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2013 HSC Notes from the Marking Centre — Classical Hebrew Continuers

2013 Notes from the Marking Centre – Classical Hebrew Continuers

Introduction

This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Classical Hebrew Continuers 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 Classical Hebrew Continuers Stage 6 Syllabus
the 2013 Higher School Certificate Classical Hebrew Continuers examination
the marking guidelines
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 Classical Hebrew in Stage 6.

Section I – Prescribed Text – Tanakh

Characteristics of better responses:

good knowledge of parsing was demonstrated
an excellent knowledge of the prescribed commentaries was demonstrated
candidates had a clear understanding of text, commentary and language
a reference to the laws of the Sabbath was included (Q.1b).

Characteristics of weaker responses:

candidates had a limited knowledge of grammatical rules
responses were lengthy and not always relevant, particularly for one-mark questions
limited understanding of the requirements (Q.1)
many candidates did not understand the syntactical difficulty in Question 5a.

Section II – Prescribed Text – Mishna

Characteristics of better responses:

candidates wrote succinctly and demonstrated a thorough understanding of the text
there was a clear understanding of the underlying principles discussed in the commentary.

Characteristics of weaker responses:

candidates wrote generally about the content of the Mishna instead of focusing on the question being asked
in some cases, a basic lack of understanding of the text/commentary was displayed.

Section III – Unseen Text – Tanakh

Characteristics of better responses:

candidates demonstrated an impressive understanding of an unseen narrative text
candidates found two pausal forms, with not many finding three pausal forms.

Characteristics of weaker responses:

candidates demonstrated a limited ability to analyse grammatical components of an unseen text
many omitted any mention of the noun itself in Question 13f.