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Author Topic: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article  (Read 9504 times)  Share 

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DisaFear

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HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« on: October 27, 2011, 10:08:51 pm »
0
Interesting piece of read.

Quote
HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult'
Rachel Olding
October 27, 2011 - 7:54PM

'I don't know why I bothered' ... students used social media to complain about the maths paper.

Brutal, punishing and disheartening. That's what year 12 maths students were served yesterday as they sat for their maths extension 1 HSC examination.

The paper, taken by more than 9000 students across the state, was described by one maths teacher with more than 40 years' experience as cruel and difficult.

"I am appalled that an examination committee could set such a difficult paper which gives the competent student little chance to show what they know," said Keith Hartmann, who has been the head of mathematics at several NSW schools.
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"It continues a recent trend in HSC maths where the majority of questions are beyond the level of all but the most talented. Many students who have worked hard at this difficult course will leave their 13 years of school mathematics with a feeling of failure. The examiners should be ashamed of themselves. They are doing a disservice to mathematics education."

Students took to online forums to vent their frustration and disappointment after the two-hour exam.

Timting95 said he found the extension 2 paper easier.

"I was working to the very last second as well," he said.

Taeyang posted: "my mind went blank .. Holy shit there goes my HSC .. "

Mr Hartmann said that, although the paper would be scaled, it was disheartening and discouraging to teachers and students who would feel little sense of achievement after two years of study.

He predicted the average mark would be less than 50 per cent and said he would be writing to the Board of Studies to demand the release of students' raw marks.

"One girl said to me, 'I don't know why I bothered.' You try to encourage these children to do the course and to push themselves but an exam like this doesn't give the less capable students a real chance to show what they know. It surely can't be too difficult for such clever examiners to set a task where such students can score at least 50 per cent."

Another student posted online that the paper was much harder than in previous years.

"I think I skipped about 12 marks and this is coming from a usual mid-70s/84. I've never skipped more than 5 marks in any other paper I've done," aphorae posted.

"*cries in the corner* Anyone wanna join me?," posted MichaelT123.

Students sat the ancient history exam this morning and metal and engineering, French, Latin, Arabic and Chinese exams this afternoon.

More than 72,000 students are sitting their HSC, which finishes on November 11.

The chief executive of the Board of Studies NSW, Carol Taylor, said all HSC exams are set to reflect the syllabus that students study throughout their HSC.

"Maths extension papers, like all HSC exams, are set by a committee of highly experienced teachers and other academics. This committee is very familiar with the standards expected and as such, each year it aims to set exam papers of similar levels," she said.

"The Board standardises results against those of previous years as well as against all students undertaking that particular exam. This means no students are disadvantaged by what might be perceived to be a difficult exam. Conversely this also means no students can be advantaged by what might be seen to be an easy exam."

She said the Board has received generally positive feedback from teachers on previous mathematics extension 1 exams.

"It is not unusual for some students and teachers to have a view about the degree of difficulty of any exam," she said.

Students are able to request a copy of their raw marks following the final HSC written exams.

Sample question

A game is played by throwing darts at a target. A player can choose to throw two or three darts.

Darcy plays two games. In Game 1, he chooses to throw two darts, and wins if he hits the target at least once. In Game 2, he chooses to throw three darts, and wins if he hits the target at least twice.

The probability that Darcy hits the target on any throw is p, where 0 < p < 1.

(i) Show that the probability that Darcy wins Game 1 is 2p - p[squared].

(ii) Show that the probaility that Darcy wins Game 2 is 3p[squared] - 2p[cubed].

(iii) Prove that Darcy is more likely to win Game 1 than Game 2.

(iv) Find the value of p for which Darcy is twice as likely to wine Game 1 as he is to win Game 2.


Source: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/hsc-students-maths-paper--cruel-and-difficult-20111027-1mlg1.html



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Lasercookie

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2011, 10:14:07 pm »
+2
Is there a copy of this exam on the internet yet? (anyone willing to venture to the other side :P)

I'm doubting that it was really that impossible of an exam, probably just one of those more difficult than usual exams, only this time the media has jumped on it.

edit: pretty sure this is it - http://www.mediafire.com/?oua2r71w7obso7p
« Last Edit: October 27, 2011, 10:19:43 pm by laseredd »

paulsterio

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2011, 10:19:50 pm »
+2
Stupid media, get out of infiltrating education, what the media doesn't get and they don't mention is that it's a ranking, no matter whether it's a hard or an easy exam, if you're the top mark you will get the HSC equivalent of a 50 study score, seriously

This is stupid and absolutely unacceptable typical "media scare" that seems to do nothing for anybody except make money for the papers

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2011, 10:20:01 pm »
+10
Taeyang posted: "my mind went blank .. Holy shit there goes my HSC .. "

LOL...  Taeyang posted...

Don't worry, I'll Be There.

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2011, 10:23:36 pm »
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Well looking at the exam (edited my above post with the link), it really looks to be of the same standard of the previous HSC exams (from what I can judge anyway).

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #5 on: October 27, 2011, 10:31:32 pm »
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@paul: the article did mention scaling and standardising of scores - though it did belittle that point and focus more on the fact that a hard exam would emotionally crush students.

I definitely disagree with the article's claim that a hard exam "does a disservice to mathematics education". I would consider that it'd do more of a service, raising the bar by challenging students. You could argue it could persuade students from doing mathematics in the future, but I was under the impression that mathematics was about working through challenging problems.

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2011, 10:35:21 pm »
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Is this paper the HSC spesh equivalent???
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DisaFear

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2011, 10:36:28 pm »
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Is this paper the HSC spesh equivalent???

From what people have told me, yes



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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2011, 10:39:56 pm »
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There is no "spesh equivalent" just like there is no "methods equivalent"

There are elements of Mathematics Extension 1 that are in the VCE Methods Course but not in VCE Spesh
There are elements of Mathematics Extension 2 that are in VCE Spesh
There are elements in VCE Maths that are not a part of HSC Maths



Yeah, I know the article mentioned it, but if you look at the way it presents standardisation and such, you can see that it doesn't give enough attention to what is really and truly the most important aspect of scoring students.
I think that there will have to be hard papers and easy papers, that happens, the media still shouldn't get involved because it means that education becomes biased :S

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2011, 10:43:33 pm »
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Yeah, it looks like HSC has the topics arranged a bit differently to VCE.

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_education_in_Australia#Higher_School_Certificate
Mathematics (2 unit): An advanced level course based on Calculus also with detailed study in trigonometry, curve sketching and other complex algebraic disciplines such as locus. It is the highest level non-extension mathematics course.[2]

Mathematics Extension 1 (1 unit): A more advanced course building on concepts in calculus, trigonometry, polynomials and basic combinatorics. Mathematics must also be studied in conjunction with this course.[2]

Mathematics Extension 2 (1 unit): A highly advanced mathematics course containing an introduction to Complex Numbers, Advanced Calculus & Curve Sketching, advanced Polynomials, Mechanics, Conics and Harder Mathematics Extension 1 topics. Mathematics (2 unit) and Mathematics Extension 1 must also be studied in conjunction with this course, however students are not directly assessed on Mathematics (2 unit) material.[3]

I don't understand that last sentence from wikipedia. edit: I think I understand it now, they do the extension 1 & 2 exams, but not the regular "mathematics" exam?:

For university admissions, Extension 2 seems to be considered the equivalent to spesh (since it has complex numbers etc.): http://www.uac.edu.au/documents/undergraduate/interstate/subject-bonus-VIC.pdf (though to do extension 2, the wikipedia article says you need to do all three)
« Last Edit: October 27, 2011, 10:50:12 pm by laseredd »

taiga

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2011, 10:46:12 pm »
+2
inb4 people relating this to the difficulty of VCAA exams
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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2011, 11:17:39 pm »
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Stupid media, get out of infiltrating education, what the media doesn't get and they don't mention is that it's a ranking, no matter whether it's a hard or an easy exam, if you're the top mark you will get the HSC equivalent of a 50 study score, seriously

This is stupid and absolutely unacceptable typical "media scare" that seems to do nothing for anybody except make money for the papers

.......whut

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #12 on: October 27, 2011, 11:20:12 pm »
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I generally don't find it appropriate for the media to give biased accounts which may affect the integrity of education

For example, this will no doubt effect the difficulty of next year's exams

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #13 on: October 27, 2011, 11:23:43 pm »
+1
inb4 people relating this to the difficulty of VCAA exams
damn.

Stupid media, get out of infiltrating education, what the media doesn't get and they don't mention is that it's a ranking, no matter whether it's a hard or an easy exam, if you're the top mark you will get the HSC equivalent of a 50 study score, seriously

This is stupid and absolutely unacceptable typical "media scare" that seems to do nothing for anybody except make money for the papers
Whilst i know what your saying, IF the media is correct and that exam was unreasonably hard (not just hard)
then a very hard exam is no better than a very easy exam, in that it caters only for the top students where as easy exams cater for the bottom students who take advantage of silly mistakes of top students
very hard exam = bad-above average students will clump and it will be a matter of 'luck' for them
very easy exam = below-average-top students will clump and it will yet again be matter of 'luck' for them.
the exam should cater for the whole cohort, as is said
Quote
but an exam like this doesn't give the less capable students a real chance to show what they know.

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Re: HSC students' maths paper 'cruel and difficult' - Article
« Reply #14 on: October 28, 2011, 12:51:34 pm »
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I felt like that with the 2007 methods exam 2 (probably the people on here are awesome at maths and thought that it was easy, but for a not-maths-genius, it was difficult to demonstrate that I did actually understand the course).

At least the article had a sample question on there, which is somewhat objective information, even though it was not clear how much of the content of the question was taught.