UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
THE MATRICULATION CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION
ADVANCED LEVEL
SPANISH
MAY 2006
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
MATRICULATION AND SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATIONS BOARD
AM Examiners Reports – May 2006
AM SPANISH
MAY 2006 SESSION
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
STATISTICAL INFORMATION
Grade
2001 – No of candidates
Percentage
2002– No of candidates
Percentage
2003– No of candidates
Percentage
2004 – No of candidates
Percentage
A
7
17%
5
29%
8
20%
7
15%
B
7
17%
6
35%
8
20%
14
30%
C
14
34%
3
18%
14
35%
12
26%
D
7
17%
0
0%
2
5%
8
17%
E
3
7%
1
6%
3
8%
4
9%
F
2
5%
1
6%
2
5%
0
0%
Absent
1
2
1
6%
3
8%
1
2%
Total
41
100%
17
100%
40
100%
46
100%
2005– No of candidates
Percentage
2006– No of candidates
Percentage
12
30%
7
17%
8
20%
4
10%
9
22%
7
17%
4
10%
6
15%
3
8%
9
22%
2
5%
4
10%
2
5%
4
10%
40
100%
41
100%
The table above shows statistical information about this examination in the past years.
The following points can be noted:
-
The number of candidates sitting for this exam has remained more or less constant for
the past years, except for the 2002 intake, when the number of candidates went down
drastically. This year 41 candidates sat for the exam, approximately the same number as
in 2005.
-
This year, the number of students who were awarded an A, B or C is markedly lower than
in the past years – 44% as opposed to 68% in 2001, 82% in 2002 and 71% in 2004, to
give some examples. It is also important to note that the number of Fs awarded this year
is the highest since 2001.
It is interesting to compare the average marks obtained by the students in each paper in order to
determine which section of the exam causes more problems among the students:
PAPER 1
• Redacción - average of 19 out of 30
PAPER 2
• Section A – Comprensión – average of 10 out of 15
• Section B – Resumen – average of 11 out of 15
• Oral – average of 8 out of 10
PAPER 3
•
Section A – Textos literarios
o Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rimas – average of 6 out of 10
o Federico García Lorca, La casa de Bernarda Alba- average of 7 out of 10
o Ana María Matute, Primera memoria – average of 6 out of 10
o Juan Valera, Pepita Jiménez- average of 6 out of 10
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AM Examiners Reports – May 2006
• Section B – Temas culturales
This option was not chosen by any of the students.
These data will be analysed in detail in the sections which follow.
PAPER 1 - Redacción
Around 25% of the students were given a mark under 15/30, which means that they were unable
to reach the minimal level expected from them at Advanced level. The following mistakes were
common to most of the students in this group:
-
-
The language used was either unclear, incorrect or too simple for this level. In certain
cases the amount of grammatical mistakes was so high that the markers found it hard to
understand the general meaning of the text.
The ideas were presented in a disorganised way, and as a result the text lacked
coherence.
The students failed to write an essay based on the title chosen and instead created an
essay which had very little or nothing to do with the proposed topic.
On the other hand, 20% of the total number of students scored 25 or higher in this section, and
managed to prove that they have not only acquired the skills expected from students at this level,
but also that they have an excellent command of the Spanish language and that they can use it to
express themselves clearly and with confidence.
PAPER 2
Section A – Comprensión
In this section students are expected to be able to:
a) Identify the section of the given text where the answer to the proposed questions can be
found
b) Reword the information given in the text and answer the questions in their own words.
Most of the students managed to fulfil the first requirement, but a high percentage of students
either ignored the second one and copied literally from the given text, or their level of Spanish did
not allow them to reword their answers successfully, and as a result the answers given were
unintelligible. In both cases students were heavily penalised.
Section B – Redacción
As in the previous section, students are expected to carry out two tasks: identify the ideas from
the given text which are important enough to be included in their summary, and reword these
ideas and express them in their own words.
As opposed to what was described in Section A, most of the students made an effort to use their
own words instead of copying literally from the given text. However, it must be pointed out that
students tend to find it hard to distinguish between primary and secondary information, and as a
result they do not make the right choices when it comes to deciding which ideas to include in their
summaries and which ideas to leave out.
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AM Examiners Reports – May 2006
Oral
The average mark in this section is 8 out of 10. Most of the students performed remarkably well
and managed to convey their ideas effectively.
Most of the inaccuracies noted by the interviewers were due to interferences from other
languages such as Italian, French and English.
PAPER 3
Section A – Textos literarios.
The most popular choice was, once again, La Casa de Bernarda Alba. It was also the question
from this section where students scored the highest marks. The students who chose question B
(open-end question) scored higher than those who chose question A (text-based question), the
reason being that many of the students who chose question A did not focus on the text given, but
rather on the novel as a whole. The second in popularity was Bécquer, followed by Pepita
Gimenez. The least popular of the four was Primera Memoria.
As a general rule it can be said that most of the students proved that they had read and prepared
the proposed texts. However, many of them were penalised because they did not give an answer
to the questions. Many students memorised whole sections of the given texts and quoted them
one after the other, with no apparent link between them.
As regards expression, it is important to note that there is also a small percentage of students
who were unable to express their views due to their limited range of expression in Spanish. One
could tell that they had read and studied the texts, but their limited use of the language prevented
them from expressing themselves coherently.
Section B – Temas culturales
None of the students opted for Section B.
COMMENTS
This year the highest scores were awarded in the open-ended sections of the examination such
as the Composition, the Oral and the open-ended questions of Paper 3. Students feel much more
confident expressing themselves in Spanish when they are given the freedom to express their
views on a particular topic with a minimal number of restrictions – for example “what is your view
about this topic?”, or “what is the answer to this question?”. However, as soon as they need to
adjust their answers to a number of parameters (for ex. “what does this particular text mean?”, or
“according to this text, what is the answer to this question?”) then students start facing difficulties.
Chairperson
Board of Examiners
September 2006
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