Great writers 'fail' online test

[Maggy J]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8356572.stm

Winston Churchill's iconic "fight them on the beaches" speech did not make the grade when it was marked by a computer system, exam experts have said.

David Wright, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessment (CIEA), said Churchill's Battle of Britain radio speech in 1940, known as "Their Finest Hour", was marked down for repetition and the wrong use of words

I suppose that it's going to be sometime before teachers can be replaced by computers..

[Flyboy]

The institute - which represents exam boards and other bodies involved with testing and assessment - had put the speech and works by various authors through a system currently used in America

Well...there's the problem right there really.

[Maggy J]

Originally Posted by Flyboy

Well...there's the problem right there really.

That's a cheap shot really as I''d actually I'd put some of the top American universities up against our top universities anytime and in particular the English and literature departments....

[danielf]

I saw this on ch. 4 news earlier, and it doesn't surprise me really. The stuff they put through was, if you look at it, kind of weird if judged in an essay. Churchill: we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the hills and in the streets. Was marked negatively for being repetitive. Which it is (for effect). It's a speech, written for impact, and the repetition works well. Such repetition doesn't normally occur in written text, and if it does it would often be poor.

There was Golding where they used a passage where someone slowly appeared and the text was: A hand. A spear. A face. Three simple noun phrases in succession. This clearly is meant to reflect the fact that the event unfolded slowly, but it's not something you'd normally expect in an essay.

As it says in the link, these are examples that use relatively odd narrative devices to convey emotion, something which computers are generally not very good at.

[rogerdraig]

its more about school / university grammar v real world use of language

English is a living language an grammar is great as a starting point and something that should be learned but how you use it in the real world should never be constrained by fixed rules ( excepting legal and business documents )


long live the Jaberwocky