Maths exams 'have become easier'

[Fop 1]

Maths exams 'have become easier'

Maths

The steep decline in maths exams began in 1990, the report says

 

School mathematics exams in England have become easier, shallower and less demanding, according to a think tank.

 

Analysis of public maths exam papers taken by 16-year-olds between 1951 and 2006 shows standards have declined markedly, the report for Reform argues.

 

This means more pupils have left school ill-prepared for the workplace and a generation of mathematicians has been lost to the nation's economy, it adds.

 

The government insists maths exam standards are very closely monitored.

 

 

In today's Britain it is acceptable to say that you can't do maths

Elizabeth Truss

Reform

 

The Reform report assesses how maths exam papers changed over time in terms of their content, difficulty, style and pass standard.

 

It concludes that between 1951, when O-levels were introduced, and 1970, standards remained constant with a strong focus on algebra, arithmetic and geometry.

 

A simplification trend began in the 1980s with an attempt to show mathematics in context, but the syllabus remained comparable to that of earlier years.

 

 

It is a top government priority to encourage more mathematicians in the future

Jim Knight

Schools Minister

 

But there was a steep decline in standards from 1990 onwards, once GCSEs were introduced, it says.

 

The content became broader and shallower, with a more restricted and less demanding syllabus, it claims.

 

And the difficulty and demand of questions weakened along with their style, it claims, with candidates being required to follow a series of steps rather than work their own way through.

 

Calculators were also allowed in some papers and formulae sheets were included in papers.

 

Added to that, the percentage mark required for a grade C fell to about 20% in the higher tier GCSE in 2000 and 2006.

 

'Geek to chic'

 

The report claims that the apparent rise in attainment over the 1990s and 2000s is "highly misleading".

 

"Exams have changed from being a staging-post to further study to being a series of 'tick-boxes'," it adds.

 

This has led to mathematics at university being compromised and able-students being neglected, and has cost the economy billions of pounds in lost mathematicians.

 

Deputy director of Reform and a co-author of the report Elizabeth Truss said: "In today's Britain it is acceptable to say that you can't do maths, whereas people would be ashamed to admit they couldn't read.

 

"We need a cultural revolution to transform maths from geek to chic."

 

Schools Minister Jim Knight said standards were carefully monitored by an independent watchdog to make sure they remained world-class and were an appropriate preparation for study or work.

 

Economy

 

He added that more students were taking maths and further maths at A and AS-level.

 

"Ucas figures show the number of people who took up places on full time maths degrees has gone up by 9.3% on last year.

 

"That is good news, but we agree maths is of vital importance to the economy and it is a top government priority to encourage more mathematicians in the future.

 

"In addition, we have launched a campaign to encourage more young people to consider careers in maths and science," he said.

 

Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove said the report underlined the importance of mathematics in driving economic growth.

 

Its stress on the need to nurture the mathematics economy was timely and important, he said.

 

"India and China are producing four million graduates every year. The single largest area of graduate growth is mathematics, science and engineering.

 

"A third of graduates in China are engineers - here it's just 8%. Between 1994 and 2004, more than 30% of the physics departments in Britain disappeared."

 

Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws said: "This is a damning critique of maths education in this country.

 

"Our education system is too often failing to get the basics right, which risks damaging the national economy."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7431840.stm

 

 

[Guest alex]

It's funny how the exam results across the board get 'better' every year.

[Happy Face 29]

When I started my maths degree in '97 I felt that the Scottish kids were a mile ahead of me.

[Guest alex]

Not maths but I can remember doing some old O-Level papers for Technical Drawing after we'd exhausted the old GCSE ones and the gulf between the two was ridiculous.

[Chigurh 0]

It's all greek to me I have to admit, so I wouldn't know.

 

I had one of the better teachers in my country for 2 years and still barely managed a pass in lower level maths.

[NJS 3978]

I sat my Maths 'O' level in the last year that calculators weren't allowed for our exam board. The argument in going to calculators was that taking away the pain of log tables would mean the actual maths could become more advanced. This suggests that never happened.

 

Onviously kids can only do whats put out in front to them (to use a footballing cliche) but I don't see the point of making it easier to get high grades - I think they should use percentiles instead of absolutes for grading - then people might "trust" them again.

[snakehips 0]

It doesn't just appear to be maths imo.

 

The standard of handwriting and grammar that I see from young people coming into my profession is very bad at times.

[TheInspiration 1]

It's obvious the mark for a C grade on a higher tier maths paper is going to be so low, because nobody who takes the paper will be aiming for a C. It's mainly for the A/A* students. But in any case, ifor people leaving school to find employment after GCSEs, should it really matter how competent they are at GCSE maths?

Edited June 3, 2008 by TheInspiration

[NJS 3978]

for people leaving school to find employment after GCSEs, should it really matter how competent they are at GCSE maths?

 

I think its a basic stepping stone - if I was looking for someone for a non-technical job I'd look at how they did in technical subjects to that level assuming they took something else later. Obviously now I only look at people with proper degrees anyway so GCSE maths is pretty meangingless.

[Fop 1]

It's funny how the exam results across the board get 'better' every year.

 

It's barmy it is the tragedy of the fucking pie chart.

 

 

 

 

 

I sat my Maths 'O' level in the last year that calculators weren't allowed for our exam board. The argument in going to calculators was that taking away the pain of log tables would mean the actual maths could become more advanced. This suggests that never happened.

 

Onviously kids can only do whats put out in front to them (to use a footballing cliche) but I don't see the point of making it easier to get high grades - I think they should use percentiles instead of absolutes for grading - then people might "trust" them again.

 

There are three big issues with making stuff easier:

 

1. No one can actual say if anything is been done better as there is no fixed point to measure from.

 

2. It piles students up at the top end (as A* has shown. There will eventually just be A, A*, A**, A*** & A**** unless they add something like and then restart the nonsense all over again ).

 

3. It completely degrades the whole system, eventually you will have to have done a PhD to be a bin man, that all the PhD involves is writing your name correctly and going on the piss for 3 years becomes irrelevent (although I guess that's not so far off what it involves now ).

 

 

 

But it does give nice pie charts and graphs to show off year on year.

[Meenzer 14055]

It doesn't just appear to be maths imo.

 

The standard of handwriting and grammar that I see from young people coming into my profession is very bad at times.

 

I'm all for that. Keep them ignorant, it'll keep us in a job for longer.

[Papa Lazaru 0]

It's funny how the exam results across the board get 'better' every year.

 

It's barmy it is the tragedy of the fucking pie chart.

 

 

 

 

 

I sat my Maths 'O' level in the last year that calculators weren't allowed for our exam board. The argument in going to calculators was that taking away the pain of log tables would mean the actual maths could become more advanced. This suggests that never happened.

 

Onviously kids can only do whats put out in front to them (to use a footballing cliche) but I don't see the point of making it easier to get high grades - I think they should use percentiles instead of absolutes for grading - then people might "trust" them again.

 

There are three big issues with making stuff easier:

 

1. No one can actual say if anything is been done better as there is no fixed point to measure from.

 

2. It piles students up at the top end (as A* has shown. There will eventually just be A, A*, A**, A*** & A**** unless they add something like and then restart the nonsense all over again ).

 

3. It completely degrades the whole system, eventually you will have to have done a PhD to be a bin man, that all the PhD involves is writing your name correctly and going on the piss for 3 years becomes irrelevent (although I guess that's not so far off what it involves now ).

 

 

 

But it does give nice pie charts and graphs to show off year on year.

 

That's the problem, everything getting more and more devalued and easier, leading to problems further down the line. We have a government who are obsessed with getting everyone into university (despite it not being right for everyone at all) and making everything continually easier so they can do it.

 

Even back when i was at uni, many lecturers were starting to get pissed off that many of the students they were being sent were not good enough because of the standard of exams and that degree material was then getting easier itself to cope with this. Throw in some of the complete joke degrees knocking about these days that are a waste of everyones time and its hard to say what a degree is worth alot of the time.

 

I watched an edition of that one show with Adrian Chiles a while back and they got a few celebs in i'd say their thirties to go and do current GCSE papers to compare the results with their old exam results. Now remember these celebs havent been in education for years, will be completely out of practice for taking exams and haven't just spent their time studying for and revising thse subjects, which you need to for exams, so already the experiemtn is massively against them. Yet 1 or 2 only did a tiny bit worse than their old exam results, and the others were about the same or even beat their old results in some cases.

But the disgraceful bit was one guy (think it was Hardeep Kholi Singh) got something like 20% less on the GCSE paper but ended up two grades higher than his old exam result!

 

But of course the government says things arent getting easier to pass, and that education is better than ever, and they never lie about anything do they!

[NJS 3978]

It's the kids who are the "victims" as well - if they say they have worked damned hard which of course may well be true they aren't getting any credit so the brighter ones are losing out from a perception pov.

[Papa Lazaru 0]

It's the kids who are the "victims" as well - if they say they have worked damned hard which of course may well be true they aren't getting any credit so the brighter ones are losing out from a perception pov.

 

Indeed, plenty out there who work really hard and definitely earn all of their high grades and who would have done just as well when the exams were harder, but there isn't really anyway for them to prove that.

[Fop 1]

It's the kids who are the "victims" as well - if they say they have worked damned hard which of course may well be true they aren't getting any credit so the brighter ones are losing out from a perception pov.

 

Indeed, plenty out there who work really hard and definitely earn all of their high grades and who would have done just as well when the exams were harder, but there isn't really anyway for them to prove that.

 

 

 

 

Yup:

 

Speaking at the Independent Schools Council's annual conference in London, Sir Richard said "grade inflation" had "destroyed" the role of A-levels in selecting undergraduates.

 

"Top institutions have great difficulty separating out the best students," he said.

 

"Even if you interview all the students you still have a problem."

 

Hence the trailing of an entrance test which would assess general intelligence and creativity, which could become the norm at Imperial from 2010 - and perhaps elsewhere.

 

"That hopefully would become a national system if that was seen to be successful for selecting students," Sir Richard said.

 

"We are doing this not because we don't believe in A-level but we cannot use A-levels any more as a discriminatory factor. They have all got four or five A-levels," he said.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7434463.stm

[Lazarus 0]

I blame the accountants.......

[snakehips 0]

I blame the accountants.......

 

And Freddie Shepherd, shirley!

[Rob W 0]

wayyy back they used a Bell curve - the top 5% got an A; the bottom 5% a an H and everyone else was distributed inbetween

 

they decided this meant that you couldn't compare grades properly from year to year - the assumption being that all of a sudden you got a whole year full of thicko's I guess

 

Once they switched to "absolute" grades grade inflation came in

[Fop 1]

wayyy back they used a Bell curve - the top 5% got an A; the bottom 5% a an H and everyone else was distributed inbetween

 

they decided this meant that you couldn't compare grades properly from year to year - the assumption being that all of a sudden you got a whole year full of thicko's I guess

 

Once they switched to "absolute" grades grade inflation came in

 

Yeah that's true, but it's not absolute grading that is the major issue though at present, in fact there is no absolute grading possible because:

 

 

 

 

Of questions getting easier - this has been repeatedly seen, old 'O level' questions becomes 'A level' questions etc.

 

Of % marks for grades dropping year on year - in some cases "A grades" now only need stupidly low %'s compared to what they used to, especially in relation to the above.

 

Of switching to modular exams - taking a test every couple of weeks/months and then having those results all add up to a final amount is infinitely easier than doing a couple of massive exams on a whole 2 years of syllabus.

 

 

 

 

 

In fairness it's a bit like what private schools have been doing for years, only now it's actually education policy (most private schools have always selected the easier exam board exams in any subject - for example a physics exam board that gives you all the formulas you need and then expects you to work with them, rather than one that expects you to know by memory all of the formulas you may need - the same pupil taught to the same standard usually scoring much higher in the first than the second, even if they questions are of a similar "standard").

 

 

The real bastard is that it helps no one but those that have to produce graphs and pie charts every year, certainly not the students.