Re: RAE (or whatevertisnowcalled)

I would defend the need for a central moderation of marks, especially
with a new syllabus. I have some experience of using MCQs (not in the
radio world). After the sheets are computer marked, we get a report
showing the results for each question. Invariably some questions are
discarded at that stage because there was an error, or examination of
the distribution of answers to a question shows that it was
misleadingly worded.

But that is absolutely not the same as setting the pass-mark to allow a
defined percentage of candidates through. As others have said here,
that would seem to be a dangerous thing to do with this particular exam
because the test needs to set standards and not respond to the
standards of the candidates. This is especially true if there is any
basis to the theory that there were hordes of idiots simply waiting for
the CW requirement to be dropped before taking the exam.

I took the 3 exams back-to-back some 6 months ago. I scored 100% in the
foundation exam. I got one question wrong in the Intermediate (because
I had not realised I needed to memorise the resistor code - seems a
bit pointless). I thought both of those exams were dull and annoying.
However, maybe I am thick, but I found the advanced exam interesting
and testing and I would quite like to know what my mark was (is there a
way to find out?). There were some silly questions and some that
clearly aimed to trick candidates but there were also some nice
questions that required understanding rather than memory. Continuous
refinement to maintain standards seems laudable.

.

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