Analysis of scores

[ccr]

Don't be silly. Nobody has been allowed to sit it twice and it is not that different than all the CEM Super Saturday CEMs which are exactly the same paper having their backup papers on different days and QE having 50 plus students sit exactly the same paper a week later, some not because they are sick but because they arrived late for the main sitting.

This is going to happen again next year and will carry on happening until CEM agree to write another paper.

The problem here was CEM refusing to provide a second different paper.

CEM say the paper is "robust" and no students can remember anything about it.

Two years ago Redbridge had the same paper 23 days later and Bucks use the same CEM paper all year round.

Welcome to the world of CEM where papers are so tutor proof that no student can remember a single thing about them! DG

I am surprised that you are so vehemently supporting this practice. QE having a few boys sitting another day is not the same as boys and girls sitting the DAO test, while already knowing that they will sit the same test later for an entirely different set of schools. The QE boys in question can only , at best, have word of mouth information regarding the test where as those who sat the DAO test are actually doing a second test. How can you not see the difference? "CEM say the paper is "robust" and no students can remember anything about it." Well of course! I will be a monkey's uncle.

[ccr]

It's mad. For such a high-stakes test, there should definitely have been a second paper. If there was even a possibility of students remembering any of the questions.

I think the types of questions this year were less easy to memorise than in some CEM VR tests, in that - according to ds - there were fewer of the synonym/antonym type questions, where you either know the word or you don't, and it's easy to remember if you do, and easy for a tutor to pre-teach it.

But it's still lazy - presumably cost-cutting, as otherwise they'd have to pay for two papers. Plus I'm not sure how you standardise it fairly if you've only got a handful of candidates.

It is not even about remembering the questions; more so about remembering the pattern and making the most out with the help of 'tutors'. Setting up different papers for different schools/tests is what they should be doing, unless all schools concerned can't agree to sit the same test on the same day.

[Daogroupie]

Read the post from me that you just replied to. I will repeat the key line for you. Nobody has been allowed to sit it twice.

CEM has always been very clear. No candidate will be allowed to sit the same paper twice. If they do the mark from the first paper they sat will be used as the mark for both schools.

I don't support it. Look all my posts from months and months ago warning SW Herts candidates about it. But it went ahead and will happen again next year as DAO is holding their CEM on a Friday and SW Herts always do Saturday.

I wonder how many complaints SW Herts Consortium actually got. It is not a problem for DAO, it is a problem created by SW Herts Consortium who chose the Saturday a week later months after DAO had published all their dates. DG