Matric Maths disaster looms

Lightscribe said:
I am a std8 maths fail.

Yet, I would spend my days discussing maths theory...
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:wtf:

So you went about your day discussing things such as set theory and p.h.p, yet couldnt factorise 10x + 5?

Sounds like you just got bored of the work because there were more fun (and abstract) things to think about
 
Ok seriously... This paper was too easy.

I have engineering training under my belt, so it SHOULD be seriously easy, but even for school maths, the questions are very easy.

If you couldn't do question 1, then you cannot say that you studied at all.

Question 2, one could argue that 2nd and 3rd language speakers could possibly be confused. But the English is nothing out-of-the-ordinary, and the question is dead simple. Anyone who studied would have come across a problem like this one many times in the past.

Question 3: are you kidding me? That shouldn't take more than 1 minute for anyone who studied to complete. They allocate 6 minutes for every 5 marks, so they actually had 6 minutes to complete the question.

The same goes for questions 4 and 5, although they require a little bit of "seeing the solution". i.e. they're very easy once you know what's being asked. Again, the possibility of 2nd and 3rd language speakers possibly struggling.

Questions 6, 7 and 8 have nothing tricky to them at all. People who studied should have encountered numerous problems like this before.

Question 9 might cause issues for the 2nd and 3rd language pupils. Otherwise the techniques are incredibly straightforward.

Question 10 is a major gimme. Differentiation from first-principles is something that should be second nature; not from repeated practice but rather from actually knowing where it comes from. Free marks.

Question 11: VERY basic algebra and calculus. Again, students who studied should be able to do this.

Question 12, it could be argued, requires some insight. However, once again, knowing what a derivative is should give the whole question away.

Question 13 follows a strict technique that, having studied, a student should easily be able to do.

Holy crap, I just got to the end of the paper and saw they got a formula sheet! That makes the claims even MORE ridiculous.

Honestly, if you failed the paper, you didn't study.

On the topic of mathematics being valuable in everyday life, mathematics is EVERYthing. People use mathematics every day without even knowing it. On top of that, concepts like Calculus are required to study things like engineering.

For those who want to go into fields where mathematics is not a prerequisite to be accepted; that's what maths literacy is for. For the rest, mathematics at school serves as
1) a valuable foundation for what is to come in tertiary education,
2) something that can be used to separate the logical thinkers from the rest.

I honestly can't believe the hoo-hah about this paper. It was dead easy and those who are taking maths hoping to get into engineering, IT, BSc, etc, are going to have the shock of their lives when they get to varsity.

The paper was NOT difficult enough.
 
Not difficult enough is RIGHT.

When I heard that this paper was a "killer" I was expecting 80% of the paper to consist of questions that were genuinely tricky but none of them were...most of it was dead easy and like the guys here say, some questions were just gimmes.

Only way to get zero in a paper like this is if you walked into the paper without opening a book. TBH, even if you didn't study a stitch, you should at least pick up a FEW marks here and there. It's actually tough to get ZERO! *shrugs*
 
Here is the latest news article...this is just getting *a bit* mind-boggling... News 24

Pretoria - Over 80% of matriculants will fail maths exam paper 1 (algebra) if their grades aren't adjusted.

This is the opinion of Jurg Basson, a mathematics consultant and part-time maths lecturer at the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Basson, who's seen the controversial exam paper, confirmed on Sunday the complaints of hundreds of grade 12s, subject teachers and moderators.

Once the moderating process was completed, several moderators indicated an impending "crisis" with regard to maths results.

A moderator in Mpumalanga, who prefered to remain anonymous, said candidates who aren't very strong fared extremely poorly, and that there are some who achieved only 2 out of a possible 150 points for the paper.

Basson says he was very disappointed by the exam paper. It was too difficult and not compiled according to the prescribed guidelines. According to the guidelines, there must be sufficient questions on levels 1, 2, 3 and 4.

"That means the compilation of questions must be done in a way that there are enough questions for weaker and very strong pupils."

According to Basson, there were very few questions on level 1, while it should amount to about 30%.

-----

Prof Kobus Maree, an educational psychologist at the University of Pretoria (UP) who also has a doctorate in subject didactics in mathematics, said adjusting the grades would be pointless.

"Adjusting the grades artificially would be an injustice to the pupils, but also to lecturers who must work with them at university next year, while they don't even have the basic skills."

He said the exam paper should be independently analysed.

According to Maree it seems as if the majority of pupils should rather take mathematics literacy, because the current teaching of maths clearly does not make provision for them.
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What a joke!

This paper was not difficult enough...scoring 2 out of a possible 150?! What are these pupils doing? The only way you're gonna do well in exams is if you bother studying for it and getting 2/150 just shows you're not interested. Rather quit school and give that position to someone who actually wants to get educated!

I'd love to hear from these professors and whatnot which part of the exam was tough...most of it was BASIC mathematics.
 
Prof Kobus Maree, an educational psychologist at the University of Pretoria (UP) who also has a doctorate in subject didactics in mathematics, said adjusting the grades would be pointless.

"Adjusting the grades artificially would be an injustice to the pupils, but also to lecturers who must work with them at university next year, while they don't even have the basic skills."

He said the exam paper should be independently analysed.

According to Maree it seems as if the majority of pupils should rather take mathematics literacy, because the current teaching of maths clearly does not make provision for them.
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From next year you will have too do an entry level Math test too.

But how does this surprise them? 80% of the learners cannot read or write properly. If you cannot do that how do they expect you to to now what the difference is between multiply and divide.

I again state what the teachers said in the school i worked for:

“ we are tired of trying to help children we are not allowed to fail them discipline them or try corrective measures.. So we pass them and make it the states problem at the end of grade 12.”
 
Clearly UJ's maths department is lacking...

The only possibly valid point he might have is that the paper was not compiled according to "guidelines".

Anyone have a link to these guidelines? Specifically what proportions of each "level" should be present in a paper, and what exactly defines the various levels?

But I think that the guidelines, then, need to be adjusted to make provision for raising the standard of education. Anything easier than the paper in the link would be ridiculous.

If you ask me, the paper has already been unofficially independently analysed by forumites here, and it seems that the consensus is that the paper was, in fact, not difficult at all.

Does anyone know if the same drop in standard has occurred in other school subjects? Particularly English, Afrikaans and Physical Science?
 
The funny thing is that universities themselves make it too easy to get into heavily mathematical disciplines such as engineering and BSc's. For instance at UCT, you need something like 45 points to get into engineering, and minimum of a 'B' in Maths and science. But UCT doubles the points for maths and science (8-A(>90), 7-A(80-90), 6-B) and so on) so basically you have a A in Maths (you should really be getting 90%+ in matric maths to cope with engineering maths IMO) and Science, it's already 28 points (7*2*2,) and so you can get in with 4Cs in your other subjects. If you getting 4Cs with this standard of matric, you're really not going to cut it in engineering.

Also thinking about it, universities do engage in moderating the marks as well. I know of a person who does engineering and he had 90% for his coursework, which counts 40% towards the final mark. Yet he ended up getting 100% overall which is obviously BS. About 6 engineers got that mark for 1st year maths.
 
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sn3rd said:
But I think that the guidelines, then, need to be adjusted to make provision for raising the standard of education. Anything easier than the paper in the link would be ridiculous.
?
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Guess who is becoming teachers? The lazy bunch of the last few years.:erm: Imagine :D The Chaos!!! Bwhahahahahaha!!
 
Mila said:
Guess who is becoming teachers? The lazy bunch of the last few years.:erm: Imagine :D The Chaos!!! Bwhahahahahaha!!
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That's the scariest thought. And then in 5 years we'll hear all about how "even" teachers would not be able to pass the maths paper. Upon closer inspection we'll find the 2009 paper and say "of course not, they couldn't pass it the FIRST time!"

:D
 
sn3rd said:
And then in 5 years we'll hear all about how "even" teachers would not be able to pass the maths paper.
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We don't need to wait for 5 years for maths teachers to be unable to pass ...


Eric Ndimande, a maths teacher in Mpumalanga, said most maths teachers would have battled to pass the paper had they written it.

Amesa singled out 12 problematic questions and recommended that the exam in future provide a "reasonable opportunity" for weaker pupils to score at least 30%.
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sn3rd said:
Does anyone know if the same drop in standard has occurred in other school subjects? Particularly English, Afrikaans and Physical Science?
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According to a headmaster I know this trend is across the board. Incidently, this was his last year year as a headmaster in a state school, from next year he will be a headmaster for one of the larger private school groups, he had had enough of all the BS.
 
daveza said:
We don't need to wait for 5 years for teachers to be unable to pass ...
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Yeah, that's what I was talking about.

Edit: And 12 out of 13 questions problematic? LOL
 
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ponder said:
According to a headmaster I know this trend is across the board. Incidently, this was his last year year as a headmaster in a state school, from next year he will be a headmaster for one of the larger private school groups, he had had enough of all the BS.
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Wow... Well I wonder how Universities are going to solve this one.

Will they drop their standards, or will they simply churn out fewer graduates? I hope for the latter; dropping standards will lead to sub-par professionals.
 
daveza said:
We don't need to wait for 5 years for teachers to be unable to pass ...
Click to expand...

Eric Ndimande, a maths teacher in Mpumalanga, said most maths teachers would have battled to pass the paper had they written it.

Amesa singled out 12 problematic questions and recommended that the exam in future provide a "reasonable opportunity" for weaker pupils to score at least 30%.
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But not all teachers are math teachers. We just need the math teachers to pass math.:erm:
 
Eric Ndimande, a maths teacher in Mpumalanga, said most maths teachers would have battled to pass the paper had they written it.

Amesa singled out 12 problematic questions and recommended that the exam in future provide a "reasonable opportunity" for weaker pupils to score at least 30%.
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Then they're not really maths teachers. :sick:

I'd bet that most of the forumites in this thread would be able to pass that paper in their sleep.
 
scotty777 said:
I'm a heavy sleeper, but I could do it while I'm very drunk if that counts :)
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Lol, reminds me of writing end of semester engineering exams in the afternoon session after we had been having a few at the pub across the road for the morning cram session :D

Completed the 3hr Maths II paper in under 2hrs which meant I could leave the exam room and the bonus was I aced that sucker.
 
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