Comments on KS3 tests

At a meeting of the NATE KS3 Committee on 14th December 2002, the new Key Stage 3 tests were discussed. Members of the Committee studied the materials for reading, the sample questions and the mark schemes put out by QCA and agreed the following comments:

1. The 'Making it Real' materials:

The extract from Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein' is accessible and interesting. It will already be familiar to many Year 9 students. This gives those who already know it some advantage over those to whom it is quite new. The passage about making a waxwork is fairly straightforward although long and dull and therefore likely to be uninviting to many students. The passage about a computer generated virtual human relies heavily on computer language and is complex in its ideas, although for those students (perhaps particularly boys) who are interested in this sort of thing, it does hold some interest.

Altogether these three passages amount to a lot of reading - more than could easily be done by most students in the 15 minutes specified. The reading task is made even more demanding - and perhaps meaningless - because the passages have to be read before looking at the questions on them, which means that the reader has no focus to guide them through the text and help them select the information which is important. This makes it a very unrealistic task.

2. The questions suggest a fragmented approach to reading which may have some diagnostic uses but does not provide summative assessment which is what it is intended to do.

3. The mark scheme very often fails to take into account different readings of the text. The mark scheme often presupposes a finite answer to the question although there are many other possible responses.

4. There is excessive concern with linguistic terminology, points of grammar and punctuation such as colons, connectives etc which are emphasised out of context.

5. The mark scheme is not flexible enough and does not take account of a range of reading.

6. The questions are not always clear. For instance in one question the pupils are asked to look at four paragraphs of the text about making a waxwork and to identify the four stages in the making of a model. The mark scheme clearly indicates the stages which should be named but there are in fact a great number of stages and an answer would depend on the reader's idea of what is meant by the word 'stage'.

7. The more able pupils are often unlikely to be properly rewarded because their answers will contain imaginative responses and originality which is not rewarded by the mark scheme. Many of those who should be placed on level 7 or 8 will get a level 5.

8. In another question pupils are asked to explain how the writer presents the process of wax model making as both gruesome and amusing, although there is little suggestion in the description of the process which is either gruesome or amusing. It is hard to see what is intended by the question, particularly as the sample answer which gains 5 marks (the highest score) is less good than the one which gains 4 marks.

9. The balance of the marks is not always sound.

10. As a way of summing up attainment in three years the tests only provide a tiny snapshot. They do not assess the National Curriculum since there is no Speaking and Listening, drama or IT. They appear to be driven by the National Literacy Strategy which is non-statutory.