UNIVERSITY OF MALTA
THE MATRICULATION CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION
ADVANCED LEVEL
SPANISH
MAY 2011
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
MATRICULATION AND SECONDARY EDUCATION CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATIONS BOARD
AM Examiners’ Report – May 2011
AM SPANISH
MAY 2011 SESSION
EXAMINERS’ REPORT
The following is a statistical table of this year’s results together with those of the
previous six years for comparative purposes. It represents the number and
percentage of candidates attaining each grade.
YEAR
No. and % of candidates obtaining
each grade
A
B
C
D
E
F
2005
12
8
9
4
30% 20% 22% 10%
3
8%
2006
ABSENT
TOTAL
2
5%
2
5%
40
100%
7
4
7
6
9
17% 10% 17% 15% 22%
5
12%
3
7%
41
100%
2007
2
3%
4
6%
3
5%
62
100%
2008
6
13
6
20% 46% 20%
2009
2010
2011
17
19
11
6
27% 31% 18% 10%
0
0%
2
7%
0
0%
2
7%
29
100%
5
15
14
4
12% 35% 33% 10%
11
14
10
1
26% 33% 23% 2%
0
0%
0
0%
4
10%
42
100%
3
7%
2
5%
2
5%
43
100%
4
10
7
7
11% 26% 18% 18%
3
8%
2
5%
5
13%
38
100%
General Comments
The number of candidates applying for this exam has decreased slightly this year but
a total of 38 candidates is still encouraging for this subject. All scripts were seen by
three markers and a marking scheme was used for all papers. The distribution of
marks this year turned out to be reasonable with 55% obtaining a C grade or higher,
the majority of whom actually got a B grade. The average global mark was 56%
overall whilst the average mark for each paper was the following:
PAPER 1 (Redacción)
PAPER 2 (Comprensión, Resumen y Oral)
PAPER 3 (3 Temas de Cultura / Literatura)
Total
marks
per paper
30
40
30
Average
mark
per paper
21%
25%
17%
As can be observed from the Table above, it seems that the candidates performed
better in the first paper which required them to express themselves more freely and
actively through exercising their productive writing skills. Further observations on the
general performance of the candidates per exercise are documented below.
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AM Examiners’ Report – May 2011
Focused remarks
Paper 1: Essay writing (Redacción)
The topics offered as a choice this year were intended to present everyday, familiar
situations and themes which required the candidate to respond to common needs of
communication and expression. The first topic offered was a narrative task about a
past trip abroad whereas the second asked for a description of an influential person
in the candidate’s life. The last three options were argumentative in nature and
required the candidate to take and defend a standpoint about an interesting issue in
his/her life: living alone or with one’s partner, contrasting today’s youth with that of
the elderly or outlining lessons one could learn from one’s mistakes in life. The vast
majority of the candidates that presented themselves for this paper opted for the first
title, followed by a preference for the second choice. This reflects that most
candidates feel more comfortable describing personal issues than attempting to
argue in favour or against a particular issue.
The majority dealt with the chosen theme adequately and produced coherent,
structured writing tasks. However, there were candidates who were strongly
influenced by other languages in their writing; lexical influences from Italian and
literal translations from English were noted. Other common mistakes, as was also
evident in previous years, included the confusion of regular and irregular verb
conjugations and, to a lesser extent, the uncertain use of prepositions and
connectors.
Paper 2: Reading Comprehension (Comprensión lectora)
The text presented in this section was adapted from a scientific article about the
commonly known ‘Mozart Effect’ which featured in the magazine, ‘Revista de Ávila’.
The candidates had to answer a series of closed, multiple-choice questions. In
general, a very satisfactory comprehension ability was noted through the candidates’
choice 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; the candidates
could focus all their concentration on just reading and comprehending the text’s
content. It was evident, however, that the last question, which was of a different
nature from the others, was the hardest task in general since it expected the
candidates to target synonyms from the text thus requiring a more focused
comprehension skill.
Paper 2: Summary (Resumen)
The text set for this section was adapted from a news article taken from a SpanishAmerican newspaper, ‘Diario Buenos Aires’ of Argentina. This section does not only
test one’s linguistic competences but also the summarizing techniques necessary for
such a task. Whilst most 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), a few limited themselves to just juxtaposing ideas chosen
randomly without previously considering and contrasting their relevance to the whole
text. However, a general improvement has been noted from last year and the
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AM Examiners’ Report – May 2011
average mark has risen to 80%, leveling the results with the comprehension task
discussed previously.
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 examiner/interviewer, which once again were selected
in such a way as to be relevant to the candidate’s life and to his/her immediate
surroundings. These involved relating one’s personal experiences and expressing
one’s preferences and points of view on a familiar topic. The candidate was free to
choose one theme or more. The average mark obtained was 70%. As was noted last
year, this section of the exam seemed to be the most challenging for most.
Candidates tend to feel more uncomfortable and submit to more emotional stress in
this task than in the writing tasks although adult candidates tend to surpass this
additional difficulty more 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 which tackles Cultural topics, drawing up three essays, each
from a different area of study. The vast majority preferred Literature with only one
candidate opting for Culture. Amongst the literary works to be studied, 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. Some essays stood
out from the rest not only because of their very good use of language but also due to
the candidates’ ability to comment on and review the literary texts. Some candidates,
however, limited themselves to giving a summary of the literary piece instead of
presenting a critical or interpretative analysis as was expected and asked of them,
showing that they lacked previous understanding of the text from a literary point of
view. Overall, it was evident that the candidates had read all the texts thoroughly
although with different levels of success as regards literary criticism.
Conclusion
In comparison to last year’s results and observations, similar traits seem to have
recurred in the general performance of candidates this year which is disappointing
since some frequent mistakes can easily be diminished if particular attention is given
to them during the candidate’s study and preparation for the exam.
Chairperson
Board of Examiners
May 2011
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