GCE EXAMINERS' REPORTS

Transcription

1 GCE EXAMINERS' REPORTS GERMAN AS/Advanced SUMMER 2015

2 Grade boundary information for this subject is available on the WJEC public website at: Online results analysis WJEC provides information to examination centres via the WJEC secure website. This is restricted to centre staff only. Access is granted to centre staff by the Examinations Officer at the centre. Annual Statistical Report The annual Statistical Report (issued in the second half of the Autumn Term) gives overall outcomes of all examinations administered by WJEC. Unit Page GN1 1 GN2 4 GN3 8 GN4 10

3 GERMAN General Certificate of Education Summer 2015 Advanced Subsidiary/Advanced GN1: ORAL EXAMINATION Principal Examiner: J Desch Communication with centres was efficient as always, except for one or two centres where Examinations Officers needed to be persuaded that it was not their prerogative to dictate the dates of the orals. Colleagues in MFL departments appreciate that arranging those dates is a complicated exercise, especially where there are few candidates and examiners have to visit two centres in one day. Occasionally however, a school s managerial hierarchy gets in the way of efficient correspondence and, prior to their visit, examiners sometimes had no contact with the German teacher who is ultimately responsible for his or her candidates and would often like to arrange a timetable for the day s exams in consultation with the examiner. However, most centres communicated efficiently with the examiner in advance so that the suggested timetables could function smoothly. Some centres even provided a map or instructions for travel to the school beforehand and reserved a parking space, which makes all the difference when time is short. This year there were additional problems when an examiner had to withdraw for health reasons at very short notice and a number of centres had to be reallocated at a time when most examiners schedules had been completed. That then necessitated quite a few other centres having to change their already agreed dates. To them my particular thanks for being so understanding and cooperative under the circumstances. The accommodation provided was nearly always appropriate, away from noise as much as possible, with no disturbances outside the examination rooms, and preparation areas and toilets close by. Refreshments were kindly offered in nearly all centres. In one case, however, the preparation room was two flights of stairs and a corridor away from the examination room, thus obliging the examiner to lock the room and go and find the next candidate. That is not acceptable and must be avoided. In most centres, examiners were able to meet the candidates for short briefing sessions prior to the day s exams, in larger centres and depending on the size of the groups there would be daily briefings. These meetings are particularly useful for breaking the ice, as it were, putting candidates at their ease and reminding them that examiners will always try to make this as relaxed, informal and, if at all possible, even as enjoyable as possible. Examiners generally succeed in this. GN1(a) Tests conducted by visiting examiners The aim is for students to demonstrate spontaneity and fluency in expressing views and opinions while handling with reasonable ease the structural framework. That and a conscious management of tenses and sub-clauses require more regular practice than learning (by heart) standard idiomatic phrases and a broad range of vocabulary. But the latter seems to be increasingly the focus of classroom teaching, to the disadvantage of fluency and responsiveness that can only be gained through regular classroom discussion in German. 1

4 More than in previous years, candidates tended to use set phrases (in meiner Meinung, ich behaupte, wenn man es genau betrachtet, ich muss zugeben, dass ), often indiscriminately and quite out of place. Therefore, comments such as in meine [sic!] Meinung ich behaupte, dass die erste Bild ist ein Ärztin (where the legend under the picture stated Ärztin) fail to impress the examiner. Other examples included: Alles in allem gibt es keine Frage, dass im ersten Bild es ist kalt, or Von mir aus im Ausland ist es heißer, or Im Großen und Ganzen bin ich davon überzeugt, dass ich seit sieben Jahren Gitarre spiele, or, in answer to the question whether the candidate preferred other forms of transport to air travel and queuing at airports: Persönlich finde ich dass die Reisen im Ausland sehr gut sind. Even in the General Conversation there was a much higher incidence than in the past of prepared answers that did not fit the question asked: Ich möchte in xyz studieren, weil es viel zu tun gibt. Man kann schwimmen Oh for the joys of academe! Replace the verb with wohnen, reisen, erholen, leben, arbeiten and the prelearnt phrase fits just about any context. Fluency, yes; but such standard building blocks are not conducive to lively, informal, let alone interesting interaction even though the candidate may state emphatically: Ich finde das interessant. There was more evidence this year of the widening gap between those schools where German is used actively on a daily basis and those where the language is taught but not practiced quite as much. On average, there may have been little difference in terms of range, grammar and syntax; but the linguistic agility and, indeed, confidence of candidates varied widely and gave a clear indication where they had had the opportunity to use German in the classroom every day and where not. It is those characteristics that translate directly into higher marks for spontaneity, fluency and interaction that account for two thirds of the oral marks, as a brief glance at the marking scheme will show. No amount of teaching and of learning standard conversational phrases can achieve that. It is difficult to analyse what has contributed to that shift in oral performance, but managerial and budgetary changes may play a part. In this context, several teachers mentioned that they had lost or were about to lose their German assistant. That is most regrettable and short-sighted. These young people in academic training, closer to our students in age and temperament, are an invaluable resource for our students oral expertise and, indeed, for their enjoyment of learning and speaking the language. Their loss will add further to the trend witnessed this year. The cards all worked well as a starter for more general discussions on the respective topics, and those discussions about the wider issues could easily be developed from them. Most candidates seemed confident that they had understood the situations, and only a few asked for help because of a lack of vocabulary. However some discussions remained somewhat limited for various reasons, for example: B1 quite a few candidates could not relate to the trade of Bäcker and had little idea about working conditions, training, apprenticeships, or why they might be important. (Long live sliced bread that grows in plastic bags!) B3 (Abitur) most mentioned only keine Uniform and kleines Klassenzimmer. Discussions reflected little or no understanding of the different approaches to teaching and examining in Germany and the UK, and very little beyond the number of subjects. A4 (Party ohne Alkohol) elicited comments limited to alcohol, health and healthy lifestyles, but not about the social implications as intended by the questions. Indeed, even the deliberately provocative comment about girls being more likely to get drunk than boys was largely ignored. Similarly in B5 where the women s lib aspect went largely unnoticed and did not lead to any wider debate of the issue. 2

5 Far too often candidates simply summarise the mini-conversations without assimilating the wider context and without thinking about their own response to the views expressed, or they describe the pictures GCSE fashion. They seem to concentrate more on writing lengthy factual answers to the three questions which they then memorise or even read out in the exam, and when challenged by the examiner they often cannot expand on their comments. Yet the introduction to all these questions reads Überlege dir, not Beantworte! That subtle advice seems to be generally ignored. GN1(b) Tests conducted by teachers This option continues to give cause for concern, and the incidence of using prepared answers and set phrases is even higher here. Candidates seemed to have been prepared to such an extent that in very many cases there was not even a semblance of realistic interaction. Questions and answers ran so seamlessly that there was little evidence of unexpected ad hoc responses. Conversations in one and the same centre tended to be fairly uniform, reflecting the same themes and questioning strategies with very little to differentiate one from the other, except by the number of errors. Yet a quick glance at the marking scheme shows that errors play a far lesser part than the ability to interact. Teachers must therefore be reminded yet again that the test is designed to be a spontaneous, interactive conversation rather than an open invitation to re-run well practiced classroom dialogues that the candidates try to recall, often imperfectly and with difficulty. Where that was the case it led to hesitations and lack of fluency. Standard and sometimes even identical answers often prevailed, and there were no follow-up questions that would have obliged candidates to explain their answers further and to encourage them to formulate ad hoc responses there and then. Even nonsensical responses, often caused by stress and not necessarily characteristic of the student s overall competence, were left unchallenged. Yet a supplementary question or just a quick comment might have obliged and enabled the candidate to correct the answer and lessen the formality of the situation, even see the funny side of it. For example Die Kita ist teurer als zu Hause aufwaschen or one on equality: Ich hoffe in der Zukunft können wir Gleichgültigkeit haben / Ich denke alle Mensch soll gleichgültig sein or In die Medien sie veröffentlichen Bilder von schlimme Frauen a statement simply calling out for Was meinst du? In the absence of such clarifying questions one must assume that in the teacher s view the candidate would not have been able to cope with such challenges. As a result, there was very little real interaction (cf. marking scheme) that might have attracted higher marks, which straightforward question-and-answer presentations do not permit. The criteria of the marking scheme are quite specific but, alas, often overlooked. Some learnt answers were long and complicated, and some candidates were allowed to give a series of uninterrupted mini lectures on topics that had been studied as part of the course. Teacher examiners seem to be reluctant to intercept such lengthy monologues and ask supplementary questions, as external examiners invariably do in such cases in order to give candidates the opportunity to formulate unprepared responses, interact naturally and thus gain higher marks. Questions should also follow on from the candidate s response, not be unrelated prompts for learnt statements on rehearsed general topics, going well beyond the scope of the question asked. Unfortunately, that was the model for quite a number of tests this year. Only where teachers had prepared their students to readjust and think along with the themes discussed could candidates be awarded high marks. Overall, therefore, the performance level was below that of the corresponding GN1a cohort where visiting examiners do not allow candidates to present long prepared statements but, by intercepting them and asking supplementary questions give candidates the opportunity to interact realistically and to demonstrate their linguistic agility by being obliged to readjust their own observations to the examiner s comments. 3

6 GERMAN General Certificate of Education Summer 2015 Advanced Subsidiary/Advanced GN2: LISTENING, READING AND WRITING Principal Examiner: R Jahn The paper posed no major problems and a number of candidates achieved high marks in the first part of the paper. Most marks were lost in Aufgabe 2, the translation section Aufgabe 5, and in the essay. In Aufgabe 1, a number of candidates stated particulars that did relate to the question in some way but still failed to satisfy the demands of the question. For example: Sie liebt Fleisch (question 1) simply states a fact but does not answer the question Was würde Sina als Vegetarierin nicht gut finden? Other candidates mentioned that Sina s dad was a butcher, Ihr Vater ist Metzger, which might of course pose problems but does not answer the question either. A precise answer was also required for question 2 (Was ist eine Folge, wenn es immer mehr Kühe gibt?) where a connection needed to be established between the increased number of cows on the one hand and the resulting increase in planting, as suggested by the text. Yet many answers could not be credited because they were drawn from general knowledge and were unrelated to the specific information given in the text; for example Es macht das Klima kaputt. Others did not make sense, were ambiguous or were linguistically too inaccurate to convey the message clearly: um mehr Pflanzen für Kühe zu wachsen. Alas, there were no marks either for amusing responses, such as die Kühe geben Gas or Mehr Planzen sind erwachsen. Frequently, short, direct answers satisfy the demands of the question completely, as in question 4 Wie plant ein Vegetarier seinen Fleischkonsum? mit einem Wochenplan. However, Wochenplan on its own does not satisfy the demands of the question. The same goes for question 5 where eine Webseite is not specific enough when it comes to establishing how Fred can obtain further information about the project. Even though question 6 carries two marks, a high number of students restricted their answers to one item only. A common mistake consisted in the candidates mixing up finden and erfinden. Neue Mahlzeiten finden does not convey the correct meaning. For the majority of the candidates, question 7 did not pose any problems. As concerns the plans Fred and Sina had for the evening, one suggestion ran as follows: Sie wollen zusammen neue Vegetarier schaffen. Aufgabe 2 Generally, this question was not done well, with quite a few candidates scoring low marks. Surprisingly, a number of candidates did not know the 3 rd person singular present of freuen. Most candidates struggled with the correct case in ihrer Meinung nach and with the dative plural of Partner. Owing to a lack of structural awareness a number of candidates took sein for a verb rather than a possessive pronoun and conjugated it: Sina erklärt ihm, wie er ist halbvegetarische Woche planen kann familiar echoes of the English present continuous he is planning, a structure still misused in GN4. 4

7 Aufgabe 3, Teil 1 On the whole this exercise was done well, but question 1 and question 7 caused problems for a high number of students. Even though Plan in question 1 and soeben in question 7 may be grammatically correct they do not correspond to the meaning of the text and are therefore wrong. Aufgabe 3, Teil 2 As in previous years this exercise was generally done well, with a fair number of candidates scoring high marks, probably because they analysed the text and checked their answers carefully. Question a, however, carried a high error rate, since many candidates overlooked the word immer. Aufgabe 3, Teil 3 As in previous years a good proportion of students scored high marks on this task. Marks were lost mainly in question 4 when candidates confused sich freuen auf with sich freuen über and stated that the monks were pleased with the visit rather than looking forward to the visit. The answer carried two marks, and a number of students lost both because they also failed to mention the second idea, which was that the monks saw the visit as a welcome change. Aufgabe 4 Overall students scored high marks on this part of the exam with many achieving at least one point for each sentence. Careful checking of answers, however, could have avoided losing marks by overlooking words such as rote in the first and jetzt in the last sentence. Meistens caused problems in the second sentence since some students regarded it as an adjective rather than an adverb and wrote zeigen die meistens Passanten großes Interesse. A small number of candidates even corrected the word by leaving the s off, i.e. zeigen die meisten Passanten großes Interesse. With that amendment the generated sentence is, of course, grammatically correct but was still not credited because the candidates did not correctly identify each of the words. This is a grammar test, and candidates are expected to identify the grammatical forms of each word as given and assemble the sentence accordingly, using all words. No changes will be accepted. Aufgabe 5, Teil 1 As in previous years, a number of candidates struggled with this first translation task, partly because of a lack of vocabulary. Words such as Prüfungsvorbereitungen, einfach, Marmelade or stimmen were not translated correctly by a high number of students. Many were not aware that, depending on the context, einfach can mean easy/easily or, as in this case, simple/simply. Therefore I can easily learn here very well does not convey the intended meaning. Some students were not sufficiently aware of the rubric which specifically stressed the need for good English. Frequent renderings of Das Leben im Kloster ist alles andere als luxuriös included Life in the monastery is everything but luxurious, which resulted in a loss of marks. 5

8 Aufgabe 5, Teil 2 Some lexical items caused problems in this exercise, too, even some quite basic vocabulary; for example gemeinsam, stattdessen, Messe, besuchen, Pflicht, verschließen, Türen and freuen. The English and the Welsh words for Messe were given on the folder pages. Unfortunately a small number of English medium candidates used the Welsh word offeren instead of the English word mass and therefore lost a mark. When students encounter translation problems they tend to guess the meaning which this year resulted in some bizarre sentences, e.g. but that is no escape for Aber das ist keine Pflicht, or At eight o clock the monks take off their robes for Um acht Uhr verschließen die Mönche die Türen. Türen was frequently translated as towers or treated like a place name, e.g. the monks go to Türen. Aufgabe 6 As in previous years it seems to be common for students to plan their essays in English, which often leads to the candidates thinking in English and replicating English sentence structures in German. A fair number of essays always start with longwinded, meaningless introductions which do not contribute anything to the quality of the response; e.g. Ich will mich bemühen, kurz zu erklären, wie ein Urlaub mit Freunden oder mit der Familie stressig oder nicht ist. Dann, um dem Titel gerecht zu werden, will ich meine Meinung dazu geben. Other essays contain a high number of invented statistics which aim to impress. Instead of simply stating that the numbers of vegetarians are on the increase students quote specific figures: e.g. über 10 Millionen Leute sind Vegetarier in England or Laut eines Berichts sind heute 34% der Leute Vegetarier. A fair number of candidates were, however, able to achieve high marks with well-reasoned essays written in clear fluent language, showing sound command of the grammar. There was a clear preference for essay titles a) and d), i.e. a) Ein Urlaub mit Freunden oder mit der Familie ist viel zu stressig. Nur wenn man alleine in den Urlaub fährt, kann man sich richtig erholen und etwas erleben. Was ist Deine Meinung dazu? and d) In der Zukunft hoffe ich mein Hobby zum Beruf zu machen! Was ist deine Meinung dazu? Essay a) The majority of the candidates were familiar with the topic of holidays but not all of them managed to compare a holiday with family or friends to a holiday on their own. Some essays simply recounted a past holiday, which of course does not fulfil the requirements of the question. The better essays clearly explained the students choice of preferred holiday and their reasons and opinions. A number of essays also pointed out the dangers of holidaying on your own. Essay b) was less popular but on the whole made interesting reading. The better essays emphasised the role of the teacher in trying to balance the students individual pace of learning with the need to get through the syllabus. Some essays stressed that learning together at the same pace had a social dimension and helped students to work with others, which was a vital skill for later life. Essay c) Ich möchte nicht zum Vegetarier werden, weil ich das langweilig und auch nicht sehr gesund finde.was ist deine Meinung dazu? was frequently turned into an Umweltessay, or the pros and cons of being a vegetarian were discussed without referring to the keywords langweilig and gesund. 6

9 Essay d) was the most popular choice by far, not least because much had been prepared on the themes of Hobby and Beruf. Often, however, no direct link was established between the two, and the essays sketched aspects of the two themes separately and mainly descriptively. This meant there was little or no discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of choosing one s hobby as one s career and of the interrelationship between the two when, for example, the hobby was biking and the career that of a baker. Many candidates, however, did produce a good discussion on various aspects of this essay topic. As in previous years, word order mistakes, incorrect possessive pronouns, incorrect verb endings and incomplete sentences were quite wide spread. As mentioned last year, students frequently have no awareness of different word categories, and nouns are sometimes used as adjectives or vice versa. That was the case in essays about vegetarianism, in particular where the same word is used in English and the distinction between Vegetarier and vegetarisch was often not made. In one case where a candidate was suggesting that children should follow a mixed diet, his/her argument culminated in the following sentence: Es ist nicht gut für Kinder Vegetarier zu essen. Students handwriting poses problems as well and in some cases it is barely legible. Spelling mistakes seem to be more prevalent this year with many students not using any capital letters at all, which makes reading an essay very difficult. In some isolated cases the spelling is rudimentary to an extent that individual words cannot be deciphered. 7

10 GERMAN General Certificate of Education Summer 2015 Advanced Subsidiary/Advanced GN3: ORAL EXAMINATION Principal Examiner: R Jahn Summary As in previous years a high percentage of candidates scored marks well into the 50s which gave evidence of their intensive preparation for the exposé and the topics relating to the cards. In most centres the exposé titles were different for each individual student which made it easy for the examiner to differentiate between the students. It is, however, appreciated that it is not always feasible for big centres to find a different and challenging exposé title for each and every candidate. GN3 Speaking The comments made about GN1(a) in the AS report apply here in equal measure. Examiners appreciated the excellent cooperation with colleagues in all but a handful of centres. Examinations were usually arranged in sessions of five tests, though that could vary depending on the centre s lunch break, students travel arrangements and other circumstances. Most centres allocated minutes per test which gives examiners time in addition to the actual tests for administrative duties such as reorganising the cards, handing out a card to the next candidate and exchanging a few friendly words before each test. Structured Discussion As before, candidates chose one of two cards presented to them after the examiner had briefly outlined what the text was about. The choice was, as in previous years, between two aspects that could relate either to one and the same topic area or to one of each. This year there was again a strong preference for themes relating to the environment, therefore Die Einwegtüte- ein Umweltproblem and Das umweltfreundliche Faxi were frequently chosen, but Buch kaputt? turned out to be very popular as well. In most cases students were able to engage in conversation about the cards in a lively and knowledgeable way. The cards that were less frequently chosen such as Made auf Veddel and Repair Café, nonetheless, gave rise to fruitful discussions. Interestingly, most of the candidates who had chosen Repair Café claimed that they would like to learn how to repair things so that fewer items were thrown away. Those who had chosen Made auf Veddel were acutely aware of the role that both language skills and work play for the integration of foreign women in Germany. Few chose Clean Clothes Kampagne when offered, but those who did, were able to sustain an animated discussion about the responsibility of the consumer for the livelihood of those women in Asia and Africa who produce our clothes. 8

11 Oral Exposé Most exposés were within the time limit, were well structured and left some loose ends to be discussed afterwards. The most successful exposés had a title in the form of a question, which straight away obliged the candidates to take an analytical rather than descriptive approach to their presentation. Most exposés centred round films or books taken from the set list, with Good Bye Lenin and Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei being the most popular, but some other films and books were also used; for example Berlin 36, Oh Boy, Honig im Kopf, Almanya Willkommen in Deutschland, Unsere Mütter unsere Väter, Keinohrhasen, Kokowää, Das Leben der Anderen, and Im Westen nichts Neues (book). Most conversations gave evidence of the students having taken a real interest in their chosen topic and being able to discuss it from an analytical point of view. The delivery of the exposé poses problems at times. A fair number of candidates presented their exposé in an extremely fast fashion and failed to pay attention to their pronunciation, which in some cases led to the examiner not being able to understand all parts of the presentation. The notes are intended to give support to the candidate while presenting the exposé. Some notes just contain the beginning of sentences which do not provide any aide memoir when the candidate gets stuck. 9

12 GERMAN General Certificate of Education Summer 2015 Advanced Subsidiary/Advanced GN4: LISTENING, READING AND WRITING Principal Examiner: R Jahn and J Desch Though there was again a good proportion of high achievers, the overall level of performance was lower than that of recent years. That was reflected in virtually all parts of the paper, but particularly so in the translation (cf. below) where limitations in grammatical accuracy, range of lexis, and application and idiomatic usage led to incorrect renderings of the original text. It also played a part, but not to the same extent, in comprehension questions where incorrect grammar is normally ignored. However, there were more answers this year where grammar and syntax were so defective that they rendered the answer ambiguous, inaccurate, or simply unintelligible. The paper worked well as a whole to differentiate between high and low achievers, and that gap was wider for reasons outlined above. The paper offered some easier, straightforward tests so as not to discourage less able candidates and presented more searching questions for the budding linguists. One problem with answers in English or Welsh was the candidates lack of precision and a kind of nonchalant handling of their mother tongue, which did not always lose them marks but is still worth pointing out. Another practical problem was poor handwriting, sometimes so small that one was tempted to reach for a magnifying glass. Aufgabe 1 The introduction of a toll for lorries implies that it would not apply to cars. The politicians additional promise was that there would never be a toll for cars. Some candidates did not make that distinction. Question 2 presented no problems, and there was a variety of acceptable answers not trustworthy, not to be trusted, their promise is not worth the paper it is written on. Some candidates seemed none too familiar with English phrases and wrote not worth the paper they write on /wrote on /use for writing on, worth less than their paper, not worth their paper, as worthy as a piece of paper, etc. Learning a foreign language should also enhance awareness of the candidates own language. Question 3 asked for where and when, and quite a few candidates overlooked the fact that two pieces of information were required. In question 5 the point was not that people of low incomes could not afford the toll but that it was unfair in principle to demand the same toll for people opting for smaller cars with reason. There were some similar general knowledge answers to question 6: The toll should be higher for bigger cars because they damage the roads more and not, as quite a few candidates stated, because of higher pollution or because their is usually more people in the car (end of quote, and no further comment!). 10

13 Aufgabe 2 Teil 1 was occasionally done too mechanically and without reference to the text. As a result, some candidate confused Delegierten and Demonstranten, even Klimakonferenz, or trotz (guter Vorbereitungen) and wegen. Applying basic logic would have helped here! Some candidates wrote their answers to Teil 3 in English, which could not be credited even if they were factually correct. Copying directly from the text was also not accepted since restating the facts verbatim did not answer the question. For example, the copied phrase kommen immer weniger Leute bei Hurrikanen ums Leben does not answer question 6 Wie hat sich die Zahl... verändert. Answers such as die Nummer ist weniger geworden were not accepted either because a Nummer is not a Zahl and cannot diminish. Some candidates answered qestion 1 from their general knowledge background (pollution) which was not the point here. Teil 4 was another minefield, and many candidates lost marks because their mother-tongue answers were imprecise or they had not applied any logic. Question 1 about long term trends proffered answers such as There are unknown long term trends or They take years to come back. Similarly in question 3 about the difficulty in predicting the severity of storms: They are so rare they may last for hundreds of years. (Logic?) Question 2 was generally answered quite well except that over 90 percent of candidates said there would be less storms. The reason for more rain required in answer to question 6 was that warm air would absorb more water not obtain, regain, bring, evaporate, take in, take out (but take up) or, best of all, produce water shortages solved. Aufgabe 3 As always, the translation was based on the reading text, and candidates who had assimilated the main ideas fared better. One mark each was available for rendering the distinct items of information, and the mark was awarded as long as straightforward linguistic mistakes did not impede the correct, unambiguous rendering. Mistakes would be considered when allocating marks for accuracy and range. Very often, however, incorrect lexis did indeed change the meaning and lost candidates the mark. Even the first phrase when typhoon Haiyan killed thousands of people... led to such mistakes when candidates wrote ermordete instead of tötete, or tausend instead of Tausende /viele Tausend Menschen. Other examples from later in the text included: mehrere Menschen instead of mehr, or bei Häusern geschützt instead of durch, or bessere Häuser für die Arme (sic!) instead of ärmere /weniger wohlhabende Menschen. Translating the English idiomatic phrase tell a different story was tricky since correct rendering depends on the context. Candidates who had studied the reading text carefully wrote zeigen/ demonstrieren einen anderen Zusammenhang, a phrase used similarly in the text, while others with a firmer grasp of German idioms suggested...geben uns /zeigen /zeichnen (!) ein anderes Bild. The German erzählen has a much narrower meaning than to tell (which, unlike in German, also includes stating facts as in tell me the time ) and is often misused by candidates at all levels. Not knowing a directly corresponding word in German was not the problem as such since a range of alternatives was nearly always available; but many candidates did not have enough practice to apply their still limited linguistic resources more imaginatively. They had problems with translating even common words, for example the verb to blame in the next phrase, and only the better students used paraphrasing that, with a bit of thought, should be well in the grasp of most as regards lexis; for example gaben dem Klimawandel die Schuld an, or machten verantwortlich, or haben gesagt, dass die Katastrophe wegen passiert ist, or sahen die Ursache /den Grund für die Katastrophe im Klimawandel, or meinten, die Katastrophe sei/ist wegen passiert, or habe/hätte es gegeben, weil sich das Klima ge- 11

14 /verändert hat, or...weil wir... verändert haben., or der Klimawandel habe/hätte die Katastrophe ausgelöst, gebracht, herbeigerufen, hervorgerufen, verursacht, provoziert, bewirkt, or wegen des Klimawandels sei es zu der Katastrophe gekommen and countless more. The phrase the number of dead has fallen may also serve to illustrate that point since it prompted a wide variety of different renderings: Die Zahl der Toten ist gefallen/gesunken or der Taifun hat weniger Menschen getötet or es gab (viel) weniger Opfer or viel weniger Menschen...sind bei dem/durch den Hurrikan umgekommen /sind getötet worden / haben ihr Leben verloren /sind gestorben or weniger Menschen sind ums Lieben[sic!] gekommen, etc. Candidates tend to cling to individual words rather than assimilate the phrase and recast it in a form that they can handle, using the vocabulary and structures they evidently know but do not apply more creatively. This is where regular active use of the language such as classroom discussions in German play such an essential part and can make all the difference, not only for oral performance. Only a small percentage of this year s cohort had developed that facility. Aufgabe 4 General Here, too, the gap between competent and well-structured essays and standard, prepared or even pre-learnt essays was wider than in the past. The latter tended to be cast in a mode that might have fitted just about any question to a text, film or region and did not focus on the specific aspects addressed by the question set. Most were not much more than descriptive accounts without any analysis or personal comment. That applied, in particular, to essays on aspects of a region, and only very few essays reflected any form of research or understanding of the region supposedly studied. The uniformity of many of those essays made it difficult to differentiate one from the other. Although there was still a good number of well-reasoned, focussed, analytical and indeed imaginative essays that made interesting reading, the majority was colourless and cast in the familiar mode of nonsensical introduction and conclusion, with very little between the formulas Einleitend möchte ich sagen, dass ich diese Frage sehr interesant finde. Ich werde zunächst and Zuammenfassend spiegelt dieser Text /Film die Thematik der Frage sehr gut forgetting even that only the writer of the essay and not the text or the film can zusammenfassen. Such learnt essays fail to impress, even where there is an attempt to slant them, with one or two additional remarks, to the question set. Only the very best candidates were able to home in on the essential themes suggested by the question and deal with them in an analytical manner, supporting their observations with just as much factual detail as required. Those essays, and only those, reflected personal interest in the work studied and attracted high marks. Die Welt des Films Of the three options, this one remains the favourite by far. The range of essays presented was all but limited to just three films: Good Bye Lenin and Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei and Jenseits der Stille. With the two forerunners (Lenin and Fette Jahre), that has led to a great deal of standardised approaches, especially in centres where the same two films have been taught for years. Besides, too much of the teaching is conducted through English rather than German. That was evidenced convincingly by the frequent use of the inaccurate term Edukators when referring to either the film title or the young people or by frequent references to sozialistisches Fatherland. Similar observations apply to other films, too. Once again, 12

15 neither of the two forerunners prompted the better essays. Most of them drifted into generalised outlines of issues related to either reunification or social injustices but did not focus sufficiently on film-specific issues. Nevertheless, there was a limited number of perspective essays on both of these films, but certainly fewer than one would have expected. The better candidates who had studied Good Bye Lenin in some depth debated the dichotomy between Alex s overt reasons for letting the GDR live on (his mother s fragile health) and his own newly discovered hankering after his lost youth in spite of his political conflict with the then regime. Most opting for question (b) had not fully grasped the concept of irony, and the majority of essays read lacklustre and uninspiring as if their authors had no real interest in the themes that the film addressed, as if they had heard and said it all before and had nothing left to say. Similar misunderstandings detracted from answers to Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei when candidates either interpreted the reference to one Schlüsselszene as an open invitation to sketch a number of scenes without relating any of them thematically to the film as a whole, or they had insufficient knowledge of the 68s even though Hardenberg alluded to the movement in some detail. Answers to Jenseits der Stille tended to be less run-of-the-mill, and many candidates focussed appropriately, some quite perceptively on either (a) Lara living in two worlds, or (b) her father s personality. However, some did not consider sufficiently the concluding aspects in each of these two questions, namely (a) how does she cope and (b) how can her father s behaviour be explained, which both would have required more analysis The remaining less popular films tended to proffer the more analytical answers overall, especially Crazy, Der rote Kakadu, Vaya con Dios and Die weiße Rose. Die Welt der Literatur This continues to be the niche for the more academically minded students. The mean was noticeably higher than that for the film option, and there was nothing like the same concentration on just three titles. As with the films, there was evidence here of texts having been studied and/or read in English, which might well affect the quality of an answer. One example was: Faber trifft Herbert im Flugzeug. Er war sein Neibar. Another comment in one of the essays on Der Vorleser read: aber Hanna nennt ihn Kid. Indeed, she does not, she calls him Jungchen and that term has quite a different ring to it and reflects on their relationship quite differently. Reading texts in translation is not helpful and can lead to oblique or even unsatisfactory interpretations in answer to a specific essay question not because marks are awarded for right interpretations as such but because, as in this case, the supporting evidence would have been unsound, misleading, and the argument might have been unconvincing for lack of supporting evidence (cf. marking scheme). Although too many students again presented partially or wholly prepared essays with little direct relevance to the questions, a good proportion knew the texts very well, were able to support their arguments with relevant details and without lengthy synopses, and demonstrated genuine interest in the themes and issues underlying these novels or plays. Especially Schweigeminute, Die Verwandlung and Homo Faber had caught the imagination of quite a few candidates, to some extent also Der Besuch der alten Dame (especially the analysis of Claire s and Ill s personalities), but Der Vorleser slightly less so this year. 13

16 Deutschsprachige Regionen As indicated above, this is a successful option only for able candidates who are critical and detached enough to take a broad view of the region before looking at individual aspects and integrate them into the wider picture. Writing descriptively about waitresses carrying in both hands hefty Bierseidel topped with lots of Feldwebel may conjure up attractive prospects but does not meet the requirements of a critical evaluation of the cultural characteristics of Bavaria. This is often seen as the easier option, and the assumption seems to be that it requires less study time, and a rough framework for relevant essays can be drafted fairly easily on the basis of a few internet searches. In practice that does not work, and there were few essays indeed that came up to the required standard. Fortunately this has become a minor option with only some 5% of candidates offering essays, but rather more oral exposés where the problem is no different. GCE German Report Summer

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