How students prepare for the
certificate examination
opinion survey 2008
Participating parties
Dr Robert Ting-yiu Chung,
Programme Director of Public
Opinion Programme,
University of Hong Kong
Prof Kit-tai Hau,
Department Chair of
Educational Psychology,
The Chinese University of
Hong Kong
Ben Mak
Oxford University Press
Research Methodology
Student survey
 1,026 successful exit interviews with students who just
finished their Chinese/English/Mathematics certificate
examination in April/May 2008
 Stratified sampling in 30 examination centres
Teacher survey
 305 successful self-completed mail questionnaires
 Teachers of certificate level Chinese/English/
Mathematics subjects
Questions asked
for students:
 What have you done to prepare yourselves for the
exam (in school and outside of school)?
 Now you have completed the exam, what do you think
are the most effective tools?
for teachers:
 What have you done to prepare your students for the
exam?
 In view of your students’ exam results in recent years,
what do you think are the most effective tools?
Key findings - students
70%
has used
considered effective
60%
55%
52%
47%
50%
40%
40%
38%
44%
41%
38%
33%
32%
27%
30%
24%
20%
20%
20%
19%
15%
10%
0%
操練
12%
12%
10%
* 在「使用那種方法預
備會考」的問題並沒有
「老師平日課堂所授的
學科知識」答案選項，
因為假設絕大部份學生
都有老師教授。
老師
補習 日常
由老 老師
教科 學校
坊間 坊間
歷屆 在平
班／ 功課
師編 指導
書
提供
的模 的會
會考 日課
精讀 和作
寫的 的應
的模
擬試 考參
試題 堂所
班
業
筆記 試策
擬試
題
考
授的 （筆記
略和
題／ ／補充 書／天
學科
）
技巧
補充
練習 書
知識
練習
*
Key findings - teachers
Summary of data

Students and teachers use a lot of different means to
prepare for exam, but there is no clear consensus
about the effectiveness of those tools

‘Practising past papers’ are deemed important by both
teachers and students

Exam guide books (天書) are deemed not useful by
both teachers and students

Students believe that teachers have not taught them
enough skills to prepare for exam
Interpretation of data
 The new syllabus and exam format seem to have
weakened the confidence of some teachers and students
 ‘Practising past papers’ can be helpful if and only if:
 The students have already mastered solid subject
knowledge, which is the result of good classroom teaching.
NSS will not change this. On the other hand, pure drilling
and memorizing “tips” will not help
 Past papers are used to gauge students’ strengths &
weaknesses
 Scores are used as a motivator to show improvement and
encourage self-learning
Interpretation of data
 Choosing a good textbook and relevant learning
materials provided by publishers are good enough to
replace exam guide book (天書)

Tutorial centres marketing expert. They package
themselves as exam expert. But teachers can do equally
well by conducting more sharing with other teachers and
better utilize exam related materials provided by
publishers
The role of Oxford

Continue to provide comprehensive, accurate, up-to-date
and yet easy to use textbook package. Because
teaching will become even more important in NSS.

Enhance our already powerful question bank and on line
learning platform. More past-exam-like questions will be
included. New features will be added to motivate selflearning. We have just opened a new production and IT
centre in Shenzhen to support the development work.

Enrich our teach support programme with territory-wide
workshops, regional sharing groups, up-to-date exam
analysis, etc.