According to the philologist the Armenian language and literature tests are a professional wastrel

More than 20 Philologists, professors, teachers, school books authors, were discussing this year’s Armenian Language and Literature tests in the Assessment and Testing Center.

The Deputy Minister of Education Manuk Mkrtchyan mentioned before the discussion, that the tests’ quality, level, rated scales are determined by the state policy, and the authors of the tests do not blame for the difficulty of the tests: “If it is recommended to make such tests, which will help to differ the graduates having average knowledge from the talented the author of the tests is obliged to make a recommendation, “says Mkrtchyan, the difficulty of the tests is not the purpose of the test authors, according to them it is the fulfillment of the given assignments.

As Mkrtchyan says, there is a problem with the date of the certificate giving to the graduates, which can be valid.
According to Mkrtchyan, if the child receives a good mark after graduating high school he will still maintain a high level of knowledge for a few years, and will forget everything in case of easy tests for 2-3 years. The boys joining army must be able to use the mark after returning from army, what they cannot do now, “says the Deputy Minister.
Mkrtchyan said that the recommendation was given to all the authors of test subjects, however, only the authors of the Armenian language tests understood the meaning. According to him, test preparation is a very difficult task and we have only good test authors and quality tests in Armenian language and literature. Mkrtchyan claims that relatively successful subjects are natural sciences and mathematics tests, while there are problems in humanities, foreign languages and in history. The tests of these subjects are easy, the marks also are very high, but, according to widespread higher marks are not reliable, and such the mark loses its value in this case. David Gyurjinyan: “These tests compromise Armenian language, Armenian school, test system”.
This year, ATC has had 2 groups of the workers working on tests. At the end of the academic year the tests formed by Ashkhen Jrbashyan and Parandzem Meytikhanyan are sent to be typed.
The linguist David Gyurjinyan, which was one of the authors of the second group forming the tests, thinks that there is a great regress in this year comparing to last year. “I consider that we failed. These tests compromised Armenian language, Armenian school, test system. The tests are not difficult, complicated tests are inefficient, many questions have several correct answers, some questions are out of logic’’.

According to Gyurjinyan, more than 3 dozen tasks do not correspond the directory, text-book and they are just wrong. “These tests are illiteracy, an expert-pedagogical approach is not exist” says Gyurjinyan, adding that the tests seem to have attacked a hostile army and not 16-year-old applicants.
The YSU professor Ashot Abrahamyan presented 15-page opinion- analysis, which specified the questions containing an error.”Comparing this year with last year the tests were an infertile road. Last year it was difficult, this year we are talking about the professional rejection,” he says.
Abrahamyan pointed out that the 2nd questions of all the 4 variants are incorrectly formulated questions. “In which series there is no spelling error in all the words”. There is a mistake not in all the words, but in a word. There is a mistake in 4th question of the 2 and 4 variants of the tests, ” Which line has a word not having double letter ” and so on. He also added that such a question is incomprehensible for a man speaking Armenia. “An applicant comes out of the examining room and complains that he has wasted 15 minutes to understand the requirement of the issue, “says Abrahamyan.
Seyran Grigoryan, being present at the discussion, which is one of the authors of the last year’s tests pointed out the 4th question of the 2nd and 4th variants as a violation of the directory. The word “կիլովատ” is written with two “տ” and is considered as the correct answer. “The directory clearly indicates that two possible variants should be avoided. Was there any more difficult word to use?” added a teacher.
In return, one of the authors of the tests Parandzem Meytikhanyan began to represent digital facts, whether what percent of the applicants gave the correct answer on incorrect questions, then she said that Armenian has a flexible word order. Seyran Grigoryan: “Bring an example of the literature, in which the word “խորդ”, which is used in this year’s tests”,is included.
Here the philologists raised a question, why questions concerning the wrong word order are included, if the flexible word order of the Armenian language enables to consider the incorrectly formulated questions as right.
Other philologists also pointed out other issues, which question or answer is wrong formulated. But ignoring all this, the Deputy Minister Mkrtchyan said “point out professional mistakes, you keep talking, but the examples do not bear.”
Seyran Grigorian reminded the discussions of the last year’s tests, when Meytikhanyan was accused Seyran Grigoryan and Yuri Avetisyan of using of the word “սակավապետ”, considering it out of the usage. “Make sure that out of usage and idiomatic words are rare in this year’s tests. The word “սակավապետ ” is used in a number of books required by school programs. Bring an example from the literature, where the word “խորդ”, included in this year’s tests, is used.
Ashot Abrahamyan pointed out that at least 8 points of the directory are violated in the tests ,for example, according to the directory, the 27-35 questions should concern the word order. The A and B-level layout issues is also violate: according to the directory, issues related to the literature concerning the “claims” should be included in level B, while they are included in the A level.
“The directory is obligatory for all test compiler and they are obliged to follow its requirements,” said Abrahamyan. In return the Deputy Minister Mkrtchyan said that the subject directory is a training manual and cannot be a limit for the test compiler (before the exams the ATC has repeatedly announced that test compilers are guided exclusively by the directory, at the end of the year the schools get a new directory in order to inform pupils about the content and complexity of the tests).

The gathered experts by Manuk Mkrtchyan’s suggestion discussed a few issues, which almost all the protestants noted in the appeal form. The experts decided that all the applicants must be given points for the 17th and 57th questions of the 1st variant. However, the specialists did not come to the agreement on this issue. While most of the gathered philologists insisted that there is no correct answer in the 27^th question of the 2variant, which is as follows: “In which sentence is the subordinate clause connected with the principal clause by the conjunction”. Meytikhanyan considered this question correct, and they did not come to any conclusion. Despite all the specialists considered the 55 and 56 questions of the 1 and 2 variants to be a wastrel, Meytikhanyan again insisted on the correctness of the questions.

The specialists raised a question how the correctness or incorrectness of these questions will be resolved in the future, in case Meytikhanyan insists on their correctness, and no decision is made on them. Mkrtchyan answered. “It is our business,” later pointing out that “we” is the protest general committee established by the government.

At the end of the two hour-long discussion one of the participants asked the test authors from which tinkle of Sevak’s “Anlreli zangakatun” the given lines are, and he mentioned that children had to learn by heart the 7000lines work and to remember which line is from which tinkle. Manuk Mkrtchyan interrupted the discussion at that moment by saying that the gathered experts were no longer sober mind and were guided by emotions, so the discussion should be postponed.