Monday, October 01, 2001

The Goal Is Moderation

The Goal Is Moderation 10/1/2001
A mole living in a hole

One day said to my soul,

"The Goal is Moderation".

Just struck me, after being bombarded by "Got Moderation Or Not" that we've (yes in another stroke of unintended genius) re-created a word.

mod·er·ate

Pronunciation: 'mä-d&-"rAt

Function: verb

Inflected Form(s): -at·ed; -at·ing

Date: 15th century

transitive senses

1 : to lessen the intensity or extremeness of

Lessen the extremes - does seem to mean its supposed to be applied to bringing everyone to a middle point. Indeed when we use the word "moderate" we often mean just that.

How was fast should I play the piece?

Moderately - neither too fast or slow ...

How much did you spend last month on food?

A moderate amount - meaning I ate in the Canteen only ...

So ... why do we say "got moderation" when we really mean Can I Have More Marks ? I wonder.

Ok - if you've been patient enough to read all that - you might be interested in this ... the kind of statistical moderation that we're doing, means we're going to fulfil MSG bands. This means it isn't going to be a uniform addition of marks to everyone. It's supposed to be more sophisticated - some people will get more some less (differences are very minute...) At least that's how I understand it ...

As for the specifics -

we've got 7% A1s for Lit - we've been at around 20% in most of the previous prelims ...

we've got practically no A1s for EL (i think 4B has 3 - yay! - ) and we're supposed to be at around 50% A1/A2 based on past year performances.

So - think about it.

Actually - I think the main reservation everyone (meaning teachers who need to bear the responsibilty of this moderation business ... not lowly ones like me ...) is that we're not certain about whether the KIDs will perform at the "O"s. If you're from a more "secure" kinda school, and know that your kids will definitely deliver at the "O"s then I guess moderation doesn't have to be done in moderate amounts. But, there seems to be this lingering uncertainty ... sigh.