Slashdot Mirror
Computer Science GCSE in Disarray After Tasks Leaked Online (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The new computer science GCSE has been thrown into disarray after programming tasks worth a fifth of the total marks were leaked repeatedly online. Exams regulator Ofqual plans to pull this chunk of the qualification from the overall marks as it has been seen by thousands of people. Ofqual said the non-exam assessment may have been leaked by teachers as well as students who had completed the task. The breach affects two year groups. The first will sit the exam in summer 2018. Last year 70,000 students were entered for computer science GCSE. A quick internet search reveals numerous posts about the the non-exam assessment, with questions and potential answers.
Using the study–test paradign to pass on the knowledge and skills of a complex subject just doesn't work.
Your proof of ability should be your portfolio, and your working relationship with actual professionals.
Sure, medical doctors do take exams along the way, but they'll all tell you that what really counts are the endless hours of working with their betters until they themselves become somebody else's better.
Education needs to be re-arranged around this apprenticeship model; interviewing and testing are bullshit ideas—your movement through society's functions should be well defined.
Undefined acronym alert! Bad editor alert!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I think the ones thinking that was a good idea have just demonstrated they are utter failures at CS and at understanding how it is being used today. If the rest of the thing is of similar quality and level of insight, then this thing is completely meaningless.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
it stands for
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GCSEs are exams given to 16 year olds in the UK, not that you would know that from the summary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What is that? No idea. Ain't America.
And you can't search ? I guess an American cares not about what happens beyond its borders.
General Certificate of Secondary Education .
Even worse : it seems to be a UK thing.
Why would I care about something outside my border? I don't think the UK exists in real life anyway.
But, but, but... Don't we all know, that information wants to be free? And that any attempts to censor anything are treated as damage and routed around?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Oh, the UK certainly does exist. I saw the UK on a documentary I watched this last weekend about some fellow named "Harry Potter" (I think he's high up in the government). Sure his early life was broken up over many episodes so it drug on more than it should, but it provided some excellent background into UK youths.
According to the College Board, 40% of the score for the new Advanced Placement Computer Science Principles course - whose higher-than-other-subject-area pass rates were recently celebrated by tech-bankrolled Code.org - is based upon assessment of non-exam "Performance Tasks."
But who's Qual and why is he already allowed to own a slave?
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
True story. I used to post on the TES forum (TES = UK Education Newspaper). One year there was a problem with the "AS Level" IT exam (AS level is done by 17 year olds roughly, it's the level above GCSE). None of the teachers could do it (it was an Access database). Literally. Slightly worrying when they are supposedly teaching students to do it, but that's the standard of UK "Computing". To be fair it was an insanely stupidly designed question (and about half of it was drivelling on about green issues which were irrelevant to the problem). I created two sample working databases, different approaches same problem, which I shared with teachers (it had to be to a teachers email in a school email address for obvious reasons). I ended up getting deluged with questions from students asking for all kinds of help , bizarrely the most common was "how do I memorize this". From all over the country. None of them should have seen the question let alone the answer. I don't know who leaked it. I understand that such is commonplace. Cheating is rampant.
Finland, the birthplace of Linux.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think the task should be something that is unique for each student with a pass/fail grading system.
20% Implement a novel scripting language or compiler
80% Publish a best selling book on said language
Because we don't have enough easy-to-use multi-paradigm write-once-synergize-everywhere languages.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You may have potential in QA, if you are genuinely creative and clever in breaking stuff.
GCSE - General Certificate in Secondary Education. The average UK Secondary school (ages 11 to 16) student will have between 9 and 15 of these from the last years of school in a variety of subjects, Maths, English and Science being the definitely mandatory ones.
We then move on to now either A Levels for 2 years or Apprenticeships as we have to stay in full time education til the age of 18 now (used to be 16). A Levels are maybe first year USA undergraduate level work, most students take 3 of theses. There's no mandatory subjects though. An apprenticeship is an alternative route with work based qualifications.
Then we got to University based on the grades we get in our A Levels. We choose 1 degree subject to apply for before studying (we don't apply to the Uni and then pick a "major" during out time there. Certain course will have certain A Level subject requirements. As in to do a Degree in Maths you need an A Level in Maths. Our degrees are only 3 years long having covered some of the USA's "freshman" year content during our A Levels.
It is always helpful to introduce abbreviations before use, e.g., General Certificate in Secondary Education (GCSE). If your audience includes people from difference contexts, e.g., countries, cultures, continents, please provide the necessary context. For example, secondary education inside the Bologna zone (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bologna_Process) which includes many countries in Europe, secondary education may refer to master degrees, whereas in the EU education framework primary = primary school (up until 4th/6th grade), secondary = high school/gymnasium/grammar school/secondary school/access to universities and tertiary = university education. This is especially required with this topic, as student in the US and UK may refer to school children and university students, whereas in, e.g., Germany there are different terms for both groups (Schüler/Student like schooler/student).
In short: express abbreviations before first use, explain abbreviations, provide context for your audience.
I initially read this as team sprint and thought, "I thought King Arthur was a myth, not a workplace warning!"
A whole article and recap without one word on what GCSE means. Thanks.
If you use google, you should get this as the first link.
I googled it. The point is, I shouldn't have to. It's a simple, basic courtesy in writing to give the expanded form of an initialism at the first occurrence.