ShareThe Unified State Examination in the Russian language is the most massive exam, absolutely all schoolchildren take it. It checks the knowledge of the language, it does not contain any complicated tasks, such as, for example, in the “subject” USE by choice, and the “simple” and “complex” versions, as in mathematics. However, the creative part causes anxiety among graduates. Chairman of the regional subject commission on the Russian language, candidate of philological sciences Larisa Kaminskaya she told Fontanka how experts check the work, whether it is possible to disagree with the author’s opinion in the essay, and in which case the student can get an extra point.
– Larisa Nikolaevna, tell us how the USE test in Russian is arranged in St. Petersburg?
— The exam includes a test part and a creative part. The test form is a machine-readable form, which means that it is automatically validated. The guys must solve the test tasks and carefully write down the answers in form No. 1. Moreover, the handwriting must be legible. The verification takes place automatically, and the experts do not see it.
The second part, the essay, is checked by experts, members of the subject commission on the Russian language. Each item has a specific time limit. We must check the Russian language in 6 calendar days. This year, about 400 experts will be involved in checking the work.
— Who becomes an expert and do you need special training for this?
– The commission includes teachers of the Russian language and literature – representatives of educational institutions of St. Petersburg.
All experts take refresher courses. Even the expert who is already a member of the subject committee receives the status of an expert only for a year. At the end of the training, qualification tests are carried out. The leaders of the subject commission are also trained in Moscow at the FIPI (The Federal Institute for Pedagogical Measurements develops assignments for exams. Including the most massive – OGE and Unified State Examination).
After the exam, the experts receive impersonal images of the work, each work is checked by two members of the commission based on specially developed criteria. Therefore, the main goal of training experts is to develop consistent approaches to verification. That is, any work, even the most complex, ambiguous, should be evaluated equally.
– By what criteria are the works evaluated?
Every year at the beginning of September on the FIPI website demo version appears exam in Russian. In the same demo, there are answers and grading criteria by which the work is checked. That is, these are not some secret criteria. This is the point where the interests of the child and the approaches of the expert converge.
When a student writes an essay, he must treat his work consciously. That is, write an essay and understand that it will be checked according to specific criteria.
– And yet, in the essay, a graduate can give his own examples. Their evaluation, in my opinion, carries a certain subjectivity.
We tell the children that before starting the essay, you need to carefully read the source text, according to which the child completes the task with a detailed answer. The student reads the text and, first of all, does tasks for this text. These are tasks numbered 22–26. These questions prepare you for writing an essay. The main thing is to read the task and understand what is being asked.
If the student carefully reads the task for the essay and understands the text, then his essay will take place. There are such tasks: formulate one of the problems posed by the author, include two examples from the text, formulate the author’s position, write how you feel about the author’s position.
– Do you evaluate the attitude to the position of the author or evaluate how the attitude is stated?
We evaluate everything according to the criteria: the formulation of the problem, the comment, and so on. The exam participant must understand the author’s text, what the author wants to say and state it.
In addition to content criteria, there are criteria that assess literacy, that is, possession of spelling, punctuation, speech and grammar norms.
– A graduate can express his attitude, can write that he did not like the text?
Nothing terrible will happen, the graduate has the right to express his point of view. But in the tasks there is no such thing: like it or not. He must understand what the author wanted to say and express his position, and then write how he relates to the position of the author. If a graduate gives his own examples confirming his opinion, we, of course, evaluate all this in accordance with the criteria.
– If a child gave an example from the liberal or blocked media, will you pay attention to this?
When we have a concrete composition, we will discuss it with pleasure. This is a professional approach when we speak specifically to the point. We also try not to build such hypothetical theories during training.
The work is checked by two experts, if there is any discrepancy in the assessment, then the score is in favor of the student. That is, if an expert gave one point according to some criterion, and the second – zero, then the graduate receives one point.
We understand that this is the fate of the student, and therefore we are very correct, friendly and responsible. If this is a difficult job, then no one pushes the experts, we work calmly, each one in a mode that is comfortable for him. We also have expert consultants who can suggest something.
— Were there cases when the work could not be read because of bad handwriting?
I don’t remember such cases, because the guys are trying. The main thing is that it is written legibly. In practice, everyone tries because they want their work to be read. If a child has bad handwriting, no one punishes him for it.
If a graduate wants to correct what was written, you need to carefully cross out and write next to the option that he considers correct. The number of revisions does not affect the grade.
– On what issues are the conflict commissions more often asked after the USE?
For the exam, children are asked to bring a gel pen that writes well so that the work can be scanned more clearly. But there are times when the work is poorly printed. A graduate comes to the conflict commission, they find the original of his work and then you can see what he wrote. A couple of years ago there was a case on the 26th task of the test part of the exam. There were many appeals, due to the fact that the graduates forgot to turn over the sheet and enter the answer for this assignment in the clean copy.
— What would you advise graduates when there are only a few days left before the exam?
I would advise you to open the demo version of the exam, it contains all the materials, answers, assessment criteria. There is an orthoepic dictionary, it is needed to complete the 4th task. This is a task for stress, it presents those words that are sure to meet in the task. There is also a dictionary of paronyms, this is the 5th task.
In addition, FIPI published open options that were at the early stage of the exam this spring. The student can download them and solve them. The website of the Center for Education and Information Technology Quality Assessment (SPbTsOKOiIT) has video consultations prepared by the heads of the regional subject commission and dedicated to exam preparation. Of course, before the exam, you need to relax, get enough sleep and come to the exam in a good mood.
Interviewed by Lena Vaganova, Fontanka.ru
