Inane ramblings of a grumpy cynic at midnight
WARNING: The following is an incoherent bunch of poorly thought out ranting. Why? Because I'm in a hurry, I'm tired and I'm angry. Something better tomorrow. I highly recommend that you don't read this.
Rattling off a very quick blog post right now not because I need to get to sleep but because I need to get it done before I do yet another Computing presentation, this time on 3 types of rare and useless display technologies, some of which may enter common usage within the next 20 or so years.
I got various bit of bumf from the SQA, the people in charge of the future of Scotland's children, today, regarding my exams in May. These little leaflets bug me for reasons I shall now proceed to explain, hopefully in less than five minutes of typing.
1.“You must not use text language in any of your answers”
I think what they're getting at here is that you cannot write an essay using phrases such as “OMFG i thnk Othello rox. Cn i have a A? Kk thanx bye”. I would love to see the written answers which made someone feel that this was a necessary rule. I would not like to meet the person who wrote those answers.
I said that I “think” that's what they mean, because the only other interpretation is that I'm not allowed to use written communication to show my answers. This leaves recording (but no recording equipment can be taken into the exam room) and possibly some forms of pictograph, if they aren't picky.
2.The people in all the photos
Could they look more artificial if they tried? Every single one of the people in these photos is smiling and most of them are of ethnic minorities. Don't misinterpret that. It's not a racist thing. I just don't like the idea that a photographer or someone else has gone around specifically to look for people with different skin colours in order to avoid the slim possibility of being sued for something.
It also bugs me that none of these people are doing anything remotely relevant. There's a few people apparently doing exams but everyone else is just standing around in the open air or banging their heads together above the camera. Why? Why, I ask you, why?!
It also doesn't help that the people chosen to go on the cover of one of the booklets are hardly front cover material. Now, I'm sure these people may well be nice enough in real life if I ever met them (assuming they've never read this next bit) but that doesn't mean I want to look at them. One has a bucktoothed grin that makes her look as if she's been photographed mid-hiccup and the other is a particularly gormless looking acne-riddled young man with his jaw hanging open and half his eyebrow missing.
Now, not to be mean, but I don't want to look at these people. I don't pretend to look any better but that doesn't mean I want to see them every time I need exam information. And I'm fairly sure cameras can take more than one photo, so why, a word that keeps coming up, didn't they take another one where the two people don't look like brainless zombies? I'm serious. I can picture a speech balloon next to eyebrow boy saying “Brains!!!”
3.The exam timetable
Maths and Physics are on consecutive days. This really is a complaint. It's one of those things that I've mentioned before that could be corrected if people's thought processes didn't go like this:
“Nobody who does Physics could possibly be doing Maths as well, since they're totally unrelated. I'll put them next to each other so the people doing Urdu for Non-native Speakers have a few days to study before their inevitable Biology exam.”
Yeah, I'm a grumpy cynical bastard. But seriously, does anybody think this thing through? This really has been a rant and a long one at that. I apologise. But I'm still think there's way too much crappy bumf (best phrase in this whole post) in the world.
Rattling off a very quick blog post right now not because I need to get to sleep but because I need to get it done before I do yet another Computing presentation, this time on 3 types of rare and useless display technologies, some of which may enter common usage within the next 20 or so years.
I got various bit of bumf from the SQA, the people in charge of the future of Scotland's children, today, regarding my exams in May. These little leaflets bug me for reasons I shall now proceed to explain, hopefully in less than five minutes of typing.
1.“You must not use text language in any of your answers”
I think what they're getting at here is that you cannot write an essay using phrases such as “OMFG i thnk Othello rox. Cn i have a A? Kk thanx bye”. I would love to see the written answers which made someone feel that this was a necessary rule. I would not like to meet the person who wrote those answers.
I said that I “think” that's what they mean, because the only other interpretation is that I'm not allowed to use written communication to show my answers. This leaves recording (but no recording equipment can be taken into the exam room) and possibly some forms of pictograph, if they aren't picky.
2.The people in all the photos
Could they look more artificial if they tried? Every single one of the people in these photos is smiling and most of them are of ethnic minorities. Don't misinterpret that. It's not a racist thing. I just don't like the idea that a photographer or someone else has gone around specifically to look for people with different skin colours in order to avoid the slim possibility of being sued for something.
It also bugs me that none of these people are doing anything remotely relevant. There's a few people apparently doing exams but everyone else is just standing around in the open air or banging their heads together above the camera. Why? Why, I ask you, why?!
It also doesn't help that the people chosen to go on the cover of one of the booklets are hardly front cover material. Now, I'm sure these people may well be nice enough in real life if I ever met them (assuming they've never read this next bit) but that doesn't mean I want to look at them. One has a bucktoothed grin that makes her look as if she's been photographed mid-hiccup and the other is a particularly gormless looking acne-riddled young man with his jaw hanging open and half his eyebrow missing.
Now, not to be mean, but I don't want to look at these people. I don't pretend to look any better but that doesn't mean I want to see them every time I need exam information. And I'm fairly sure cameras can take more than one photo, so why, a word that keeps coming up, didn't they take another one where the two people don't look like brainless zombies? I'm serious. I can picture a speech balloon next to eyebrow boy saying “Brains!!!”
3.The exam timetable
Maths and Physics are on consecutive days. This really is a complaint. It's one of those things that I've mentioned before that could be corrected if people's thought processes didn't go like this:
“Nobody who does Physics could possibly be doing Maths as well, since they're totally unrelated. I'll put them next to each other so the people doing Urdu for Non-native Speakers have a few days to study before their inevitable Biology exam.”
Yeah, I'm a grumpy cynical bastard. But seriously, does anybody think this thing through? This really has been a rant and a long one at that. I apologise. But I'm still think there's way too much crappy bumf (best phrase in this whole post) in the world.
Labels: alasdair, crappy posts, rant, school
posted by Alasdair Corbett at
11:53 PM
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