Saturday, May 07, 2005

so these are Hong Kong students

The HKCEE English exam this year included an article from a forum about comics, as a kind-of proofreading question. And our HK students, after the frustration of the exam, have too much idle time and dig out that article from the web, and then fxck the original author of the article. Oh well. This incident clearly demonstrates the English level of our students:

(1) An article as simple as this can be considered "very difficult" by the students.

(2) From their fxcking and other responses in the forum you can know not only their reading ability but also writing. Next year the HKCEE can simply use these responses as proofreading questions.

(3) So the difficulty of the exam declined that much after 10 years or so. Perhaps they should look at the exam papers of my time. (btw, when can they stop calling it "pass paper"?)

After lots of fxcking, people then complain the HKEAA of "stealing" the paper and infringing copyright. Guys, does that make any difference to your marks, even if it is true?

Next they go on to complain "it is not the author's fault, but the HKEAA" of (i) choosing a passage from a Dutch; (ii) choosing an informal passage; and (iii) the style of the questions changed. Well, if you can't handle informal passages I don't think you can handle articles from the Times magazine or the like, you'll only "die faster". And actually if I were the HKEAA I will change the style of the questions every year to make sure you learn the basics of the language and not "tips" from "tuition kings". Good job, HKEAA!

No comments: