question type in both Critical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension is the Inference question. The process of inferring is a matter of considering one or more statements as evidence and then drawing a conclusion from them. A valid inference is something that must be true if the statements in the stimulus are true. Not might be true, not probably is true, but must be true.

Think of an inference as a conclusion that you draw based on the information, or evidence, given. It is your job on these questions to choose the inference that requires no assumption whatsoever;

extracted from "Kaplan GMAT 2016 Strategies, Practice, and Review"
-------------------//

It can be made clear by adding an "if" before the evidence:
if (a > 2) then (a > 3) - wrong, not "Must be True" [a can be 2.5]
if (a > 3) then (a > 2) - right, "Must be True"

if "For more information, please contact Mrs Julie Chan." then "Ben talks to Julie Chan to get more information about the activity." - not "Must be True"

if "For more information, please contact Mrs Julie Chan." then "Ben can talk to Julie Chan to get more information about the activity." - "Must be True"

There are many similar questions in TSA in which they have got a "can" to make the answers logical.

if "Ben Tong studied in Primary One in 1960" then "Ben Tong only went to primary school." - not "Must be True"
if "Ben Tong only went to primary school 唔係解 Ben Tong只讀過小學", 可以點解?
if "Ben Tong only went to primary school 唔係解 Ben Tong只讀過小學", "the question may be alright."
if "Ben Tong only went to primary school 係解 Ben Tong只讀過小學", "the question is poor"

if "Ben Tong studied in Primary One in 1960" then "Ben Tong went to primary school." - "Must be True"

I hope I have misunderstood the meanings of the questions and was wrong. I hope somebody can point out the mistakes of my arguments.
[The first question is properly acceptable (since "Julie Chan" is the best answer) but not the second one.  "Ben Tong only went to primary school." is not the best answer,

Cheeselover

Mr. Cow points how bad of TSA question, but he doesn't object TSA, maybe he did say somewhere I don't see. I don't see any issues of these questions - answering straightforward question by kids' mindset. We twist the questions too much.

cow

shadeslayer 發表於 17-4-14 22:28
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.

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

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

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.

Jane1983

呢d唔係Tsa獨有。係就批評香港的英文教育，咁會公道d。

LeeCC

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

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

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.

cow

I criticized the logical issues but not the English issues.

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.

cow

"For more information, please contact Mrs Julie Chan" does not mean "Ben talks to Mrs Julie Chan to get more information about the activity." It only means  "Ben can talk to Mrs Julie Chan to get more information about the activity." Ben may or may not talk to Mrs Julie Chan to get more information.

"Ben Tong studied in Primary One in 1960" does not mean "Ben only went to primary school". This is totally illogical.

If there is an option of "E: None of the above", I will choose E