AM Examiners’ Report – May 2010
AM SPANISH
MAY 2010 SESSION
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
The following is a statistical table of the last ten years for comparative purposes. It represents the number of candidates, and the respective percentages, according to the grades obtained.
YEAR
2001
A
7
17%
No. and % of candidates obtaining each grade
B C D E
7
17%
14
34%
7
17%
3
7%
F
2
5%
ABSENT
1
2%
TOTAL
41
100%
2002
2003
5
29%
8
20%
6
35%
8
20%
3
18%
14
35%
0
0%
2
5%
1
6%
3
8%
1
6%
2
5%
1
6%
3
8%
17
100%
40
100%
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
7
15%
12
30%
7
17%
2
3 %
6
20%
14
30%
8
20%
4
10%
17
27%
13
46%
12
26%
9
22%
7
17%
19
31%
6
20%
8
17%
4
10%
6
15%
11
18%
0
0%
4
9%
3
8%
9
22%
6
10%
2
7%
0
0%
2
5%
5
12%
4
6 %
0
0%
1
2%
2
5%
3
7%
3
5%
2
7%
46
100%
40
100%
41
100%
62
100%
29
100%
2009
2010
5
12%
11
25.6
15
35%
14
32.6
14
33%
10
23.3
4
10%
1
2.3
0
0%
3
7.0
0
0%
2
4.7
4
10%
2
4.7
42
100%
43
100.0
General Comments
The number of candidates applying for the exam has been as high as last year’s amounting to a total of 43.
The level of marks obtained was again remarkably high, 81% obtaining a C grade or higher. All scripts were seen by three markers and a marking scheme was used for all papers. It is encouraging to notice that candidate participation and interest in the subject has remained constant whilst the level has slightly improved compared to previous years.
The average global mark was 75% overall, whilst the average mark for each paper was the following:
Total marks per paper
Average mark per paper
PAPER 1 (Redacción)
PAPER 2 (Comprensión, Resumen y Oral)
PAPER 3 (3 Temas de Cultura / Literatura)
30
40
30
23
27
20
As can be observed from the table above, it seems that candidates perform better on the first paper which requires the candidate to express himself/herself more freely and actively through exercising his/her productive writing skills. Further observations on the general performance of the candidates as per exercise are being documented below.
2

AM Examiners’ Report – May 2010
Focused remarks
Paper 1: Essay writing (Redacción)
The themes offered this year were more in accordance to the possible communication needs that might arise in an everyday situation leading to a possible improvement in the quality and style of free writing, since the candidates could have been more able to empathize and realistically involve themselves in the situations presented to them. Among the themes proposed, the first one required expression and argumentation of personal opinions, the second was aimed at expressing personal preferences and the third was the narration of a particular past personal experience. Besides, two other different options were also offered for the candidate to show his/her skills in letter-writing. Probably, due to the same reasons cited above, the last two themes of letter-writing were chosen at a much lesser extent than the former ones, resulting in the equal predominance of narrative and argumentative styles of writing and confirming that candidates prefer to write about their own opinions, preferences and past experiences,
The majority of the candidates answered adequately to the chosen theme, formulating a coherent and duly organized structure in their productive writing. However, interferences from other languages were detected in several of the outputs, especially Italian influences in writing, expressions literally translated from
English, confusion of regular and irregular verb conjugations and at a lesser extent, some other types of errors such as orthography, use of prepositions and conjunctions, etc.
Paper 2: Reading Comprehension (Comprensión)
The text presented in this section was an adaptation of a recent article from one of the most widely-known
Spanish newspapers, ‘El Mundo’, tackling a topical subject in Europe nowadays. The candidates had to answer a series of closed, multiple-choice questions. In general, a satisfactory comprehension was noted through the candidates’ choices of answers, with an average mark of 80%, most probably due to the fact that there were no open-ended questions to answer in one’s own words and the candidates could focus all their concentration on just reading and comprehending the text’s content itself.
Paper 2: Summary (Resumen)
The text set for this section was an adaptation from a news article of a Spanish-American newspaper, ‘El
Mercurio’. This exercise seemed to have presented more challenges to the candidates than the other sections of this paper since the average mark dropped to 60%. More diversity in the answers given by the candidates was observed as regards the techniques used to summarize. Rather than differing in linguistic competence, candidates revealed different resume skills. Whilst some candidates could distinguish and isolate the primary relevant information from the secondary, conveying it in the restricted length required (a third of the original text), others limited themselves to just juxtapose ideas chosen randomly without previously considering and contrasting their relevance and importance to the whole text.
Paper 2: Oral - Conversation (Conversación)
In this part of the exam, pronunciation, lexical and grammatical competence as well as fluency were examined. Six themes were put forward for the candidate to choose from and to interact with the examinerinterviewer. Most candidates, again, opted for topics relevant to their lives and to their immediate surroundings. The average mark obtained was 70%, out of which the best results obtained were in vocabulary and fluency, which is good considering the fact that candidates feel most uncomfortable in this section and they feel submitted to more emotional stress than in the exam’s writing tasks and it is also evident that adult candidates surpass this additional difficulty easier than their adolescent counterparts.
Paper 3: Literary texts and cultural themes (Textos literarios y temas culturales)
In this paper the candidate must choose to attempt either the section dealing with Literature or the one about Cultural topics, drawing up three essays, each from a different area of study. The preference of the vast majority was for Literature with only three candidates opting for Culture. Amongst the set literary works to study, the most popular were: La casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca, Rimas by Gustavo
Adolfo Bécquer and La familia de Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela reflecting an ideal balance between drama, poetry and prose. Several essays impressively stood out in the excellent use of the language shown as well as in literary argumentation and analysis. It was obvious that, in general, the candidates had appropriately prepared themselves for this paper, having thoroughly read and analyzed the set texts well in
3

AM Examiners’ Report – May 2010 advance and responding correctly to what was being asked of them. In some cases, however, there was a lack of good expression and language use as well as poor argumentation due to lack of scrupulous study and/or comprehension of the set texts.
Conclusion
The results and observations drawn in this report further sustain what has been suggested in last year’s report; a revision of the syllabus is required especially since the popularity for the study of the language has remained constant and each year, the level seems to be improving as well.
Chairperson
Board of Examiners
May 2010
4