Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This year’s listening paper continued the initiatives of the 1999 and 2000
papers i.e. widening the range of task types used, as well as increasing the
visual attractiveness of the paper. This involved using items constructed
around pictures, maps and diagrams and task types including note taking,
table completion and multiple choice. The crime-related topic was thought to
be of interest to Hong Kong students and something that they could relate to
as part of everyday life.
Performance statistics
The mean score of the test was 49% and the standard deviation was 20.1%,
compared to 50% and 18% respectively in 2000.
Markers’ comments
The markers commented on various aspects of the paper. Their findings are
summarised below:
A large majority of the markers judged both Part 1 and Part 2 of the paper to
be at about the right level of difficulty, while considering Part 2 to be more
challenging than Part 1.
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Candidates’ performance
Recommendations
Conclusion
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Section B Writing
Introduction
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Question 1
– Many candidates restricted the discussion to the issue of ‘triads’ in
schools.
– Some candidates did not comprehend the word ‘bully’.
Question 2
– Some candidates wrote on the issue of Christmas generally, with limited
reference to China.
– Many candidates seemed to be ignorant of the religious significance of
Christmas.
Question 3
– Many markers commented on the use of a limited range of arguments,
otherwise there seemed to be few problems with this question.
Question 4
– Many markers noted that candidates seemed to have only a partial grasp
of what is meant by ‘discrimination’.
– This was the least popular question, which perhaps demonstrated that
candidates are not familiar with social issues of this kind.
Language errors
Memorisation
Very few memorised answers were reported this year. This is perhaps an
indication of the ingenuity of the moderation committee in devising questions
that do not easily enable ‘anticipation’ or the use of pre-learnt model essays.
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Conclusion
Overall, the marking of the examination was once again carried out smoothly
with the help of the Assistant Examiners and the markers. No major problems
surfaced, and markers’ reports were overwhelmingly positive.
General comments
The mean percentage correct for the entire 2001 Section C was 51 compared
to 49 in 2001.
The reading passage leant itself well to asking good comprehension questions.
Although the general topic of the passage (the environment) is familiar to
virtually all candidates, the underlying ideas in the passage are very different
from those that are generally-accepted views. Most people would assume that
our environment is generally worsening year by year; the main thrust of this
reading passage is that, in fact, the environment is improving and has been
doing so for the past century or so. Because of the familiarity with the
general topic, the passage contains vocabulary which should have generally
been accessible to candidates. However, in view of the unusual ‘slant’ on a
familiar topic, candidates could not answer questions based on their prior
knowledge, but rather had to answer them based on a successful reading of
the passage.
Candidates will generally find it most helpful to first read through the passage
quickly to determine the general theme or slant of the article. Paying
attention to the title also can help. In the case of the 2001 passage, the title
‘Our durable planet’ indicates that the article is at least fairly positive about
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the Earth’s ability to withstand environmental degradation. And a reading of
the first paragraph would show that the writer is optimistic about the
environment. Being aware of this ‘optimistic attitude’ should help candidates
answer questions 1, 2, and 9.
The most difficult question was Question 15 (37% correct, key B). This is a
good example of a vocabulary question which candidates should be able to
answer even if they do not know the vocabulary item(s) (in Question 15,
‘scourges of the environment’ [lines 79–80]). A careful reading of the
previous sentence would show that the writer feels that governments could
improve the environment by ‘reducing certain subsidies’ and ‘eliminating tax
benefits’. Therefore the writer certainly regards subsidies and tax benefits as
bad for the environment. Hence the answer to Q.15 must be B., ‘enemies of
the environment.’ No other option would be logical given the preceding
sentence.
The only other question which proved difficult was Question 5 (50% correct,
key A). This is a reference question asking what the words ‘The same’ (line
29) refer to. The text reads:
Thus, prices for energy and minerals have fallen in real terms
during the century. The same is true for food.
Clearly ‘the same’ (thing) refers to the whole of the preceding sentence, so
option A ‘real prices falling over time’ is the best answer. Some candidates
(26%) thought the answer was B (‘raw materials not running out’). Although
the first sentence in the paragraph does say ‘Raw materials have not run
out ……’ there are four intervening sentences before ‘The same’. It is rare
for reference words to refer across such large chunks of text.
The mean percentage correct was a healthy 56. The four questions on which
candidates fared most poorly were Q.20 (38% correct, key D), Q.21 (38%
correct, key D), Q.24 (36%, key A) and Q.25 (31%, key B). Question 22 was
deleted from the paper because post-examination analysis revealed that it did
not discriminate well between stronger and weaker candidates.
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Question 20 reads as follows:
It is hoped that the mother will give birth to (20) baby mammoth.
A. alive
B. a life
C. living
D. a live
The answer would have to consist of two words: an indefinite article (‘a’ or
‘an’) plus an adjective in the pattern of the following sentence: ‘The man
bought a healthy adult dog.’ Therefore, the answer to Q.20 must be either B
or D, and since ‘life’ can only be used as a noun, the correct answer is D. ‘a
live’ baby mammoth.
For Question 21, the answer must be a verb form to show what the ‘freezing
conditions’ did to the mammoth (‘it’). The verb needs to be active voice
(hence not A. ‘may be preserved’) and past tense (hence not B. ‘preserve’ or
C. ‘to preserve’). Thus the key is D. ‘may have preserved’.
Question 24 reads:
‘Recently it (the mammoth) (24) from its resting place …… to ice caves
in Khatanga.’
A. was flown
B. has flown
C. had flown
D. flew
For Question 25, the present participle, ‘weighing’ is the key. About half of
the candidates chose option A. ‘weighed’, the past participle. Candidates
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should note the common use of the present participle in sentences like: ‘The
cat, looking sleepy, jumped onto the bed.’ or ‘He caught a fish weighing five
kilograms.’
The theme exercise this year was a newspaper article about Hong Kong and
Macau. The candidates did very well on this section of the paper with a mean
percentage correct of 55.
A most important aspect of this exercise is for the candidate to correctly work
out the general view of the writer or slant of the article. It is probably a good
idea to try to initially read through the several paragraphs first without writing
down answers to make sure the slant has been identified correctly. In this
year’s article, ‘Macau leads the way’ the ‘correct’ theme was the fact that
Macau has been much more successful than Hong Kong in preserving its
historical buildings. Candidates might have mistakenly thought the theme
concerned crime or gambling, as incorrect options in the first four questions
included these themes. However a reading of the second paragraph with its
discussion of ‘micro-preservation’, ‘beautification’, ‘newly-painted pink,
yellow and white buildings’, ‘pavements laid out in traditional designs’, etc.
should have allowed the candidate to correctly identify the overall topic of the
article.
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Part 2 — Summary Cloze, Questions 50–68
The performance on the summary cloze exercise was disappointing this year
with a mean percentage correct of only 40.
In this summary cloze exercise, candidates may in some cases find the exact
‘answer’ directly in the text of Version 1 and this can be copied directly to the
text in Version 2. These tend to be the easiest types of items: for example,
Question 51 (‘regulate’, 58% correct), Q.56 (‘major smugglers, 63% correct),
Q.61 (‘seized’, 62% correct); Q.62 (‘doses’, 46% correct), and Q.66
(‘supervision’, 69% correct). Oddly, however, two of the most difficult
questions involved direct copying from Version 1 to Version 2: Q.52 (‘larger
problems’, 7% correct) and Q.65 (‘packaging’, 20% correct).
Generally, more difficult items involve some changes in the words from
Version 1 to make them ‘fit’ grammatically into Version 2. For example,
Q.57 (18% correct) required changing the verb ‘shut down’ to the gerund
‘shutting down’, Q.58 (17% correct) necessitated changing the verb ‘raided’
to the noun ‘raids’, Q.64 (24% correct) required changing the past tense verb
‘obtained’ to the infinitive ‘to obtain’, Q.67 (34% correct) necessitated
changing ‘controls over quality’ to ‘quality control’, and Q.68 (28% correct)
necessitated changing the noun ‘contamination’ to the past participle
‘contaminated’.
Candidates did well on the Matching Exercise this year with a mean
percentage correct of 56. The items in the 2001 paper all were about a testing
laboratory, ACTS.
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Candidates should remember when attempting to match the pairs that they
need to pay close attention to both the information conveyed and grammatical
‘matches’, especially reference words (such as pronouns, determiners, definite
articles, adverbs, etc.). The questions which candidates did most poorly on
this year provide good examples of items where the grammatical components
should have helped in finding the correct ‘match’. For example, Q.70 (46%
correct), Column A ‘About 70% of ACTS’s business’, Column B, E. ‘The
remainder of its work ……’; Q.73 (44% correct), Column A ‘ACTs carries
out specialised chemical analyses ……’. Column B, K. ‘These, together with
toy-testing, air, quality monitoring and environmental testing, ……’; Q.74
(46% correct) Column A ‘One example of ACTS’s work is the checks they
perform on new toy designs.’ Column B, M. ‘These help ensure the product
will not choke a child, ……’, and Q.77 (45% correct), Column A ‘The
positions will require daily sample preparation and analyses.’ Column B, O.
‘Successful applicants will also have to carry out data review and write
reports ……’.
The three most problematic items in this year’s Proofreading Exercise were
Q.93 (8% correct), Q.94 (15% correct) and Q.98 (13% correct). Q.93
required candidates to change the word ‘sales’ to ‘salesmen / saleswomen /
salespersons / salespeople’. It is a common mistake in Hong Kong to refer to
people involved in merchandising as ‘sales’.
Q.94 required candidates to delete the preposition ‘of’ so the phrase correctly
reads ‘seems to lack integrity ……’. When ‘lack’ is used as a verb (e.g. ‘to
lack’) no preposition is needed, as a noun (e.g. ‘lack’) a preposition is needed
(e.g. ‘a lack of integrity’) and as a participle (‘lacking’) a preposition is also
needed (e.g. lacking in integrity’.)
Q.98 involves inserting the preposition ‘of’ so the phrase reads ‘within three
days of purchase’. This is a very common standard phrase which is found in
sales agreements and return policies.
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Conclusions and recommendations for candidates
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Section D Oral English
General comments
This examination tests the candidates’ ability to give a brief presentation and
to participate in a group discussion. Candidates were generally familiar with
the format and procedures of the examination and seemed to benefit from
changes in the time arrangements for the group discussion. On the whole,
candidates gave coherent and confident presentations, initiated conversations
with some ease, spoke audibly and asked appropriate and relevant questions.
The very weakest candidates were deficient in these areas, while the stronger
ones demonstrated a mastery of all aspects of oral presentation and discussion.
(a) Time
Candidates are given 10 minutes to read the passage, makes notes and
prepare for the oral presentation. As always, a number of the
candidates copied parts of the passage onto their notecards instead of
writing notes in their own words. Candidates should be aware that a
presentation containing large chunks from the original text will not
receive high marks.
(b) Passages
(c) Problems
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‘hostel’, for example. On the other hand, candidates should be aware
that they are not required to pronounce proper nouns with which they
are unfamiliar. Alternative forms of reference are usually given in the
text. There are no specific ‘testing points’ in this paper.
A number of examiners remarked that too many candidates spent a lot of time
reading from their notecards, rather than making a presentation in a relaxed
manner. It is probably unrealistic to expect an examination candidate making
a presentation in front of five strangers to be at ease without devising a
strategy for making presentations which can appear formulaic to examiners.
Candidates, however, should at least attempt to look at the other candidates
from time to time. Examiners also noted that the intonation of many
candidates could be improved.
(a) Time
For the first time this year, candidates were given two minutes after
the individual presentations to prepare for the group discussion
(which was reduced to 10 minutes). This gave the candidates a
chance to relax and organize their thoughts before embarking on the
group discussion.
Every effort is made to ensure that the topics for discussion are at an
appropriate level for the candidates and that the tasks are clearly
defined.
This year it was felt that the topics were sufficiently accessible and
the tasks manageable and that there were fewer ‘specialist’ subjects
than in previous years, which have caused problems for candidates
before.
(c) Problems
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course, perfectly legitimate questions in a discussion, but should not
be the sum total of the candidates’ interaction. Contributing ideas is
also important and properly formed questions are essential elements
of a good discussion.
General recommendations
The topic for this year’s paper was an educational exchange between a school
in Hong Kong (Hong Kong College) and one in mainland China (Yishan
College).
The candidates had to assume the role of a student (Joey Tang) at the college
who had been asked by a teacher to report on the exchange, called Project Fan.
They had to write a report about the project for the school newspaper (HKC
News), complete a chart of problems experienced during the trip and prepare a
slide for a section of a talk about the project, outlining the unexpected
benefits of the trip.
Task 1
In Task One, candidates (as Joey Tang) had been asked by their Native
English Speaking teacher (Miss Stewart) to write an article for the school
newspaper about Project Fan. In any writing task, it is important for the
writer to ask himself/herself certain questions in order to produce a focussed
and relevant piece of writing. For this task, candidates needed to consider
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who they were (a school student who had been a member of the trip and
therefore had first-hand experience) and why they were writing (to inform
people about the trip and encourage them to participate in the future). They
also had to realise that the event had already taken place so they would be
using past tenses to record the relevant information requested by the teacher.
In spite of careful guidelines many candidates included irrelevant information
and did not maintain a consistent stance with regard to the writer and time
references.
Candidates were given specific information to include but many ignored this
and provided the reader with lots of general information about Jiangxi
province, (not just the history), and gave every detail of the itinerary, talking
about passing through immigration and taking a packed lunch for example,
rather than selecting the salient points. Many also misinterpreted the request
to give details of activities in addition to language classes and therefore
wrongly included information on the language classes themselves. In fact,
many answers reflected a cut and paste approach with little evidence of
selection or organisation of material. Candidates copied out vast amounts of
unnecessary material, which not only wasted time but also lost them marks
awarded for relevance.
Another problem with copying from the text was that candidates often
included the problems that had arisen during the trip, whereas Miss Stewart
had asked that such difficulties not be included as she wanted the article to be
positive in tone.
Markers also noted the inability of many candidates to group and organise
material so that it was easy for the reader to follow. Candidates had to
understand that the purpose of the task was to select relevant material for the
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reader and present it in a coherent way, not just copy out material and leave
the reader to sort it out.
In general, it seems that candidates need to consider the task and audience
more carefully and spend more time reading the rubrics and selecting material,
rather than thoughtlessly copying information from the Data File.
Task 2
In Task Two, candidates had to complete a chart of problems that had been
experienced during the trip. This task required candidates not only to explain
each problem but also to give a specific suggestion or recommendation for
future trips, by writing a complete grammatical sentence beginning with the
words provided. They then had to explain what the difficulty could be or the
disadvantage of the suggestion or recommendation they had written out.
Some of the answers showed that not all candidates understood the headings
given. Markers noted that some candidates did not seem to understand
‘accommodation’ and ‘duration of visit’. There was also confusion between
the trip to Yongfeng in general and the field trip to Ruijin. In giving the
details about a problem, candidates had to give sufficient information for the
problem to be fully understood by the reader. For example, in point 33,
concerning the conversation classes, it was necessary to convey the
information that the classes were ‘too big for the Hong Kong College students
to manage’. Simply saying that the classes were too big did not clearly show
where the problem specifically lay. Other answers lacked important details
and therefore conveyed incorrect information. For example, in point 45,
concerning the train journey, saying ‘there were no seats on the train’ is
different from saying there were ‘no seats for us/our students on the train’.
The second part of the task, which required students to produce a complete
grammatical sentence starting with the words provided, caused a variety of
problems.
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Many candidates were unable to supply the correct structure continuing from
the words provided:
Others failed to understand the need to adapt material in the Data File so that
it made sense in their answers. For example, for points 38 and 39, many
candidates copied ‘We could have special history lessons at Hong Kong
College to prepare them.’ In this context ‘them’ made no sense, as the word
to which it referred in the original text was missing.
Many candidates lost marks due to careless mistakes such as failing to make
nouns plural (X ‘some student’ and X ‘reserve seat’) and including or
excluding prepositions and articles (X ‘Why don’t we go to there in summer?’
and X ‘We ought to stay in hotel.’)
Other candidates made statements that conveyed the wrong meaning. For
example,
X ‘We ought to stay in another hotel.’ (when in fact they had not stayed in a
hotel but a hostel).
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is not so important historically.’ as their answer to point 44, but there was no
noun given in the earlier answer to make sense of what ‘it’ referred to. This
illustrates yet again that thought and adaptation of language is required, not
merely the copying out of parts of the Data File.
Task 3
In Task Three candidates had to prepare a slide to use during a talk about
Project Fan which was to be given to the Parent Teacher Association. The
topic of the talk was ‘Unexpected Benefits of Project Fan’, that is, benefits
which were not anticipated when the project was planned. The information
had to show such unanticipated benefits gained by Yishan College, Yongfeng
Town and Hong Kong College and candidates had to form a complete
grammatical sentence beginning with the words given. They also had to write
a short paragraph as Joey Tang, showing the personal benefits that had been
gained.
Markers felt that the two main challenges for candidates in this task were
sifting the expected benefits from the unexpected benefits and writing
grammatically-correct English. Candidates again seemed to feel that copying
chunks from the Data File on related issues would serve the purpose whereas,
in fact, they lost marks if they included irrelevant information. The rubric
clearly stated ‘unexpected benefits’ and this is what was required, not all the
additional points that were mentioned. Points 67-70 caused problems for
many. Although some candidates recognised that one unexpected benefit was
that Hong Kong College students developed new friendships with other Hong
Kong College students, they did not express this clearly. Writing X ‘The
participating Hong Kong students developed friendships with other students.’
was not specific enough to convey the correct information as it was not clear
which students were being referred to. The second part of this question also
caused difficulties with few students recognising that an improvement in their
oral English was an unexpected benefit for Hong Kong College students who
had gone hoping only to improve their Putonghua.
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General comments
Generally, candidates seemed to have sufficient time to complete all the tasks
although many wasted time copying indiscriminately from the Data File
instead of planning and thinking about the demands of the questions.
Markers felt that many candidates failed to consider the purpose of the
writing and the audience to whom it was addressed. There is a lot of
information for candidates to digest so they need to be able to reject details
that are irrelevant to the specified task and to avoid wholesale copying.
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