UK fail: Students are set music technology exam… in mono
mainA confession from the Edexcel examination board:
What issue has been reported?
Following our GCE AS Music Technology Unit 2: Listening and Analysing (6MT02) exam we’ve been contacted by a number of students, parents and teachers who are concerned about the way the sound was presented on the audio CD.
Unfortunately, after investigation of these queries, we’ve discovered that some students were presented with audio CDs in mono rather than in stereo.
Are these examiners even basically competent?
Simple answer: no, these examiners aren’t competent.
Candidates are assessed on their use of stereo field for all 3 of their coursework recordings at both AS and A2, and yet Edexcel aren’t capable of producing a CD in stereo.
They claim “some” students had the mono CD; actually all CDs were mono. Their statement on their website also claimed that answering questions on panning might be “more challenging”… so either they can’t bring themselves to admit that the questions were impossible to answer, or their competence in understanding stereo is even worse than we thought.
We’ve had plenty of examples in previous exams of the abject incompetence of the Music Technology team at Edexcel.