OBSERVATIONS    GM1SXX             9th November 2009

Our 'Tick Box' education system (and society)... continued.

If you are a regular reader, you may remember this posting, of which I unclude a snippet..

As a member of the local radio club, I sometimes have to do my bit in marking exam papers. A few months ago, I came across a question in one of the Foundation papers I was marking about frequency measurement. It said 'What units are used to measure Frequency?'

It had the usual two plausible and two stupid answers, but what deeply concerned me, and still does, which is why I'm writing this, was the 'plausible wrong answer'.  The 'correct' syllabus based answer was Hertz, but the 'plausible *wrong* answer' was Cycles per second.  I'm frankly horrified at this sort of thing being allowed into exam papers.  Hertz *IS* Cycles per second, so how can Cycles per second be the 'wrong 'answer!  At one point, I even began to doubt my own sanity and education, wondering if I had somehow  misunderstood the reality. To my great shame, I went and looked up Hertz in several reference books. It said 'cycles per second'!  Unfortunately I hadn't misunderstood anything .... they do share identical meanings, but one was now deemed WRONG! 

The above is part of what I wrote almost a month ago. I stand by what I said.  Since then, I tried to contact our RSGB area rep online from the RSGB website.  I waited and waited and waited.....ZILCH!  I then looked him up on QRZ and sent an email direct to him.   I DID receive a reply... but only to inform me that he had in fact received my email!

 The RSGB are promoting this deeply flawed tick-box future.  We owe our students a far better deal. Don't you think?

If you don't think it's OK, I urge you to DO something about it.

73 Al.

GM1SXX