Year 10 Media Exam

Here are some sample assessment tasks suitable for a Year 10 Media class. This sample Year 10 Media exam is based on the course that I teach at East Doncaster Secondary College. If you’re a teacher, feel free to use the exam and modify for your own students. If you’re a student at East Doncaster Secondary College, this will give you a good indication of what the exam will look like. The sample response, written by Anthony Lin, will also help to demonstrate the qualities of a high scoring response.

Planning assessment tasks

At Year 10, we have a media exam because it helps prepare students for the type of assessment that they will encounter later in their schooling and at university. At some point, they will have to express their understanding of the subject matter under the pressure of an exam situation.

When preparing the Year 10 Media exam, I always ask myself what I want students to know by the end of the semester. The Year 10 Media program at East Doncaster Secondary College has a strong focus on filmmaking. By the end of the semester, I want students to have a deep understanding of film language.

In the first part of the exam, I always try to assess basic knowledge like shot size, camera angle and camera movement. By Year 10, students are very familiar with this terminology and it helps pave the way for the more difficult responses.

By the end of Year 10 Media, students will be able to apply their understanding of film language to narrative film, explaining how characters are established and audiences are engaged. At Year 10 Media, we have used a number of texts including Psycho, Rear Window and Disturbia.  Students are asked to respond to a scene that they have already studied in class and are able to watch these clips as many times as they like during the assessment task.

I also try to tie the examination closely to the film production exercises that students completed in class. In the 2013 Year 10 Media Exam, students needed to identify a number of film techniques that can be used to manipulate time. Then, students had to explain how they used these techniques in their own production exercise.

At Year 10 Media, the major production that we complete is a three minute suspense film. In the 2013 Year 10 Media exam, students were required to identify a number of techniques that can be used to create suspense, then explain how they used these techniques in their own film.

When I’m preparing these sort of assessment tasks, I always try to write questions that will give students an opportunity to show off the knowledge and understanding that they have developed over the course of the semester.

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