Students should not be penalised because of poorly written exam papers
In response to those who have written in regarding the poor standard of the English A-level papers, I would like to add a couple of observations concerning this year's HKCEE English language paper 1A, in which students were instructed to read three passages and answer questions.
In passage one, students had to insert the word 'photos' to complete a sentence (i.e. 'tourists can take photos of the famous Victoria Harbour in the background').
This sentence, however, was poorly structured, since no foreground was mentioned. Are tourists supposed to take photos of Victoria Harbour, or of something else with the harbour in the background?
The above error was minor compared with one associated with passage three. In paragraph five of that passage, it was stated that 'before (the Kowloon Walled City) became a haven for criminals, the people who lived there organised their own daily lives without triad interference. Most residents were not involved in any crime and lived peacefully there'.
The period of triad control was identified elsewhere as being between 1949 and 1974. A multiple-choice question (with answer) was 'Between 1949 and 1974, the triads ruled the Walled City ... but most of the residents were not criminals themselves'. Paragraph five stated before, while the question asked during. There was no way of gathering this information from the article itself.