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FURTHER PROBLEMS WITH the Leaving Certificate maths exams are being brought to light this morning.
It follows confirmation yesterday from the State Examinations Commission that there were errors with Maths Paper II paper at higher level.
In the paper, one question on geometry featured a diagram of a triangle with an extra attribute – the degree of one angle – included.
The inclusion of the extra digits – the 36° shown below – meant it was possible to get two correct answers.
The SEC yesterday acknowledged the error, and said the marking scheme would reflect the mistake so that no students were penalised.
According to maths teacher Catherine Lewis of Rathdown School, there was a problem with the same question in the Irish language version of the paper – and she said students had also raised issues with some ordinary and foundation level exams.
“In the Irish paper – as I understand it – the angle of 36 degrees was left out,” the teacher told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“However the invigilators were alerted to the fact that it was missing the angle, so they announced to the students to put in the angle of 36 degrees – so everyone had the same problem.”
The geometry question was mandatory on the Leaving Cert mathematics paper, meaning all students would have been expected to attempt it.
Lewis said some students sitting the exam at ordinary level also experienced problems, as the version of Paper One given to Project Maths pilot schools contained a calculus question covering material not included on the current syllabus.
At foundation level, the teacher said, students were also asked to answer questions that were not on the syllabus – covering the geometry of pyramids.
The teacher said the problems were reflective of issues many of her colleagues had been raising with the Department of Education, regarding a lack of clarity in the current maths syllabus.
She said that if she had set a paper with so many errors, it would have been because she was “in a rush and hadn’t had enough time”.
(Additional reporting by Gavan Reilly)
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Jesus the students work their arses off all year only for a simple error to occur. How hard is it to follow a syllabus you bloody created?
Mistakes work in your favour.
If you attempt a question which doesn’t provide enough information, is incorrect in some way, or is not on the syllabus you will automatically get full marks for it.
Any Maths teacher who has corrected papers will know this, and will have told their students to write something for any part of a question which looks unfamiliar or problematic.
The students who attempt a question not on the syllabus will be laughing all the way to a full mark for that part of the question.
They can’t bump everyone’s grades up. They have to adhere to the bell-curve of results. They’ll just mark another question harder with fewer attempt marks to balance it out. The net gain will be negligible.
The question is easily doable without the additional angle. Including the extra information simply means that students could use the Sine, as opposed to the marginally more difficult, Cosine rule.
In short, big deal.
Attempt marks are set by the overall mark. So for a 5 mark piece, you get 2 for an attempt, or whatever. Full marks are given for an attempt where there’s an error in the paper.
When something is particularly hard, they may decide to give more marks to the easier piece.
When the number of fails, or of a particular grade is too high, they change the marking scheme. This is typically to raise grades though, not lower them. What they will do is decide that a mathematical blunder which a lot of students are making (-3/10) is a slip and change it to (-1/10).
Why must every single department, of any service, connected in any way to the administration of this country, be automatically assumed to be out to get the little guy?
Also Tommy, what they might do, is re-balance the marks in that entire question, awarding less overall for the part of the question with a problem, and more to the rest of the question. They won’t try to re-distribute difficulty to other questions covering different topics.
It’s all grand mentioning the bell curve of grades and marking schemes but if you’re a student who wasted time trying to figure out why there were two answers and trying to find out which one was right you’d be less flippant towards it all.
No, the question is pretty easy actually and students are taught that certain trigonometric problems using the sine rule do indeed yield dual solutions; in which case either is appropriate. The question would pose no challenge to any mildly competent higher level student, whichever way you look at it and the omission or inclusion of the additional angle shouldn’t really affect anyone’s performance.
Mistakes do not work in our favour, especially Ordinary Level students.
When there’s such a blunder on a higher level paper, where students will not be marked on the questions which contained errors, that allows certain people to pass who would have otherwise failed.
It also bumps up the grades of many others. That, combined with the 25 bonus points, puts pressure on Colleges and universities around the country, which raises entry points, in turn, making it more difficult for many to achieve college access.
It may seem like a good thing initially, but it isn’t.
Side note: They’ve done away with the old marking schemes. You don’t have slips and blunders now, and attempt marks don’t work in the same way. Don’t disagree with your other statements, just wanted to point that out.
@Cian Try to draw the triangle as defined by the question. Post a picture if you succeed.
Did you hear about the constipated mathematician . He worked it out with a pencil .
The Maths syllabus was not broken yet it was completely changed to the new Project Maths. It was a dumbing down of the Maths subject. It was done to get more students to do honours Maths. Yet about 50% of Maths teachers were not qualified to teach honours Maths. That was where the problem was. This shows as even the examiners could not get the question paper correct. If it ain’t broken don’t fix it.
Back to Croke Park-an agreement to cooperate with change- even if inherently detrimental to the education system.
The majority of schools who undertook the Project Maths pilot programme were against it as it focuses on literacy not just numeracy, penalising students with reading difficulties. Project maths was introduced in 5th year- for the supposedly mathematical & logical minds, where was the logic there? A gradual introduction from 1st year would have given the examiners the time to set fair papers.
This is typical of what is happening in our education system today. Rushing in changes for the sake of it.
Why are we now trying to enact changes that the UK has tried & tested & then realised that they were detrimental to their education system? 1- free educational- tried, tested, failed
2- GCSE reform- introduced project based coursework & continual assessment, while reducing subject choice- failed! Now they are trying to get back to “our system”
Wake up & smell the roses! Reform is good but not just for the sake of it.
Hugh it was actually changed to project maths due to higher maths students attending college were able to do the maths but not understand why it was done or in what situation in real life it would be used. That’s why they added more wording to maths instead of just giving a question with the following words ” solve this “.
The ironic thing is that yes, Project Maths has been brought in to develop skills with solving more “wordy” problems which they hope will help with the transfer to university standard however as a university student studying Maths and an educator myself this will definitely have the adverse effect.
Major topics such as Calculus, Algebra and Coordinate Geometry have taken a serious dumbing down while others like Vectors and Matrices (both incredibly important at university level) have been eradicated altogether. On the flip side paper 2 has been overloaded with Probability, Statistics and Geometry. These are topics that I would perceive as much less important, as the majority of university maths courses are focused on a more applied aspect of mathematics.
If you look at the A-Level mathematics syllabus the difference in standard in astounding. I understand that in the leaving cert students have many more subjects that those doing A-Level but with an even further dumbing down of the coursework and introduction of what I see as pointless material all students wishing to study both at home and abroad will be at a major disadvantage from here on.
Fail!
Hail to the Irish Teachers! At least none of them go on to lead our country eh?!
Oh wait…..
I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again. The exams are set by the State Examinations Commission, regular teachers have nothing to do with the setting of exams.
The fool / mathematician that got this wrong should be named and shamed. How many people are involved in the test process and they missed it.
Teenagers spotted the mistake, not third level+ mathematicians.
Hope it doesn’t effect the future of some bright kid who needed the 30 marks this question amounted to.
They will get the full 30 marks if they attempted the question. It’s cool.
They will not get the 30 marks Ronan- advising examiners in maths will re calculate answer based on incorrect angle and give marks accordingly. You will only get full marks if all your methodology is correct .
@Catherine I thought this was in reference to the topic not on the syllabus. If something not on the syllabus is asked it will typically offer full marks for the attempt.
Will the commission, when setting the marking standard, take into account the upset caused to students who saw questions on the paper that were not covered on the syllabus or who attempted questions that could not be answered. Students who have put so much work in over the past number of years and who are unfortunately in a points race deserve better.
Coiscar. Let’s give marks for angst, then?
The question was answerable, was covered by the syllabus and should have caused no additional angst. See my post above. Go ahead and try to solve it with and without using the additional information of the 36 degree angle and you’ll see what I mean. It’s quite straightforward.
So what yer basically saying is that the angle of the dangle is equal too, the throb of the knob!
More to the point. ‘What you you basically saying’ Ted?
…..When the mood is constant
One of the problems in the Irish education system (in my opinion) is the separation of the syllabus design process from that of assessment. Usually new syllabi are designed by the NCCA who are made up of teachers, business groups, parents groups etc. However the exams are designed by the State Examinations Commission, a completely different body.
This means that incoherence can develop between the aims of a new syllabus and its implementation. A good example is the relatively new LC Geography syllabus. As part of the higher level course, students must take one option from Geoecology, Global Interdependence, Culture and Identity and Oceans and Atmosphere. Most teachers that I knew wanted to choose either the Global Interdepence one or the Culture one, but when it came to the exams, it became clear that this was not a good option. The examiners in the SEC delivered a series of tidy, seemingly more predictable questions in the geoecology option and so a vastly disproportionate number of teachers and students ended up studying this option. As such the syllabus and thus teaching were being reshaped by the exam.
Exam-led teaching is one of the great flaws in our system as it undermines the often positive content in the syllabi. One can not make comments about Project Maths based on mistakes made at the SEC. Coherence can best be achieve, from my limited perspective, through merging the various bodies.
I completely agree with your statement.
Agreed. Statements from the IMTA about this talking for clarity on the syllabus are wide of the mark. The syllabus is clear. It’s been published by the NCCA and I have a copy for every year group I teach that I can refer to. The mistakes are on the side of the SEC, a completely separate entity that do their own thing, regardless of what the NCCA set.
Ah honours maths, a good 9 months of my life wasted!
Irish people can’t do anything right. This is why we’re a joke in Europe and nobody takes us seriously anymore.
Steve, very broad overstatement……….and not factually correct. Ireland has a lot to commend it, although that doesn’t extend to some members of government, apparently.
As with most nations ***, the Irish are their own worst critics. Celebrate what’s good and don’t get hung up on the crap you cannot control.
*** the French are an exception; they seem to feel they are superior to every other nation. Truly delusional.
Is this question really indicative of higher level maths?
apes
Error or no error,
drop the perpendicular and apply junior cert pass maths and you have your result.
OK Lets give them all 100% and move on !!
have your say