Posted on 11/16/2018 10:52:42 AM PST by Simon Green
New Zealand high school students have demanded examiners ignore that they dont know what the word trivial means, after it appeared in a final-year exam and left many confused.
Some students who took the year 13 history exam claimed the unfamiliar word was too hard, and the exam should now be marked according to each students different understanding and interpretation of trivial.
The exam asked for students to write an essay on whether they agreed with a quote from Julius Caesar which reads: Events of importance are the result of trivial causes.
An online petition claims the word trivial caused much confusion in the Wednesday exam and many students were not particularly familiar with the word.
More than 2,500 people have signed the petition, calling on the New Zealand Qualifications Authority [NZQA] to recognise the true potential of the students and mark the essay based on the students own content and understanding of the event, many of which were different to what the word actually means.
Year 13 student Logan Stadnyk who took the exam told local media that at least half of his classmates thought trivial meant significant.
Trivial isnt a word that you hear too frequently, especially not if youre in Year 13, Stadnyk said.
Kristine Kilkelly, NZQA deputy chief executive assessment officer, said the exam was written by experienced history teachers who had judged it suitable for year 13 students.
The language used in the question, such as the word trivial, was expected to be within the range of vocabulary for a NCEA Level 3 History student, Kilkelly said.
If candidates have addressed the quote and integrated their ideas with it, then they will be given credit for the strength of their argument and analysis and will not be penalised for misinterpreting the word trivial.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Masticate.
adverb
1. in the literal or strict sense:
2. in a literal manner; word for word:
3. actually; without exaggeration or inaccuracy:
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,
On a lurgid bee,
That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles,
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer.
[drowned out by moaning and screaming]
Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,
And living glupules frart and slipulate,
Like jowling meated liverslime,
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turling dromes,
And hooptiously drangle me,
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don’t.
trivial ?
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost,
For want of a horse, the rider was lost,
For want of a rider, the message was lost,
For want of a message, the battle was lost,
For want of a battle, the war was lost,
For want of a war, the kingdom was lost,
For want of a nail, the world was lost
‘The Want of a Nail”
Fault goes to the teacher.
Confusion with a single word should not ruin more that one single question. Dependencies across many questions is bad teaching.
Also seeking clarity should be rewarded as that reflects the real world.
This is not a trivial matter.
https://datayze.com/word-analyzer.php?word=trivial
Audience Familarity
Word Rank: 4515th
Grade Level (Approximate): Elementary or Middle School
Fog Reading Ease Complex Word: Yes
Dale-Chall Reading Ease Difficult Word: Yes
7th grade level for C students?
DK
I know this is trivial but trivial is worth 16 points in the game of Scrabble®
;^}
Could be worse....you could have quoted from Ode to a Small Lump of Green Putty I Found in My Armpit One Midsummer Morning.
Let’s use it in a sentence, Laws in America are deemed trivial if you are a Democrat.
Often time, the definition of a word can be determined by the whole of the sentence it is used in. Stupid children.
It’s in this 7th grade spelling list - https://www.homespellingwords.com/7th-grade/spelling-list-30
Intermediate spelling list - http://www2.sharonherald.com/herald/nie/spellb/spelllist2.html
100 words every high school graduate should know - https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/137567 Not the word itself but it is in a definition of one of the words.
This should show everyone how trivial their education is when they dont know the meaning of the word trivial!!!
NZ has some really dumb kids.
So does the USA.
Sharpton is trivial.
Try vial?
Which might be related to the reason they don’t know to turn their iphones from portrait to landscape when videoing.
Today’s kids wouldn’t understand.
I taught in an alternative ed high school and was repeatedly asked why I was always usin such big words? A big word could have consisted of words such as repeatedly and consisted. They also repeatedly asked me why I was always usin cursive on the board and complained they couldnt read it. It took me some weeks to come to the realization that they werent kidding, they really couldnt read the board.
Cursive is a separate pair of alphabets, and at the least is equivalent to a really weird font to those who havent been taught it - which with the advent of ubiquitous laptops, has become more and more the case.
As for the big words, thats on them.
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