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cavanami
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  • 2 weeks later...

New Zealand students say word 'trivial' in exam confused them

High School students in New Zealand who didn't know what the word "trivial" meant in an exam question have demanded not to be marked down as a result.

More than 2,600 people signed an online petition over the "unfamiliar" word.

The students were asked to write an essay based on the Julius Caesar quote: "In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes."

Examiners said the language used was expected to be within the range of the year 13 students' vocabulary.

However, in a statement, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority [NZQA] added: "If candidates have addressed the quote and integrated their ideas with it, then they will be given credit for the strength of their argument and analysis and will not be penalised for misinterpreting the word 'trivial'."

It added: "There have been no changes as a consequence of the petition."

The petition said the word had caused "much confusion" among the students who sat the exam on Wednesday.

"The word which many students were not particularly familiar with meant that students had to write the essay based on their own understanding of the word," it said.

The petition called on examiners to mark the essay based on the students' own definition of "trivial".

In its statement, the NZQA said the question had been produced by experienced staff currently teaching history at that level.

"When there are any unfamiliar words in any material for an exam, a glossary is provided," it said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46234545

 

This is no small material!   :dunce:

 

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Dear Mr Mekong, and I mean this in a caring and sharing, non Ameri-centric kind of way.

Nope didn't miss the sarcasm, and added my own with - OMG!

an answer to " write an essay based on the Julius Caesar quote: "In war, events of importance are the result of trivial causes."

could be: LMAO STBY FWIW RBTL SITD

note the lack of punctuation ...

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  • 2 weeks later...

After the fall: Kiwi haunted by act of casual cruelty

It wasn't so much the fall that left former Otago Daily Times subeditor Gordon Brown traumatised, serious though it undoubtedly was. It was what happened next.

... The bike wobbled, I braked, looked down at the pedals momentarily, looked up and saw the front wheel was at the lip of the path, realised in one shocking instant there was nothing I could do. It happened so fast. The bike went over the edge and I went with it, head first, on to the base and exposed roots of a palm tree. I felt a tremendous blow, a bang, as my head hit the tree. My forehead and the area around my right eye took the brunt of the blow, but I didn't know that then. All I knew was I staggered to my feet, thinking, "my God, I'm blind''. Then I swept my hand across my face and cleared the blood from my eyes, or the one that was still functioning. ...

...

If he had walked up to me and struck me in the face, I would not have been more shocked than I was by his words; the disinterest, the intended desertion, a casual cruelty.

I've had plenty of time to think about that moment, that phrase: "it's time we were getting back ...''. He was a native English speaker, the women he spoke to the same. They were either British or New Zealanders. There was no hint of an American or Australian accent....

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12166125&fbclid=IwAR3ga-9an1xSluijh2-F0OXYi8rcKF_JejUqZIkUJlmiAjxEuP8_zVoZEeg

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