Today, I was proctoring a mid-term for a student from the Advanced course. They had chosen to take the test in a separate room from the classroom as some students can do this for various health, etc. reasons. But I was surprised at the number of pages of this particular exam which was made by another Japanese teacher. I watched her work diligently. But after the chime rang, there were a lot of blank answers that she didn’t have time to finish.
Later, I let the Japanese teacher know what I observed and inquired how the other Advanced students had done on the test and if they had been able to finish everything. And he replied that none of them were able to answer everything and that he purposely makes the test this way.
I was a bit surprised. I asked him why would he make a test that was impossible to finish. Why would he make a test that students had no chance of scoring a 100? or even an 80 or above? He was partly at a loss for words, but reiterated that the Advanced students needed to feel the pressure of time to help them prepare for university exams. And I let it go.
I’ve been here a very long time, teaching at this private high. But this was my first time to encounter such a lengthy exam that was made with the intent of being unable to finish. I do understand that Advanced students need timing practice and to be pushed, and I have no problem with this occurring in the classroom or for mock exams. But being able to score a 5 (the equivalent of an A) on their mid-terms is very important for their school transcripts, and I think this teacher is jeopardizing this somewhat. Plus, I find it a bit unethical to create something that cannot be completed.
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This is just the way tests are made here. They normally want around a 60 average. Shooting above or below that is pretty heavily frowned upon. As for the school transcripts I am not 100% sure but I do not think they weigh as much as they do in the west. Lots of colleges instead have arrangements with high schools that if they recommend a student that student can skip the test part. In such a case it more built on the reputation of the school more than the gpa average compared across the board of all schools. I only worked on these part at a distance though so maybe someone who does this stuff more directly can chime in. I think there is also something with school ranks depending on where students attend.
Sadly I have seen similar in all my high schools here, to some extent. Math teachers making the test at least 8 problems too long for even the best student to finish. Science exams with a couple questions on topics not touched on in lectures. English classes with vocabulary lists so long that a student would need to not study any other class but English to pass. There is somewhat of an undercurrent feeling that exams should be impossible so it “teaches them a lesson,” like a punishment, rather than “confirming they learned the lessons in class.” It’s a sort of power harassment as far as I’m concerned.
I have heard (anecdotally) that one reason is to try to train the student’s exam taking strategy… where they learn to recognize questions that they can quickly and accurately answer, or if it might take too much time and to skip and return to it later, time permitting.
This conditions them to attempt to score the most points as quickly as possible, rather than fixate on completing the paper sequentially.
I have not seen that anywhere I’ve worked. Seems rather psychologically abusive.
In my experience this is a fairly common occurrence I’d estimate I’ve done at least a dozen tests like this and possibly more. As others have mentioned it’s all about test technique – I’d always try and finish the test but I’d generally fly through the easy questions while noting in passing the next ones to do and finally trying the questions that weren’t slam dunks. I’d finish these tests very occasionally but getting 80-90% through them was fairly common.
If your standard method of taking a test is to start with question 1 and work through them in order you need to do something to break the habit and time constrained “impossible” tests are good for this.
In my opinion you should always be doing test practice at 110% of content and difficulty – it works really well for people like me who worked better with some stress – rather than at 50% which gives students a false sense of ability – which probably works well for giving those affected by stress more motivation.
Won’t the school want a certain amount of 5s in that subject?
Honestly this explains a lot. I have a teen in Japanese schools and even in math, where he is head and shoulders above his peers he has trouble finishing some of his exams.
>Advanced students needed to feel the pressure of time to help them prepare for university exams. And I let it go.
The tests themselves, not the content, are the point. Gaman-ing and isshokenmei-ing is what is taught. Learning something is a side-benefit.
Don’t know about Japan, but in Singapore, especially the top schools, the questions are meant to blow your brain and cripple your hands, literally. Some lecturers do design their tests to be 80% doable, last 15- 20% is for the best of best students to attempt, so it ends like as though most people can’t finish, because they weren’t suppose to (then the averages would be like a C or something). When i was in pre-uni (college level), our advanced modules (that were optional) often encroached some way into university level core content. Even in the high school equivalent, it was similar. My transcripts were full of Ds and Cs, handful of Bs and As. But then in the cambridge national exams it was B+ or As only.
I do think this trains abit of exam skills, you learn to quickly pass if u get stuck or don’t know the answer immediately and come back to it after securing whatever you can.
It honestly depends, but I think as long as the averages for that Japanese teacher’s tests are reasonable, then he achieved his aim. Usually the teacher/lecturer, at the behest of the faculty, will adjust the grade thresholds if the grades veer too far off the intended range. This process however is quite opaque.
Bonus: For my UK university course (top 5), I had modules where, in the entire cohort, the only person who got an A (70) was the top scorer (scored right on 70, yea depressing alright).
“But being able to score a 5 (the equivalent of an A) on their mid-terms is very important for their school transcripts, and I think this teacher is jeopardizing this somewhat.”
Does your school require a specific average range? This could be a way of working towards that, even when kids are studying very hard. Private schools do have that habit. In regular courses, getting the average may be easy, but on the high end, if kids are actually paying attention, it can be more difficult.
Assuming you are a part of the English meeting, have you seen that the kids can’t get the 5 in the course? It could very well happen despite them not finishing the test. A lot of teachers also make BS points in other areas to “make” that average.
I’ve also heard about the “aiming for 60%” average that a few others have mentioned. I once had a JTE panic because their class average was 70%, and they were worried they made the test too easy.
I have seen this many times and have discussed the reasons behind it with the Japanese teachers. One reason is as many others have said, is to pressure the students to study/work harder/faster for future tests and exams. The other rational on why the boards of education find this ok was quite interesting. Apparently, rather judging the ability of the advanced students by overall marks, the teachers look at the total answers which the students got right out of the answers which they did have time to answer, and also which questions they were successfully able to answer (I.e. were they mostly easier ones, or did the student purposely target the more difficult questions first and correctly answer them). There are other rationales which are taken into account when marking a students test (or at least that seems to the consensus of (or what I have been told) by all the Japanese teachers I have talked with, included principals/vice principals. Also, as others have said, transcripts will often count little towards college entrances, as recommendation letters etc by school teachers on students ability and study ethic carry alot more weight and are considered far more important than transcripts (in many cases ovewriting transcripts completely).
In Korea, they have a similar philosphy for the national university exam that all students have to take when they graduate.
There was a point in time when the test was possible to complete. Who was completing it? The very top students. Students who come from richer families who could afford private academies and private after school tutors.
Eventually too many students were earning “top” marks. But it was clear that there was a sort of seperation going on. Top students, who spent their whole lives (and I really do mean their WHOLE lives) studying, and students who didn’t. It wasn’t tenable that there we so many “top” students. If everyone is at the “top”, how would universities with limited spaces decided who was the very best?
One solution they decided on was to add “killer questions”. These are questions not even covered in national curriculum. So the only chance a student had to answer that question was if they went to the top private academies who would go beyond even normal schooling to prepare for material the other schools weren’t teaching.
This was a way to artificially supress test scores and ensure that the top scores are only obtainable by the higher classes of society.
A brilliant way to creat students with a failure mindset thus in some cases becoming hikikimori!
Poor kids man. Literally penalised for an ability.
I don’t like it based on how you’re reporting it. But it’s critical to remember that most decisions in education don’t exist in a vacuum. To properly evaluate that decision, you need to judge it in the context of how the results of it affect student studying, how other schools interpret the grades those test scores create, what rules your school has about testing in order to ensure that assessment is being done ethically and honestly, and how the class is taught to lead to the best possible results in testing. This is one wheel in a giant machine, and while I agree with you that the wheel looks dodgy AF, it may be that the best way to make the machine work is to have one wheel that looks dodgy AF to anyone who doesn’t understand the machine as a whole.
All that isn’t to say I want to excuse this practice. I mean, yeah, I think it’s highly suspicious and I suspect there is a way to fit this testing practice into the machine with a less dodgy wheel. And I have seen some shocking incompetence from coworkers here – absolutely bone-headed decisions that make it all too clear why Japanese English outcomes have lagged behind the rest of Asia for so long. And maybe snap judgments like that are fine in the Japan or Japanlife subreddits. But here we’re supposed to be professionals, so I feel a benefit of the doubt needs to be offered unless there is good reason to assume your colleague doesn’t have any idea what they’re doing.
The problem is that if your colleague was brought up entirely within the Japanese education system, they’re running on a bunch of unspoken assumptions you don’t have, and they couldn’t possibly guess the unspoken assumptions you’re running on. Somehow you have to cross that gulf without knowing how wide it is and what’s down it. The only solution is to try and find someone in education you trust who can understand why your coworker is doing what they’re doing and also communicate to you what you need to know in order for it to make sense.
It might be exactly as terrible of a choice as you suspect. But we just can’t know that based on what information you’ve given us.
Completely detrimental to a students self confidence in learning. It’s pointless and doesn’t help them at all. It’s not good for their learning, not good to measure their ability, and all around a stupid fucking thing for that teacher to do. I wish he would learn and stop but he probably won’t.
In my experience, many schools in Japan force grade curves. What I mean is like… only 5 percent of students are allowed to get a max score, only 10 percent above 80 and so on. So theoretically, if every student did exactly as they were told and all met the rubric perfectly, it would be bad for the teacher because now they cant have a lot of score variation like they are supposed to. So they deliberately try to design things in a way where most students cannot do well.
These comments are really interesting…!! My students here absolutely FLY through tests and I guess this is why. Tests that would have taken my US ESL students a good 45+ minutes are done in 20 here 😳 I started doing my review game and test on the same day because they’re so dang fast!
FWIW I went to a private, selective (academic) high school in Australia and that was always their philosophy. Fucking slaaaam you… then on uni entrance exams you kick butt and your in-school results get scaled up because your school out-performed others on external exams.
So… my friends at local public schools would always brag about getting 80%+ in their school exams. They’d then complain that external exams were ‘unfair’ and that it was ‘unfair’ how my internal stuff got scaled up.
Same at law school. You’d be lucky if one student in each class got a high distinction (often nobody would get above ~65-70% and the lecturer would say ‘nobody in this cohort amazed me… sorry!’). Whereas in my teaching degree I got a heap of encouragement and high distinctions in pretty much everything. My law high distinctions FELT far more impressive and were often accompanied with a cash prize as I’d not only topped the subject, I’d also written a thesis that identified stuff the lecturer was blown away by. It was a hard slog and I often got shit marks for subjects I’d put a crap load of effort into.
IMO OP needs to remember this is an advanced class, not a mainstream/special needs class. Its purpose is probably to slam little smartarses who’ve grown up in the USA but aren’t maximising their marks on Japanese tests, so need a kick up the bum. IMO a long test that forces you to think fast and be strategic about what/how to answer is totally fair. Much better to be disappointed after a test like that rather than after getting your final grades in an external exam.