Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/429113
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2014 6 News JAMES DEBONO AN examiners' report on this year's 'religious knowledge' Matsec exam has expressed great disappointment on students' interest in the subject and squarely blames some teachers for failing to instil a deeper level of learning in their students. A total of 3,818 candidates sat for the religious knowledge exam in 2014, but only 89 got a Grade 1, 709 got a Grade 5 pass mark while 705 failed. "It is evident that candidates are not studying. Worse still, they lack basic and fundamental religious knowl- edge. Even common sense is becom- ing uncommon...," the examiners note. According to the report students were simply answering questions by reproducing information that they would have read, or heard during les- sons or studied by heart, and failing in applying what they had learnt to concrete everyday life situations. At times they do not even under- stand the question and as a conse- quence they give answers that are out of point. "These observations may also re- flect an inadequate and ineffective methodology which is still being em- ployed by some teachers in the teach- ing of religion," the report notes. Students were "not always taught how to think deeply and critically, analyze and evaluate the significance and implications of church doc- trines." Even some basic questions seemed to be difficult for some students. Many answered Genesis or the New Testament when asked what the last book of the Bible was. Some were even mixed up when asked to define Holy Orders (a term used for the three orders of bishop, priest and deacon) – many replied that this is "when one becomes a priest, bishop or nun." There were quite a few who replied that the Holy Orders are orders ("ordnijiet") that are given by the Pope or the Arch- bishop, which one has to obey. Markers even got the impression that some candidates did not even know the difference between the Old and the New Testament. When asked to mention an account from the Old Testament that Jesus was commemorating during the Last Supper many mentioned "the Last Supper itself" or "when Jesus gave us his body and blood" or "when Jesus was going to die on the cross". Very few gave the correct answer such as when Moses delivered the Jews from slavery. In one particular question many just narrated the story of Adam and Eve childishly. Some even mentioned the apple, which is not even men- tioned in the Bible. While some candidates knew and mentioned the fact that before com- mitting sin there was unity between God, nature and man, others just re- ferred to Adam and Eve not bother- ing being naked in front of each other. Others said that man was created in God's image and had the privilege to live in a garden "with plenty of food". While many candidates were aware of the consequence of sin, some can- didates just narrated the fact that Adam and Eve took an apple from a prohibited tree and realized that they were naked. "It seems that the snake impressed the candidates very much since every one mentioned him as the source from which all sin was brought about." Yet respondents showed a greater awareness of the Christian attitude towards the environment but very few can relate this to any Biblical nar- rative or passage. Most candidates spoke of the environment as God's creation. Some argued that in all cre- ation there is the image and likeness of God. A few spoke of St Francis as if he were a Biblical figure. One candidate is praised for refer- ring to the love of the shepherd for his flock, which stands as "a vivid example of God's love for man, es- pecially for sinners". The examiners could not help noting that while it is "encouraging to find such answers when correcting the exam scripts… these candidates are quite rare". When students were asked about the afterlife some compared it to "a large garden", while others described hell as being a place "where there is a lot of fire and Satan with his fork". For many purgatory is a place where one goes to be redeemed from sin… and afterwards "God has to decide if you go to Heaven or hell which obvi- ously is not the case." jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt Interest in religion only 'skin deep', examiners find SCHOOLLEAVERS are going out into the world of work with a poor command of the English lan- guage, examiners have woefully remarked on the performance of candidates sitting for their English matriculation exams. "It is of great concern that 16- year old students should be leav- ing school with such a poor com- mand of the language after having been exposed to it throughout their school life," an examiners' report for the Matsec exam has stated. Noting that candidates performed relatively well in their oral and aural components, the report denounced "inadequate levels" of grammati- cal accuracy, spelling, punctuation and expression as well as many in- stances of direct translation from Maltese. The report in fact calls for a greater effort from society as a whole to in- still in students an increased aware- ness of the importance of English as an international language. It also warned that standards in English can only improve if the lan- guage is not merely regarded as a school subject, but used regularly and in different contexts. Of particular concern was the level of spelling, especially among those sitting for paper B, the easier paper from which one can only be eligible for a passmark. There was rampant misspelling of words in everyday use: it's/its, there/their, hole/whole, were/wear, hear/here/her, alot/a lot. And there were a few instances when the candidates had flawless spelling, even when content, or- ganization, vocabulary and syntax were poor. Punctuation was, in a significant number of essays, "abysmal". "Candidates showed poor mas- tery of punctuation, the majority using only commas and full stops or a comma when no comma was needed," examiners said. In a good number of cases candi- dates seemed unaware of the differ- ence between a comma and a full stop, using them indiscriminately. Very few made use of the other punctuation marks: the colon, semi-colon, and exclamation and question marks. And there was also consistent misuse of the apostrophe, with can- didates confusing plurals and pos- sessives such as "my sisters' were in the criminals car". Candidates also made a haphazard use of the capital letter, with capital letters appearing in mid-sentences unnecessarily, and in the persist- ence of many in using 'i' for I. A very great number of both Pa- per 2A and Paper 2B candidates, demonstrated a very poor grasp of the tenses. "There was a constant shifting of tenses mostly in the nar- rative task while students used the Past and Present Continuous/Per- fect tenses when the Simple Past tense was called for." When asked to write an email, the future 'will' and the conditional 'would' were used indiscriminately. Other candidates seemed to be aware of only the Present Simple and the Past Simple. Another weak- ness where tenses are concerned appeared in the formation of the simple Past or the Past Participle. Examples of mistakes included 'happened', 'maked', 'hitted', 'don't tooked', and 'they have never saw'. Mistakes were also made in the use of the relative pronoun, with many showing an inability to dis- tinguish between who and which and, in a few cases, the use of the personal pronouns we/us, I/me. Only 188 (3.7%) of the 2,991 sitting for the exam were awarded a Grade 1 mark. But the vast majority, 63%, managed to pass the exam. They 'hitted' poorly and 'maked' many mistakes: examiners rue English exam howlers When asked to mention an account from the Old Testament that Jesus was commemorating during the Last Supper many mentioned "the Last Supper itself" or "when Jesus gave us his body and blood" or "when Jesus was going to die on the cross". Very few gave the correct answer such as when Moses delivered the Hebrews from slavery. Mistakes were also made in the use of the relative pronoun, with many unable to distinguish between 'who' and 'which'