2020/09/21 20:17

[i-Cable News] The Hong Kong Examinations Authority (HKEAA) has collected the school results of more than 30,000 candidates for the Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) Examination to see if they can predict the HKDSE grades, and more than 70% of the candidates in the English Language subject were able to accurately predict the grades, but which subjects had the greatest errors?

The HKEAA has earlier collected 37,000 HKDSE Examination candidates' school results from 377 secondary schools in Hong Kong, and the HKEAA will predict the grades based on the results, and then compare them with their actual results in the HKDSE Examination.

The highest accuracy was found in the English subject, where 71% of the candidates predicted the same grade as the actual one, while the majority of the remaining candidates overestimated or underestimated their grades by one grade.

The accuracy of the other three compulsory subjects, Chinese Language, Liberal Studies and Mathematics Compulsory Part, was slightly lower, with more than half of the predicted grades being the same as the actual ones, while about 40% of the predicted grades differed by one grade.

The HKEAA considers that 95% of the four core subjects have a sampling error of one grade or less, and the internal results basically reflect the candidates' performance. The elective subjects are not as good, with only 40% to 50% of the elective subjects being accurately predicted.

The most significant differences include Extended Mathematics and Chinese Literature, where only 30% or so of the candidates could accurately predict the actual grades based on their internal results, presumably due to the relatively small number of candidates.

The Secretary General of HKEAA, Mr So Kwok-sang, said that the study reflected that there were still many limitations in estimating the HKDSE grades based on the internal assessment results, and that it would only be used when there was no other choice but to cancel the examination, and that universities would be advised to take into account other aspects of the candidates' performance when they admitted students.

Some secondary school headmasters pointed out that collecting more data of this kind would be useful in case of failure to take the examination. Secondary school principal Lam Tat-ho said, "It must be the actual examination that is better and fairest, observing that many international examinations cannot be taken, and if such things happen again in the future, the preparation of a database in advance is also desirable, and it would be more mature if the HKEAA could find an additional method of evaluating the grades.

HKEAA said that similar studies would be conducted every year to improve the prediction model.