O. Levels 2.0

If I redesigned my exams

Our education system is a ladder. Through school and university, we ascend a set of wrungs. O. Levels, A. Levels, Final Year Exams etc.

At 16, like many Sri Lankans of that age, I took the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level exam. Better known as O. Levels. I took Sinhala Language and Literature, my first language, determined by birth ethnicity. The compulsory English, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies and History. Buddhism determined by birth religion. Commerce and Accounting, the elective “technical” subject. Western Music, the elective aesthetic subject.

I got distinctions or “D”s for each of these subjects, and like many, ascended the wrung to the GCE Advanced Level class.

The problem with this ladder was that ascending wrungs required demonstrating knowledge. Not learning. There was a large amount of stuff that one had to know. And if one knew, one climbed to the next wrung. One could complete the trip with little or no learning. Kindergarten to university and beyond.

In this article, I look back at my O. Levels and try to redesign it to focus the wrungs on learning and not knowledge.

Why I liked Sinhala

Sinhala was my favourite subject during O. Levels. While I didn’t understand the reason for it then, upon reflection, I do now.

It was because it consisted of writing essays. And not just essays, but poems, and critiques, and other “creative” things. One not only learnt to create, one was examined on these things.

I was good at Mathematics, but I found the exams at best boring, and at worst stressful. They consisted of solving a large number of easy problems, racing against the clock. There was no creativity. Merely rote-learned “pattern matching”.

Conversely, with Sinhala, I would often leave exams energized and motivated, because I’d created something (usually the essay) that was new. Often, I’d go back and re-read my essay after I received it post-correction. I’d never re-read my mathematics paper.

The whole Sinhala paper didn’t consists of essays. All forms of “creative composition” probably made about 60% of the paper. The remaining 40% consisted of rote-learned, pattern matching. Grammar and esoteric theory, which I found as tedious. But, at least the 60% existed, and that made the exam worthwhile.

I talk about exams. And “education is not just about exams” you say. But exams determine what actually gets done. We are what we measure. A rotten measure leads to rotten humans.

How I began to like Mathematics

My boredom with Mathematics began to change on the next wrung. While O. Level mathematics was memory and regurgitation, A. Level mathematics introduced complex problems. This complexity ensured that there were several ways of solving a problem. They required knowledge from varying parts of mathematics. On one occasion, my teacher claimed he’d never seen my solution to a trigonmetry problem, in 30 years of teaching. Such things were possible and exciting.

The A. Level Combined Mathematics (a mix of pure and applied mathematics) paper, was still dull. About 80% of the paper was still “pattern matching”. But the remaining 20% made some amends.

On the next wrung, my first year at university, the boredom completely vanished. My papers in algebra, geometry, calculus, logic etc. consisted entirely of solving hard problems. Time was never a barrier, only complexity. 20% grew to 100%.

By then, I could safely say that I loved mathematics.

Themes and Ideas

The reason so much of the O. Levels consisted of “pattern matching” was that it tried to test knowledge. One had to know specific patterns, and one’s ability to match demonstrated this knowledge.

It was easy to know “stuff” without learning. And without learning, it was impossible to be creative. Conversely, with the Sinhala essay, and the complex mathematical problems, one had to be creative. And to be creative, one had to have learnt.

Hence, the core of an education system that tests learning, instead of knowledge, is one based on examining creativity, not rote-learning.

O. Levels 2.0

If I were to re-invent my O. Levels based on these principles, all exams would consist of only:

• Essays (and variations)
• Complex Problems

Applying these principles, each of my eight subjects would look like this:

• Sinhala: Given that Sinhala exams were already 60% “learning compliant”, we merely need to get rid of the rote-learning components, like multiple choice questions (MCQs) testing grammar. It is impossible to write a good essay with lousy grammar; hence, the 40% is redundant anyway.
• English: As Sinhala.
• Mathematics: Move away from a O.Level-esque “pattern-matching” to Univeristy-esque complex problems.
• Science: Science consisted of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Physics and Chemistry, in particular, can have complex problems. All three can have essays. For example, “What if stomach fluid was not an acid, but a base”, or “What if the earth’s gravity was twice as strong”, or “Why do different animals have different types of teeth” etc. The list is endless. And a lot more fun.
• Social Studies and History, Buddhism, Commerce and Accounting: Essays, and complex problems in the form of case studies, about real-world scenarios.
• Western Music. Essays and musical composition

Two Takeaways

“But wait! All this will be very expensive!” you say.

MCQs and “pattern-matching” exams are cheap. Examiners don’t have to spend hours reading tedious essays or reviewing the workings of complex problems. They can even leave it to a machine.

It might be too expensive to be practical. I don’t know.

But there is something else you can take away.

Suppose you sat for your O. Levels (or your child sat for O. Levels, or you employed someone who has eight distinctions at the O. Levels). The ability to write a good essay in Sinhala or English is better than a “D” for the subject. Ditto for the other subjects.

Even if the conventional education system does not test your (or your child’s, or your employee’s) learning, using my “examination marking scheme” (essays etc.) you can.

There is a darker takeaway.

If our education is based more and more in exams that machines can grade, then we will end-up spawning a generation of mechanical humans that robots can replace. This will happen whether or not the alternatives are expensive.

AI apocalypse now!