IHETC School
Natural sciences — Upper secondary
Faced with an analysis question, the pupil recites the lesson instead of extracting information from the document provided. The examiner wants the opposite: the document exploited, with the course illuminating it. This is a habit to unlearn, not knowledge to add.
What is at stake in this subject
The subject requires holding together a large body of knowledge and an ability to analyse documents. Revising one without the other yields an average mark regardless of how much work was put in.
- Genetics and evolution
- Human physiology
- Geology and earth dynamics
- Ecology and environmental issues
- Analysis of scientific documents
They know the course and do not exploit the documents
Faced with an analysis question, the pupil recites the lesson instead of extracting information from the document provided. The examiner wants the opposite: the document exploited, with the course illuminating it. This is a habit to unlearn, not knowledge to add.
How the tutor works on it
The tutor systematically has information extracted from the document before allowing recourse to the course. The order of those two moves is precisely what is assessed.
- It changes angle when an explanation does not land
- It never gives an exercise answer
- It has the pupil check rather than correcting them
- It goes back to the missing prerequisite, even from an earlier year
Parents' questions
How do you revise such a large volume?
Not by rereading. Active recall — asking yourself the question and attempting the answer without looking — produces incomparably better results than rereading, for the same time spent. That is the method the tutor enforces, even when it is less comfortable.