The fact that you can be incredible in a subject and not have this reflected in the mark.
When you say this, you're essentially proposing that the subject examinations should have no bound on its difficulty, i.e. there is no structured syllabus and marking criteria. If not, there is no possible way to accurately differentiate between those who are actually "incredible in a subject", because there must be a threshold at some point. I think it's quite clear how this is implausible.
Secondly, you're making another assumption that the purpose of education, exams, and in this case, VCE, is to test your knowledge and skill alone. Why this is actually a delusion is because assessment is not about measuring how "smart" you are; rather, it probes your capacity to succeed, and this encompasses numerous factors. Universities do not just want the most intelligent students. Wonder why? This is because in life, just like VCE, the people that learn quickly (i.e. the people you define to be "smart") do not always win. Do you think entities such as universities and the like care how "incredible" people are if they cannot produce results?
I do understand your sentiments (it crossed my mind at some point as well), but ultimately this is just a diversion for top students in the event that they don't satisfy their expectations.
You've misinterpreted my statement. It's certainly possible to restrict the difficulty of subjects but incorporate a range of questions to engage all students. A science or maths exam with 3 or 4 more challenging questions wouldn't compromise the ability of the test to differentiate students; rather, it'd highlight students with a more profound understanding of the work. I think any individual who denies this evidently has no understanding of what frequently happens in the VCE - hardworking, intelligent (and hence "successful") students often lose out to less deserving pupils because of a small number of careless mistakes.
You also mentioned that universities want students who "succeed". I agree. However, I think that success has the potential to be measured more accurately (with examinations that test true understanding of the material) - the current assessments don't fairly reward intelligent students who've put in a lot of work. I know a plethora of individuals who've represented Australia in certain sciences and have put in a tremendous amount of work (both for their VCE/HSC and olympiad preparation) who haven't received stellar scores, due to a small number of trivial errors in their exams. I think it's an insult to them (and many others with similar experiences) to state that they don't "succeed". An examination at the end of the year with no challenging questions doesn't allow people like this to shine.
I think you've missed the whole point of my argument. I never said that the VCE examinations should be pitched at an incredibly difficult level. Rather, I believe that there should be a small number of questions on each paper which allow superior students (who happen to work hard and be intelligent) to come above the crowd.
After all, universities shouldn't be looking solely for students who make very few careless mistakes. Hard work and creative thinking should play a more vital role.
Your suggestion is still superficial in the light of the fact that the notion of these "challenging questions" is completely subjective. Do you realize you could apply this same reasoning until the questions are so difficult nobody in the state can answer them? Moreover, you are implying that students can ace VCE (45+) without having a solid grasp on the subject. No matter how you look at it, this is at best an excuse for top students that fail to get those coveted scores. tl;dr, it's all hokum.
Your second paragraph illustrates that you have not understood anything I typed. I digress: hard work and "intelligence" are related but not the same as success.
My lappy battery is dying, so I'll have to wrap it up here.
I defined being worthy of success as having a natural aptitude for the subject as well as putting in considerable work. If you so desperately beg to differ, how would you define it?
Your statement about the difficulty being able to escalate to ridiculous levels is inherently flawed. There's no motivation for exam writers to pitch papers at this level, and furthermore, I emphasised in my response that this would be unacceptable. To be clear, I never proposed anything of such immense difficulty that "no one" in the state can answer. Rather, I stipulated that "it's certainly possible to restrict the difficulty but incorporate a range of questions to engage all students". This suggestion isn't superficial. Although examiners can never know with absolute certainty whether questions will be perceived as "difficult", I'm sure that teachers with sufficient experience would be able to tell if the questions were appropriate, and if they could distinguish between top students. That argument can be refuted by debating that such practices exist presently, however, I believe that there's a consensus among many teachers for subjects such as physics and mathematical methods that the current question do
not challenge most students, hence demonstrating that the aforementioned practice has not already been rendered null. Furthermore, the subjectivity of the difficulty wouldn't rest upon a single individual - a team of staff are involved in the composition of each examination paper. The appropriate level of difficulty isn't too difficult to determine - a statistical analysis of past examination questions (and a comparison to prospective problems for a certain year) could roughly gauge the appropriate level.
I'm not sure how on earth you could perceive my statements as saying that students in the top 2% lack a grasp of the subject. Instead, I suggested that within (and slightly outside) this range, students aren't differentiated based on their true understanding, but rather, trivial factors in the examination. I've used this example to death by now, but consider the Unit 3 Physics examination. A total of 4 marks could be dropped to stay within the top 11 or so percent; a score of 88/90 thus equated to roughly the top 3 or 4%. As the paper didn't test a profound understanding of the subject (most of the questions involved the regurgitation of formulae with little or no manipulation), perfect scores could be obtained without understanding the complexities of the course. However, a student who possessed such a keen comprehension of the material (and perhaps sat within the top 0.5 or so percent of their school cohort) could easily drop a few marks by making a substitution error, colouring the wrong multiple choice bubble accidentally, or not seeing a question (this happened to a friend of mine who had high 90s on our rather difficult SACs). Such a student wouldn't achieve a score indicative of their understanding of the subject, and likewise, a student with a grasp (albeit far less profound) of the material could attain 90/90. I never suggested once that students didn't understand the subject; rather, I stated that the order of marks wasn't representative of the true comprehension of the students.
If you honestly think that the difficulty of the VCE system presently suffices (and hence believe that a few questions which require higher orders of thinking don't deserve a place in our examinations), you obviously have little familiarity with the qualification itself. Let me say this: if there's an exam where 10% of the state scores 96% or above, it's not going to discriminate fairly between students.
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