SOME Higher English work is “barely literate”, the principal assessor has observed in a scathing condemnation of students’ abilities in this year’s exam. Nearly all markers commented that many entries were “very poor” and simply not up to the standard.

On the back of a lecturer’s comments that many trainee primary teachers at Aberdeen University have severe writing difficulties and fail to understand the use of language (TESS, last week), the assessor’s comments will add to anxieties about Higher English and communication and the current capabilities of students.

The newness of the Higher Still course - which has been dogged by controversy - is said to be the source of continuing problems. “Many candidates should have been presented at Intermediate 2 or even 1, where they would have enjoyed success,” the assessor notes.

In folio writing, done at home and in school before the external exam, the assessor observes that creative writing was often “over-long and poorly handled (5,000 words often gave scope for all deficiencies to be highlighted)”.

The assessor adds that a surprising number of the 28,889 candidates displayed “less than basic competence in their folio writing”, despite opportunities to redraft and remove typographical errors. Some specialist literature studies were double the maximum length of 1,800 words and the writing element, which carries a maximum length of 650 words, ranged from 300 to 5,500 words.

In the close reading section, “words such as ‘dilemma’ were impenetrable to some candidates and their vocabulary was such that ‘disillusionment’ was often misguidedly assumed to be a synonym for ‘delusional’.”

The assessor wryly comments: “The above were related to reading skills: in the first case reading a sentence, in the second case understanding of vocabulary.”

Among the more able candidates, for whom the original Higher was designed, students performed well and in folio writing “personal essays were often witty, moving and deep”. Creative writing could be “very good”.

In the critical essay section, schools and colleges were extending the range of texts to include poets such as Liz Lochhead and Kate Clanchy and using some novels such as Chocolat and Snow Falling on Cedars as class texts. “There was a (welcome) decrease in the number of candidates totally ignoring the chosen question,” the assessor remarks with generous irony.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority’s analysis of the 7.6 per cent fall in pass rates pins the blame largely on “over-presentation of inappropriate candidates”. The compensatory A pass available at Intermediate 2 for those who fail may have contributed to that, it concludes.

But there is “no simple explanation”, according to the subject’s assessment panel.