SCHOOLS: History students confused by Hitler 'despotic tyranny' exam question (From News Shopper)

doc 1 says...
2:10pm Fri 19 Jun 09

Well what does "despotic tyranny" mean ?

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Pampam1950 says...
3:08pm Fri 19 Jun 09

If A-Level students do not understand what a tyrannical despot is then they are not yet at A-Level standard A-Level standard would require students to have achieved the vocabulary skills to be able to read history textbooks and evaluate the information.

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Dartfordian says...
3:30pm Fri 19 Jun 09

I suggest that next year they phrase the question so:

"That Hitler bloke was a right nasty geezer who never listened to no-one, yeah?"

despot tyranny

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HIstoryStudent says...
5:20pm Fri 19 Jun 09

I am a student who sat this exam and in response to the comments above would firstly like to point out that in all the wider reading I did in preparation for the exam, written by leading Historians, I did not once come across the phrase "despotic tyranny" when describing Hitler's rule. Also the source it was derived from was a source written by a Nazi official, if my memory serves me correctly, and not any sort of textbook or modern source we could have come across it in before. The exam was not about evaluating textbooks. It was about debating History through use of the sources, and when the misplaced use of a word in a question from an ambiguous source, prevents you from doing so to your full potential, it is very distressing.

This distress is heightened when you consider the amount of work we have put in for the last two years, and the university places which now hang in jeopardy because of the use of one word.

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MarkSamuda says...
5:52pm Fri 19 Jun 09

I agree with HistoryStudent. This exam was not intended to test our knowledge of the English Language; it was a test of our knowledge of the Third Reich in the years 1933-45. As a higher ability student, i did a considerable amount of background reading leading upto this exam, and not once did i come across the phrase "Despotic Tyranny". The very fact that Edexcel seem to think one can have varying degrees tyranny is, in itself, a joke. The comments left above are entirely unfounded, and were probably written by people with absolutely no knowledge of the current A-level Modern History syllabus and reading list.

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bexleyman says...
6:17pm Fri 19 Jun 09

Here you are then MarkSamuda, I myself sat my history A2 this June, albeit with AQA, I could tell you what a despotic tyrant was. I dare say the vast majority of my history class could too. You say you didn't come across it in any books by 'leading historians', I couldn't tell you if I saw the term come up in relation to Hitler but upon so-called 'wider reading' on a variety of subjects, the term has come up.
You suggest that you feel "edexcel seem to think one can have varying degrees tyranny is, in itself, a joke" shows that you don't much deserve the higher marks, to hit the A, for some kind of evaluation you have to analyse to what extent Hitler was a despotic tyrant, make comparisons with other tyrannical leaders across a broad range of history, not just Hitler, and state just how tyrannical you thought he was, and why.
The exam DOES require you to use appropriate and good english, including 'specialist vocabulary', which 'despotic tyrant' I suppose you could say is.

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HIstoryStudent says...
6:27pm Fri 19 Jun 09

Our course focus was Nazi Germany as an entity and so in our wider reading which I assure you myself and other students at my sixth form completed, the focus was not on Hitler as a despot but on how the system of government impacted everyday life and how it operated. Perhaps if we had have been learning about tyrannical leaders whereby we drew comparisons as you describe then we would have read the necessary materials to enlighten us as to what the term despot meant in relation to Hitler. As it was we did not and it is elitist quite frankly to assume every history student is going to have come across such a term.

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MarkSamuda says...
7:49pm Fri 19 Jun 09

BexelyMan, i admit that part of my previous comment (namely the part about the phrase being a joke) may have been a tad off the mark, and came more out of anger and frustration than logic. However, my main qualm is the fact that this term was used in the QUESTION. If, for instance, a student felt it necessary to use it in their answer, fair enough; they are entitled to good marks as far as specialist vocabulary is concerned. I do not, however, think it is right for Edexcel to use it in a question without giving a definition. All it has achieved is the alienation of thousands of students who, despite having a more-than-adequate grasp on the history of the Third Reich, have been left helpless. I agree that marks are given for the use of specialist vocabulary, but a student's grade should not hinge on his or her understanding of one "specialist" term, which is effectively the situation Edexcel have created. Even a brief definition in brackets would have been sufficient.

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Atmydesk says...
7:50pm Fri 19 Jun 09

Im 30 years old and I have come across the words before whilst stuying A Level History at John Ruskin College. 'Despotic' means a leader with absolute power or someone who uses their power oppressively, which is also a 'Tyrant'. 'Tyranny' is a government in which a single person has absolute power.
One of the condition placed upon us as A-Level students was to have a basic command of the english language having acheived a grade C or above at GCSE Level.
These are words used regulary in Modern History, Perhaps if you spent more time revising and less time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, you may have performed better in your exams!

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HIstoryStudent says...
7:55pm Fri 19 Jun 09

Excuse me but I studied roughly 8 hours worth a day leading up to the exam. I had begun revision 2 months previously. Condensed all wider reading down to revisable notes, knew it all backwards because I thoroughly enjoy studying History. I got an A* in English at GCSE and straight As at AS Level. It is insulting for it to be suggested we have not worked hard enough. It's disgusting.

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shergars ghost says...
8:15pm Fri 19 Jun 09

I genuinely find it remarkable that the History Students did not know the terms, 'despot' and 'tyranny'
or could relate to them in that context.
Very Sad.

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MarkSamuda says...
8:18pm Fri 19 Jun 09

I agree, that was below the belt. For a 30-year-old, you're not very mature. Maybe if you spent less time insulting teenagers and more time studying the Edexcel syllabus, you'd realise our argument is sound. Two can play at that game.

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Mother Sidcup says...
8:39pm Fri 19 Jun 09

My daughter sat this Edexcel History exam last week and like most pupils in her sixth form left the exam in tears. Only a couple of students actually got the correct answer and one of those was a lucky guess. Many of these high ability students will now probably loose their places at Uni because of this one very badly worded question.
This was an exam on on Hitler and history...not on swallowing a dictionary.
Despotic tyranny actually means tyrannical tyranny which means both words mean exactly the same thing... it is a bit like asking "do you enjoy past History" and was very confusing for students and for this reason alone Edexcel have some explaining! Another problem was the source with the question which directed most students thinking the question was about all about chaos.
What is more distressing for students like my daughter is that facebook is claiming many schools were either read the meaning before the exam or were allowed to take a dictionary into the exam with them!!
Edexcel have been bombarded with complaints from teachers/students and parents.
Edexcel have played the despotic tyrant by playing god in this exam and consequently ruined many students dreams
of going to great university.

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HIstoryStudent says...
8:51pm Fri 19 Jun 09

shergars ghost wrote:
I genuinely find it remarkable that the History Students did not know the terms, 'despot' and 'tyranny'
or could relate to them in that context.
Very Sad.

Yes it is sad. "Very sad." That is exactly why I had students in tears around me during the exam and around me after the exam. Thank you for your concern. Ha.

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AlexP says...
10:13pm Fri 19 Jun 09

People like you who are leaving these posts saying we all should have known what the meaning of "despotic tyranny " meant should realise that even our teachers dont understand why we were given this question with the source provided. You obviously have no idea of what was in the paper so please mind your own business!

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steph_7 says...
10:23pm Fri 19 Jun 09

To say that our revision was not done properly is insulting. I don't know about other colleges but in our lessons we didn't study this term or come across it in any text books. As for wider reading there was a very slim chance that we would come across this term and those who did were lucky. The exam board should consider the syllabus and text books better before writing questions and it is a shame that peoples work over the two years may not be properly awarded.

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Foxy123 says...
10:48pm Fri 19 Jun 09

I'm sure A Level Grade boundaries are set using the marks students gain in that particular year. Therefore if the question really was that bad then everyone would have had the same problem and grade boundries would be lower. Your hopes of going to good universities are definately not out of the question yet! Stop worrying, it's done now and you can only wait and see what happens.

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madras says...
10:49am Sat 20 Jun 09

cannot believe A level students don't at least understand the word 'tyrant' and have the ability to transpose this into 'tyrany'. And even if you don't understand 'despot' and 'despotic' you ought at least to be able to grasp the context. But this illustrates the 'joke' of exams where students are expected to learn parrot fashion from recommended reading and not understand wider context...

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madras says...
10:52am Sat 20 Jun 09

mind you, it would have been nice if someone pointed out the aparent tautology in using 'despotic tyrany'!

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ggjonny says...
1:01pm Sat 20 Jun 09

I took the exam the other week but I find it quite offensive to say that students didn't know what tyranny meant, they shouldn't be doing history if they didn't understand that.

But it's 'despotic', the word that up to this point in my life, I have still never seen on a documentary, news programme, or even used in conversation. That was the problem, and the context of the source made it out to mean something totally different to what it actually did!

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HIstoryStudent says...
1:35pm Sat 20 Jun 09

madras wrote:
cannot believe A level students don't at least understand the word 'tyrant' and have the ability to transpose this into 'tyrany'. And even if you don't understand 'despot' and 'despotic' you ought at least to be able to grasp the context. But this illustrates the 'joke' of exams where students are expected to learn parrot fashion from recommended reading and not understand wider context...

You don't seem to grasp the point that the source we were given used despotic tyranny in a way which indicated a chaotic ruler, which by all means Hitler was. We knew what tyranny was, it was the way despotic was used which caused the problem and judgements really cannot be made from people who did not read the source it came from.
Gosh, ignorance.

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madras says...
2:07pm Sat 20 Jun 09

my apologies to the students - I didn't mean to offend, but to quote the article 'A number of teachers have also posted... claiming that their students would not know what the words “despotic” and “tyranny” meant.' - to which I was replying.

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JohnS-UK says...
3:29pm Sat 20 Jun 09

I believe this article has completely misinterpreted the argument of the students (including myself) who have sat this exam. Our argument consists of two points:

Firstly, the article states that students were confused by the term 'tyranny'. Wrong, students were confused by the combined term 'despotic tyranny'. This is sloppy journalism (through creating a poor quotation) to create a reaction of mockery from the reader to be directed at the students. The combined term, we feel as students, were poorly linked to the sources.

Secondly, Edexcel has a responsibility as an examining body to create an exam for the broad spectrum of students who sit the paper. The use of the term 'despotic tyranny' excludes students of a lower ability. Considering this paper gives no choice of question, and is not structured into tiers of ability, it is a clear failure of purpose on Edexcel's behalf. This is not to say students can amalgamate the term into their answers, however this is just a choice of response to enable students to the higher marks / grade.

Please comment on this response as I am keen to hear other views.

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bexleystudent09 says...
6:14pm Sat 20 Jun 09

I feel that many of these comments are unfair. Firstly, I am a student who achieved 5 A grades as AS level last year (including full marks for two out of three of my history modules) and have been predicted 4 As at A2 this year. I have been offered a place at Cambridge to study English literature and I was not familiar with the word 'despotic' at all despite intensive revision and reading around the topic. In applying analytic skills, it could be deciphered from the source (given that students were not familiar with the term 'despotic') that the word in question meant chaotic. This elitist question prevented many students from being able to access the question in an education system which is supposed to be accessible by all. If the students were expected to be familiar with this word it should have been mentioned on the syllabus or at least in history textbooks; I have never come across this word in all of my sucessful academic career. I just hope that poor wording of a question which I could otherwise answer very easily does not cost me the university place that I have worked so hard for. It is a pity that people are, as it is so sadly frequent, criticising the youth of today rather than acknowledging the facts; the students were possibly never introduced to this word, the word does not feature in text books that many students have studied from and therefore to expect students to answer a question which is so reliant on the understanding of the term 'despotic' is totally unfair.

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madras says...
7:42pm Sat 20 Jun 09

JohnS-UK and bexleystudent09 - well articulated arguments - far better quality than the original report - perhaps you should investigate careers in journalism???

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gracecoo says...
1:43pm Sun 21 Jun 09

Funny,funny not. All these smart Alec's (apologies to anybody called Alec) who think they know it all! Despotic? I did a little survey of some University graduates that I know (Oxford and Cambridge) and only 5 out of ten knew what it meant. I had a rough idea. How insulting of some people to suggest that young people are do not spend enough time revising and reading around the topic. My daughter for one worked and revised incredibly hard. Much harder than I or any of my graduate friends did many years ago. Examination questions are supposed to be clear, concise and comprehensible. This clearly wasn't. The question should have been clearly accessible to ALL students taking the examination and not just the elite few who luckily knew the meaning. The meaning of one word is not a sign of great intelligence. Putting on my despotic tyrannical hat I would like to send the misinformed fools who posted this examination question to a hard labour camp for 30 years. No defence allowed!!!! On a serious note my daughter worked like a "trojan" for the last two years and felt devasasted on exitng that exam. She said she felt like a failure. It's taken a quite a few days to build her back up again and one can only hope that the exam board see sense. To all the smart as*** out there, come down off your perch and show a little humility and respect to these fine young people who have been short changed by a nonsense of a question!

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Schnitzel says...
1:45pm Sun 21 Jun 09

"If A-Level students do not understand what a tyrannical despot is then they are not yet at A-Level standard A-Level standard would require students to have achieved the vocabulary skills to be able to read history textbooks and evaluate the information."

Tobago, pull your head out of your arse mate, all we can hear is mumbling.

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Mother Sidcup says...
3:32pm Sun 21 Jun 09

This story is now in todays Sunday Express , a quarter page article on page 7... unfortunatly it does not mention the source that confused so many students.

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LBT says...
5:58pm Sun 21 Jun 09

"Perhaps if you spent more time revising and less time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, you may have performed better in your exams!"
I find it sickening how most adults seem to try and force us to become little study machines with no feelings, emotions or thoughts of our own. We feel stress just as much as you do. I also find it disgraceful that we are only seen as a set of grades on a list and not as people. It's really no wonder the UK has the highest teen suicide rates...

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alexx1 says...
6:07pm Sun 21 Jun 09

Atmydesk wrote:
Im 30 years old and I have come across the words before whilst stuying A Level History at John Ruskin College. 'Despotic' means a leader with absolute power or someone who uses their power oppressively, which is also a 'Tyrant'. 'Tyranny' is a government in which a single person has absolute power.
One of the condition placed upon us as A-Level students was to have a basic command of the english language having acheived a grade C or above at GCSE Level.
These are words used regulary in Modern History, Perhaps if you spent more time revising and less time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, you may have performed better in your exams!

"Perhaps if you spent more time revising and less time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, you may have performed better in your exams!"

We don't even use social networking sites like MySpace anymore.
I'm sorry, but you clearly have no idea about teengagers, and how hard we work in order to achieve our potential.

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sebhall says...
2:54am Mon 22 Jun 09

I think all the people saying something along the lines of "come on .. how did you not know it.. its so easy.." is a bit stupid even posting on here! Clearly if there's a story about it and even in the newspaper then enough people didn't understand it for it to be significant. With this said, I find myself to be lucky that I decided to quasi-ignore the word despotic in the hope that it meant the same as tyranny (which I knew the meaning of)! Hopefully other people did this too! good luck everybody!

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bph says...
7:15am Mon 22 Jun 09

If you think "despotic tyranny" is a tautology then you still haven't understood the words. It is perfectly possible (though rarer) to have a benign tyranny. I'm horrified that someone who didn't know these words should be considered worthy of GCSE history, let alone A-Level. I knew these words at 16 and I never took any humanities GCSEs, having specialised in sciences and foreign languages. However, if when the Board marks the exam it becomes apparent that the majority of candidates did not know the words, then their response should be to make the syllabus clearer that a wide vocabulary relating to different systems of government is a basic requirement. This would avoid a similar situation occuring in future, but it would not be reasonable to down-grade an entire year's worth of candidates.

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alexx1 says...
9:18am Mon 22 Jun 09

People who say they knew the word "despotic" when they were young must be about 40 or 50. Unfortunately, schools don't place that much emphasis on learning terms anymore, exam styles change. Times change. We don't sit exams in the same style you may have done. So get off your high horse and stop criticizing younger people.

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bexleyman says...
12:58pm Mon 22 Jun 09

I wouldn't worry too much, it's my understanding that a set number of students must get an A grade, therefore the marks:UMS ratio will vary year on year;
Having said that, one would very much expect that there is a wide range of history students out there who did know or could hazard an educated guess as to what the term "despotic tyrant" means, and thus the raw marks to get an A will be no different from any other year. It's just poor disaffected students who are used to hitting A A A A... who all of a sudden find themselves having a bit of bother and all of a sudden must blame somebody else rather than themselves.

BPH, speaking as an a-level student myself, you epitomise what's wrong with a-levels and exams in general, you want everything confined into a nice little box, a nice little bullet-pointed syllabus where it tells you word for word what you need to remember so you can regurgitate it upon demand in the exam. One of the reasons I found History so enjoyable is the freedom it affords, you can't have this set-list of what you need to know that students, yourself included, apparently crave.
The term 'despot' and 'tyranny', as I said before are terms i've heard and used in the classroom, they are terms i've found upon wider reading of my own throughout reading on Hitler and the variety of other historical periods I looked at for my course.
Again, while the syllabus may not explicitly state it, from such a question analysing to what extent Hitler was a tyrant, one would expect to define the term for themselves in the introduction, challenge the term, for example Hitler wasn't such the autocrat perhaps implied but rather at the heart of a Polycracy.

Distressed mother, you quiz all them Oxbridge graduates you like - I can know from my own experiences that 'despot' and 'tyrant' are common in a number of history classrooms.

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bph says...
5:51pm Mon 22 Jun 09

Hey bexleyman that's not a fair comment on me! I referred to the syllabus in the context of making a suggestion to appease those who think the Board acted unreasonably in using these words. I agree with your take on things but was trying to see things from the point of view of the complaining students rather than just telling them they're wrong!

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cmarie says...
9:06pm Mon 22 Jun 09

After revising solidly for weeks before this exam i feel completely let down by the fact that my misinterpretation of an extremely confusing phrase appears to have made all off my efforts void.I understand that to be an A level history student you need to have a wide grasp of specialised vocabulary but can i realy be blamed for never hearing the word despotic before? I have never read it, let alone had it taught to me and i was under the impression that exams should be based on a student's knowledge of a topic not on their knowedge of a word. With regards to this argument i would like the sources to be available to publish so that the confusing nature of the question becomes clear to those who merely blame the students. It was not merely the word that we did not understand, it was its context when cosidering the nature of the sources and when placing it next to the word tyranny. I have worked extremely hard this year as i am sure many students have and although i tried my best i still left the exam room in tears.

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Dartbored says...
12:38pm Tue 23 Jun 09

HIstoryStudent wrote:
Excuse me but I studied roughly 8 hours worth a day leading up to the exam. I had begun revision 2 months previously. Condensed all wider reading down to revisable notes, knew it all backwards because I thoroughly enjoy studying History. I got an A* in English at GCSE and straight As at AS Level. It is insulting for it to be suggested we have not worked hard enough. It's disgusting.

HistoryStudent - Nobody can doubt that you've studied hard, but it does re-ignite the debate about how stern a test GCSE's (and to a lsser extent, A-Levels) are these days. I sat my GCSE's way back in 1990 and "only" achieved a grade B in English. I didn't even study history. Yet at the time, I would have been able to answer the Despotic Tyranny question with a degree of confidence. The fact that you achieved an A* at GCSE English but weren't aware of this phrase points to a bigger, more fundamental problem I'm afraid.

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Locket14 says...
1:06am Wed 24 Jun 09

As a History student having just read some of the outrageous comments above, some of which I presume are from the older generation of today, I feel totally disappointed at your lack of compassion and general attitude to this whole scenario. I am sick to death of people saying "oh I could of sat that exam" or "how can they not know what despotic means?" Considering you were not in the exam nor did you even SEE the sources in context with the question, who are you to judge us? The question was totally unfair, students had learnt everything from propaganda to women's roles in the Third Reich, slaving hours over textbooks and sources, all knowledge that we expected to use to our own advantage in the exam. The word despotic as said by many others has never cropped up in our textbooks - maybe if the word autocratic was used students like myself would have been able to grasp the full concept. The word tyranny is easy to comprehend yes, but there was no need for the word 'despotic' to be used - no need at all. You would NOT even see that word being used in an A-level English Literature exam. To use it through everyone of course, especially as the sources were frankly poor and in a nutshell confusing - almost as if Edexcel couldn't even be bothered. I am predicted 3 A's at A-level as are many students, we have worked hard and essentially edexcel have let us down. It would be nice if people supported us in this instead of criticising how History students shouldn't be doing History if they don't know what despotic means - One Word that is barely used today I may add. It is also sickening how invigilators handed out dictionaries and were told the meaning before the exam even started. So whoever ignorantly stated "educated students took a correct guess" can maybe forget that.

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Dartbored says...
10:16am Wed 24 Jun 09

Locket14 - Referring back to my previous post, I personally have a lot of sympathy for those who are putting a huge effort into exams and are continually being hounded by the press, it must be soul-destroying. Indeed, I have a son who is about to start the education process so god only knows how much pressure he will be under in 9 years time or so. However, the point that many of us are trying to make is this - the words Despot, Despotic, Tyranny, Tyrannical are words that I simply KNEW in 1990 when I was a 16 year old GCSE student (never mind A-Level). I didn't study history and I only achieved an average grade at English GCSE but I understood what those words meant, be that from my day to day studies, general reading or just an overall knowledge of the English Language.

The examiners clearly had an expectation that those studying at this level would understand those terms, without it necessarily being part of the syllabus/text studied.

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ConcernedofLoughton says...
10:32am Thu 25 Jun 09

Even if you dont exactly know the meaning then you can clearly see which way the question is leaning.

I should imagine most people would have heard of either of the words and been able to work out that he was a bad man!

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HIstoryStudent says...
12:23pm Fri 26 Jun 09

The overriding points are that, first of all, "despotic tyranny" is not a phrase one would commonly associate with Hitler because it's just not accurate.
Secondly, it's a complete tautology and even if you knew what it meant it would be difficult to interpret exactly what it was getting at especially amidst that appalling source.
Thirdly it was an exam testing historical knowledge not test to see which half of the country knew what it meant and which half didn't.
Lastly unless you sat the exam it is not fair to comment on how you would have reacted because well you're not 17 anymore faced with one hour to write an answer based on a word you're unfamiliar with after putting in months of hard work and understanding all the historical concepts necessary like the back of your hand.
Maybe we should have known what it meant but the point was the aim of the exam was to test our knowledge of Hitler and the Nazi State not the dictionary.
Anyway, lets enjoy the summer now fellow students, I'm sure edexcel will respond justly and we'll be pleasantly surprised in August. Best of luck.

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HIstoryStudent says...
12:25pm Fri 26 Jun 09

ConcernedofLoughton wrote:
Even if you dont exactly know the meaning then you can clearly see which way the question is leaning.

I should imagine most people would have heard of either of the words and been able to work out that he was a bad man!

The debate wasn't about whether he was a bad man or not haha, I'm afraid it was a far more complex historical debate than that, which is why "despotic" didn't quite cut it in conveying what they wanted us to talk about.

The overriding points are that, first of all, "despotic tyranny" is not a phrase one would commonly associate with Hitler because it's just not accurate.
Secondly, it's a complete tautology and even if you knew what it meant it would be difficult to interpret exactly what it was getting at especially amidst that appalling source.
Thirdly it was an exam testing historical knowledge not test to see which half of the country knew what it meant and which half didn't.
Lastly unless you sat the exam it is not fair to comment on how you would have reacted because well you're not 17 anymore faced with one hour to write an answer based on a word you're unfamiliar with after putting in months of hard work and understanding all the historical concepts necessary like the back of your hand.
Maybe we should have known what it meant but the point was the aim of the exam was to test our knowledge of Hitler and the Nazi State not the dictionary.
Anyway, lets enjoy the summer now fellow students, I'm sure edexcel will respond justly and we'll be pleasantly surprised in August. Best of luck.

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thingamy says...
12:29am Sun 28 Jun 09

I did the Edexcel history module in question, but I did it a few years ago (so wasn't asked about despotic tyranny as such) but I'm pretty sure if you don't understand the question, you can ask an invigilator what it means...

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alexx1 says...
9:56am Tue 30 Jun 09

thingamy wrote:
I did the Edexcel history module in question, but I did it a few years ago (so wasn't asked about despotic tyranny as such) but I'm pretty sure if you don't understand the question, you can ask an invigilator what it means...

This is true, but unfortunately it wasn't made clear to a number of students that they could ask,so no one actually knew what it meant, hence, this debate.

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Hugo Syn says...
1:18pm Wed 1 Jul 09

Having read the story carefully and waded through all the above comments, I can only say that I despair for the future of my country.

What a bunch of whining, pathetic, spoilt little children, whose grasp of correct English usage (let alone history) is rudimentary, to say the least.

I took my history GCE in the early 1960s, when I was 16 and I am happy to assure the precious students of today that I and all my peers understood the meaning of the terms "despotic/benign tyranny".

I should perhaps also point out that if we failed an examination, we would normally acknowledge that our failure was down to a lack of study/revision, rather than try to blame someone else for our own shortcomings.

These students are going to be let loose on the wide, wicked world in a few short years, and I would respectfully suggest that they start accepting responsibilities for their own actions.

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Mother Sidcup says...
12:36am Thu 2 Jul 09

Hugo Syn wrote:
Having read the story carefully and waded through all the above comments, I can only say that I despair for the future of my country. What a bunch of whining, pathetic, spoilt little children, whose grasp of correct English usage (let alone history) is rudimentary, to say the least. I took my history GCE in the early 1960s, when I was 16 and I am happy to assure the precious students of today that I and all my peers understood the meaning of the terms "despotic/benign tyranny". I should perhaps also point out that if we failed an examination, we would normally acknowledge that our failure was down to a lack of study/revision, rather than try to blame someone else for our own shortcomings. These students are going to be let loose on the wide, wicked world in a few short years, and I would respectfully suggest that they start accepting responsibilities for their own actions.

How dare you insult these 17/18 year olds who have worked **** hard for the last two years.You obviously have no concept of the pressure these students are under. Your remarks are insulting ,and how can you be so judgemental when you dont have an any idea what was in this exam paper and the sources that accompanied this question which completely threw thousands of students. You say that you and all your peers knew the meaning of "Despotic" when you were 17/18, surely at your age to remember that far back is a miracle. I suppose when you were 17/18 age you could also recite The Oxford Dictionary as well. What is really sad is that old folk like you should be supporting the youth of today.. but obviosly you have nothing better to do with your time these days than to write on sites like these and ridicule them. Very very sad.

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february_mist says...
7:02pm Thu 2 Jul 09

i swear old people **** me off so much! I'm going to be working till im 70 to support you sitting in a home having someone wiping the dribble off your chin, i'll buy your life support machine for you when you've done your lungs in smoking 50 a day, and pay for your free bus pass so you can push in fornt of me in the queue and say ive got no respect, how about having some respect for us maybe then the country wouldn't be in such a terrible way, everyone needs praise and it is obvious from these comments that we never get that. The fact that people who were taking exams in 1970s' knew the word i think proves a point.
The word is not a word history students should know. It is a irregular, old-fashioned word that should not be used in a HISTORY exam. In addition i have friends who are expected AAA and going to Oxford and they did not know what the term meant and i have heard Edexcel make consistent mistakes and they generally do not care.
In relation to the people who state that children in this country need to take responsibility, how about education ministers taking responsibilty for a ridiculous exam in general and how about older generations supporting young students, it is deeply upsetting that people are saying i'm stupid because i did not know the meaning to a uncommon term.
I am not pathetic or spoilt and i love the fact that so many students are standing up for their futures that they have worked hard on.

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Dodgy Geezer says...
10:22am Sat 11 Jul 09

"How dare you insult these 17/18 year olds who have worked **** hard for the last two years.You obviously have no concept of the pressure these students are under. Your remarks are insulting ,and how can you be so judgemental when you dont have an any idea what was in this exam paper and the sources that accompanied this question which completely threw thousands of students. You say that you and all your peers knew the meaning of "Despotic" when you were 17/18, surely at your age to remember that far back is a miracle.."

It's not all bad.

I have just tested the same question on my son, who took A levels last year, and is now on his first year at Uni.

With no prompting he correctly identified the critical points of discussion - how far Hitler gained power legally, and how far he then operated as a single leader whose word was law.

I must admit, he did not know the precise dates at which Hitler varied the German constitution, but I think his answer was not bad given his A levels were Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and he is currently doing Mechanical Engineering.

Mind you, he did go to a major Public School. It cost me an arm and a leg, but it looks like it was worth it.

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SCHOOLS: History students confused by Hitler 'despotic tyranny' exam question (From News Shopper)

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SCHOOLS: History students confused by Hitler 'despotic tyranny' exam question

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