- One tutor from Beacon College said Part A was the ‘easiest it’s been in recent years’,
- Part B2 consisted mainly of letters and emails, and recognising which tone to use was more important
Teachers and students called this year's English listening exam "one of the easiest in recent history". Photo: SCMPThis year’s English HKDSE Paper 3 was a breeze for a majority of the 48,600 candidates who sat for the three-hour exam on Tuesday.
Bowie Tang, an 18-year-old DSE student from Ying Wa College, said that it was slightly more difficult than previous exam papers, as fewer hints were provided in the audio.
“It’s mainly Part A that bothered me. Part B, though, was quite straightforward and easier than before,” said Tang. He chose Part B2, as he was confident about tackling integrated tasks and hoped that acing this paper would compensate for yesterday’s writing exam.
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Alex Kwok, 23, a private DSE candidate retaking the English exam for the second time, felt that this year’s listening was easier than expected. “The questions and answers are direct and easy to follow.” Like Bowie, he also took on Part B2, as he wanted to achieve the maximum score possible.
Kwok, who first sat for the English exam six years ago, said the format of this year’s Paper 3 was similar to that in 2015. However, he faced some issues with time management in Part B and suggests that future candidates pay attention to how much time they spend on each task.
Both Ansley Lee Kwan-ting, an English teacher from Kiangsu-Chekiang College, and Kenneth Lau, Beacon College’s English tutor, agreed that this year’s paper was exceptionally easy.
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“Task 1 and Task 2 from Part A were simple, and I believe that most students should be able to get full marks,” Lee said, adding that words that were tested in the exam, like “history”, “good things”, “good” and “bad,” were pretty straightforward.
According to Lee, the trickiest words in Task 1 would be proper nouns, such as “all department heads” in Q3, and that some students might miss the determiner “all”. Lee said another word that might be slightly more difficult was “boardroom” in Q4, which refers to the room for board members.
“I can say the HKEAA was very lenient with all the papers this year,” she said.
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Lau also commented that this year’s Part A was one of the easiest in recent years. “The question types should be familiar to students. The questions in Part A were extraordinarily easy, and no difficult vocabulary was tested. Getting the correct spelling and grammar can mean the difference between a 5 and a 5*.”
Parts B1 and B2 should be equally manageable for those who practised 2018-2020’s exam papers, according to Lau. He added that Part B2 consisted only of emails and letters, whereas previous years included a wider variety of text types. Tone also played an important part in responses this year.
He also provided a breakdown of the different tasks. “For Part B1, Task 5, students could easily obtain the answers by reading the subheadings in the data file. The information provided in Task 6 was clear and concise, with little need for inference skills.”
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Lau noted that “defensive letters” came up in both Tasks 7 and 9 this year. “Task 7 is similar to 2020’s Task 6, in which students were required to write a letter of defense. Since the instructions are clear, students should easily be able to extract the information needed in the data file,” he said.
Task 8 was also from 2019 and 2020’s exam. In order to tackle this question, students have to compare the event’s requirements and information provided about Refugee Sanctuary before explaining the discrepancy. To score well, candidates need to use a diplomatic tone in the email.
As for Task 9, candidates need to pay attention to how the letter is structured. Lau said they should list and respond to each complaint within the same paragraph. Task 10 was another question that called for “tone awareness”.
“Although the instructions did not ask students to moderate the tone, they still need to do so, as it is a professional business setting,” Lau said.