Filling-in time

11th May 2007, 1:00am

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Filling-in time

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/filling-time
At Balwearie High in Kirkcaldy, pupils either sit the Foundation and General papers or the General and Credit. John Mason, principal teacher of computing and information systems, believes all three papers are a definite improvement on last year - the first year of the new arrangements.

The Foundation paper was a mix of “filling in blanks”, “tick box” questions and short response questions - all of the expected standard.

Last year’s General paper came under fire for its structure, but this year’s was more balanced, containing quite a few “fill in the blanks” style questions, which act as a good bridge between Foundation and General, says Mr Mason.

If a candidate had prepared well for Credit, the General paper should have been very straightforward and a “nice warm-up”. Of the Credit paper, he said: “If there is one paper that has improved the most, it is the Credit one.”

It had more Credit-level content than last year’s, although, arguably, there is scope for yet more extended response questions - something Mr Mason expects will come in future years. Nevertheless, it did overcome the criticism of last year’s Credit paper that it did not prepare candidates well for Higher.

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