ON SCIENCE IN SCHOOL CERTIFICATE EXAMINATIONS. 469 



There will be no practical examination, but candidates will be expected 

 to show knowledge based on their laboratory work and on their personal 

 observation. Special importance will be attached throughout to con- 

 siderations of energy. 



Candidates are not expected to cover the whole schedule. An ample 

 choice of questions will be given ; but candidates will be expected to 

 answer at least one question from each section. In any section of the 

 paper questions may be set having a bearing on the subject-matter of the 

 other sections. Simple numerical calculations will be included. Questions 

 of a biographical nature may be set. 



This Syllabus covers a very wide field, and the attention given to 

 different parts of it must be left to individual teachers. There is, however, 

 a wide choice of questions (six out of twenty) in the examination, the only 

 limitation being that one question should be attempted in each section. 

 It is obvious that such a comprehensive course must mean superficial 

 treatment of the subjects. It would be impossible to deal thoroughly 

 with all the sections of the syllabus, and a tendency to be didactic, to ask 

 the pupils to memorise the results rather than to show how those results 

 were obtained, would seem to be unavoidable. This emphasis on facts or 

 principles remembered, rather than on scientific method of studying them, 

 is clearly reflected in the questions set. 



There is no practical examination in this subject and no safeguard 

 against ' cramming ' either in the syllabus or in the nature of the questions. 

 It is scarcely too much to say that a candidate could pass the examination 

 without possessing any real knowledge of scientific principles or of 

 observational and experimental methods of study. 



The interpretation of the syllabus by the examiners, as shown in the 

 questions set, often shows a misconception of what general elementary 

 science or science of everyday life should signify. 



Some of the questions would appear more appropriate in papers in 

 physics or chemistry in School Certificate examinations, and these out 

 of place in a general science examination which should have direct contact 

 with science in everyday life and interest. 



The framing of a general science syllabus is no easy task. The present 

 Joint Board Syllabus is suggestive, but what is really needed is practical 

 guidance as to the way in which the various portions of the syllabus are 

 to be treated. With such a wide syllabus it would be impossible to expect 

 a thorough treatment of the whole field. Without an intensive experi- 

 mental study of a portion of the syllabus typical to some part of it the 

 teaching must be superficial. 



A really satisfactory general science syllabus should suggest certain 

 portions to be treated in detail as much for the sake of the scientific 

 method involved in their treatment as for the content of their study. 

 When the method by which these scientific principles were established 

 had been thoroughly worked out, then, and only then, other similar 

 principles might be taken without close or detailed experimental study. 



Further, it would be of much assistance to the teacher if the syllabus 

 could be set out in such a way as to show the relation of the various subjects 

 studied to one another. 



