Slow Writing?

fantacan

Call me crazy but........

Let's take the case of dyslexic people. They, through no fault of their own, can have minor to major problems with spelling and/or punctuation. The department's answer to this is to provide either time allowances, spelling allowances, use of laptops or any number of these choices. This is completely fair and I have no problem with it and I don't think anyone should.

Now let's just take another case. There are plenty of people who will not have time to complete questions this year and in years to come in the Leaving Cert. Some of these will be due to people simply not being able to formulate answers in time. My problem, though, is for people who have studied and who have the knowledge but who can simply not write fast enough to show how much they know.
I think in the same case as dyslexic people this is not their own fault. They can try to improve their speed to a certain extent but sometimes they can't physically write fast enough to write 15 pages in an English exam within the given time or any other exam.

Am I crazy in thinking that there should be some sort of allowance (time or typing) for people who may be exceptionally slow writing. I'm aware there would be huge difficulty in testing how slow "too slow" was but I think that as it stands, the system is unfair and needs to be rectified somehow.

Any oppinions would be appreciated.

Quality not quantity.

Selphie

I'm pretty sure there is an allowance for extra time; but not cause you're slow at writing, only if you're dyslexic or something. you just have to apply to get it. Like, I have a hearing problem, and I need a room of my own for the aural exam. I got a form from the CAO on which it asks you to tick the boxes to say what you needed for completing the Leaving Cert, and one of the boxes to tick was extra time.
They do take people into account, you know.

Mushy

One lad in my year is amazingly slow at writing. He's also probably the smartest in the year, but why should he get more time than us cos he cant write fast enough? Based on his Mocks, if he doesnt speed up, he'll fail something major. If he got extra time, and then as a result got higher marks, it wouldnt be a fair reflection in comparison. Its not the SEC's fault he cant write fast enough, they give enough time in exams anyway. Time management is not his thing, maybe it'll have changed come Wednesday morning though. So to answer your question, yup, your crazy. Not on the dyslexic people though, thats clearly not their fault

maggie18x

yeah it takes me 15mins to write a page going my best and my writings average size.am i too slow inever have any time left to finih the paper.....

Choco

I know that I'm normally a bloody slow writer; sometimes it seems to take an age to get a page fully done, mostly because of my attention to detail and need to make my writing look, to me, quite nice. But in an exam, that for me goes right out of my head and I just write as fast as possible, which does look awful and does look crap. But if that is needed to finish the English paper...

Enemy Of Fate

Mushy wrote:

they give enough time in exams anyway.

Pfft.Tell that to the economics exam.Its bull**** we only get 2 hours and 30 minutes for that.We should get AT LEAST 3 hours.

pilchard

i dunno about the extra time but allowances should be made for the slower writers.. if quality over quantity was used properly then there would be no need for allowances.. but i know that in my pre's and in my jc i lost marks because my answers were concidered too short.. when, in the case of my pre's, they were re-read my teachers all said that i had all of the information nessecary for higher marks but was penalised for the length. i.e- 1 page for 2 unseen poetry questions when 2 pages was expected of us.

i would count myself as a slow writer, and i also have quite small writting, which has a tendancy of gettin smaller as i get more panicky. i hope that the correctors for the leaving are more likely to give marks for quality, than quantity.. i was warned that this is not allways the case though.

Grudaire

maggie18x wrote:

yeah it takes me 15mins to write a page going my best and my writings average size.am i too slow inever have any time left to finih the paper.....

15 minutes for a page, whats wrong with that?!

Corruptedmorals

Enemy Of Fate wrote:

Pfft.Tell that to the economics exam.Its bull**** we only get 2 hours and 30 minutes for that.We should get AT LEAST 3 hours.

I think it's based on the amount of writing. History and Geography are 2 hours 50, so Economics doesn't have a hope of getting 3 hours. Only the science subjects do, I think?

Enemy Of Fate

Corruptedmorals wrote:

I think it's based on the amount of writing. History and Geography are 2 hours 50, so Economics doesn't have a hope of getting 3 hours. Only the science subjects do, I think?

No business gets 3 hours as well I think.And the annoying thing is you're supposed to answer business questions in point form (well as much as is possible), whereas Economics NEEDS paragraphs to properly explain everything.

Oh and from personal experience, I can say this.You'll need to do more writing in economics than you do in history to get an A.So for History to get more time than economics is madness (not that i'm complaining.I'm very thankful for the extra history time, i'm just saying that Economics needs it more than history).

Tomlowe

pah in economics in the mocks i got an extra section b question done, 2 hours and 30 minutes is plenty of time for what youre asked to do

Enemy Of Fate

Tomlowe wrote:

pah in economics in the mocks i got an extra section b question done, 2 hours and 30 minutes is plenty of time for what youre asked to do

What paper did you get?Now I was 15 minutes late for the exam, but I still only got 75% of the exam done (75% exactly....which is quite odd really).Now there was no way in hell I could have gotten the final 25% of the exam done in an extra 15 minutes, and I like to consider myself to be quite a fast writer with an excellent knowledge of economics (out of the 75% of the exam I did, I got 69%...which is pretty damn decent).So economics should DEFINITELY get at least another 20 minutes (just like history does).

Corruptedmorals

Well the main point is....Geography should get 3 hours Think about it...4 really long questions, 10 short questions PLUS diagrams and probably a sketch map.

fantacan

Mushy wrote:

Time management is not his thing,

Im not talking about time management. Im talking about the ability to physically write what you know. If the guy in your year can't achieve a decent grade because he spends too long deciding what to write for an answer then it's fair enough, that's down to bad time management. But what if he has studied more than anyone else and knows more than anyone else (yes you may hate him for being a swot but not the point!) but can't actually write fast enough to show what he knows. Don't you think he deserves a higher mark than someone who has put much less work into the exam but can achieve the reccomended length.

Mushy wrote:

He's also probably the smartest in the year, but why should he get more time than us cos he cant write fast enough?

Why should dyslexic people get time/typing allowances just because they can't think of the spelling of words fast enough? Surely the allowance to type would benefit someone with slow handwriting much more.

Mushy wrote:

Its not the SEC's fault he cant write fast enough, they give enough time in exams anyway.

No it isnt their fault. It also isn't thier fault that people are dyslexic. They still give allowances
As for your second point, try and find anyone else to agree with you.

As for the whole Quality v Quantity. It is true but you do need a certain amount of time to show your quality. What if you can't achieve that?

Finally I'm sorry that I keep using dyslexia as an example. I just see the both situations as being similar as they are both something that you can't really change. I really don't hate dyslexic people. I have dyslexic friends and sometimes talk to them in public :rolleyes:

Fraggle Rocks

Cliste wrote:

15 minutes for a page, whats wrong with that?!

nothing, as long as you're not doing history, english, irish...

Peyton Manning

Geography, Business and LCVP Business should be at LEAST 3 hours...

genericgoon

Theres too much scope for abuse if concessions were extended to ppl who jsut write slow for a non-medical reason.

maggie18x

Archimedes wrote:

Geography, Business and LCVP Business should be at LEAST 3 hours...

sorry i see that your on line now. are you doin human enviroment or culture and identity as an elective?if u are what are u banking on?tank a mil:p

alan4cult

I write as fast as I think usually.

If that's not fast enough, I [would] break my arm and get a scribe to do the work!

Garret

Corruptedmorals wrote:

Well the main point is....Geography should get 3 hours Think about it...4 really long questions, 10 short questions PLUS diagrams and probably a sketch map.

shouldnt really

i finished it with plenty of time last year, despite practically non stop sneezing throughout