Jessica and Mimi have just finished Year 10 at a comprehensive school in London. They studied the 21st Century Science course and recently sat exams in modules 1, 2 and 3.
A subject we thought was extremely useful and interesting was global warming because it is relevant and a current topical issue which will need to be sorted out in our lifetime. Everyone needs to know about it as we all play a key part in shaping our environment. The radiation topics were also valuable as radiation worries and the nuclear power station debate are current news stories. It is important to educate people so that we do not have an ignorant generation and society.
When confronted with our exams, it was mutually understood in our entire year that these exams were not as expected, although we had done many practice papers. We felt that through these exams, we were unable to show how hard we had worked to learn and understand the topics. We felt that it was more like an English comprehension than a science paper. We had spent hours on revision and doing background research on the topics only to be unable to show this through the test papers which mainly consisted of tick boxes. What we really needed were more questions on our own knowledge rather than “Is this person talking about an opinion or a fact” type questions.
Overall, we do not think we got to show our true potential in science and although the knowledge was useful, it was wasted in the exam. These exams need to be improved so that future year 10s do not feel this way.