2013 Notes from the Marking Centre – Chinese Beginners
Introduction
This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Chinese Beginners course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2013 Higher School Certificate examination, indicating the quality of the responses and highlighting their relative strengths and weaknesses.
This document should be read along with:
- the Chinese Beginners Stage 6 Syllabus
- the 2013 Higher School Certificate Chinese Beginners examination
- the marking guidelines
- Advice for students attempting HSC languages examinations, and HSC Languages oral examinations – advice to students
- Advice for HSC students about examinations
- other support documents developed by the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards NSW to assist in the teaching and learning of Chinese in Stage 6.
Oral examination
Characteristics of better responses:
- elaborated with relevant content
- demonstrated accurate pronunciation and intonation
- appropriate use of vocabulary and sentence structures
- spoke with confidence and clarity.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- misinterpreted the questions
- frequent use of incomplete sentences
- struggled with pronunciation and intonation
- incorrect use of Chinese expressions.
Written examination
Section I – Listening
Characteristics of better responses:
- identified the required information
- inferred information from the text.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- detailed information from the text not identified
- translated the aural texts rather than responding to the question.
Section II – Reading and Responding
Characteristics of better responses:
- included relevant details from the text to support opinions
- inferred information from the text.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- insufficient information provided
- simply translated the texts rather than responding to the question.
Section III – Writing in Chinese
Characteristics of better responses:
- used a range of vocabulary and language structures
- included relevant examples and information relating to the topics
- used correct format of the required text types
- information was logically sequenced.
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- inconsistent use of register
- incorrect use of characters
- included insufficient information
- incomplete sentences were used
- included irrelevant information.