2015 Notes from the Marking Centre – Classical Hebrew Extension
Introduction
This document has been produced for the teachers and candidates of the Stage 6 Classical Hebrew Extension course. It contains comments on candidate responses to the 2015 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 Extension Stage 6 Syllabus
- the 2015 Higher School Certificate Classical Hebrew Extension 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 Classical Hebrew in Stage 6.
Section I – Prescribed Text
Characteristics of better responses:
- a clear understanding of the poetic/literary features of the biblical text was demonstrated (Q1a and Q1cii)
- an excellent understanding of the logical arguments in the Talmud was evident
- candidates displayed a thorough knowledge of the commentaries
- an excellent discussion of the purpose of the Talmud was provided (Q3).
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- a poor understanding of poetic literature was shown (Q1a and Q1cii)
- candidates did not present a logical argument
- candidates focused on outlining the details of the extracts given rather than presenting the implications of those texts in terms of the question (Q3)
- arguments for and against were not presented (Q3).
Section II – Non-prescribed Text
Characteristics of better responses:
- clear understanding of the unseen text was demonstrated
- candidates presented a well-written, logical answer to each question
- the effects of literary features were identified and explained
- the theological ideas expressed by the psalmist were understood (Q5).
Characteristics of weaker responses:
- a limited knowledge of both vocabulary and parsing was demonstrated
- candidates did not apply their knowledge of grammar to an unseen text
- candidates provided a single example only of when the psalm would be publicly recited (Q4c)
- a limited understanding of the theological ideas included in a non-prescribed text was demonstrated (Q5).
NSW Government