Current and active math majors: NCEA test

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#1636526 20-Sep-2016 13:24

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

mattwnz

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#1636532 20-Sep-2016 13:44

timmmay:

Scores are graded on a curve, so if you get 20% and the average is 10%, you probably get a high mark. Seems like the kids have been wrapped in cotton wool and needed a dose of reality.

Back in the 90's, that sort of grading was only done for sixth form, as it was mostly all internally assessed. School C and Bursary were graded on the actual exam result, as it was a national exam that everyone in the country sat at the same time, and not scaled. I think they should bring back this type of thing, because it is far closer to how it works at university, where you have end of semester exams. Although some people are really smart, but perform very poorly at exams. I do wonder if school kids get a huge reality check these days when they go to uni.

Kiwifruta

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#1636545 20-Sep-2016 14:02

DarthKermit:
Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

And she was working the till? Pity that business owner.

Fred99

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#1636603 20-Sep-2016 15:33

Kiwifruta:
DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

And she was working the till? Pity that business owner.

Pretty common I'd expect these days.

Way back last century I left school for a year and worked in a store selling electronic components. My trick when presented with a tray full of assorted components was to look at the tray, ask the customer to pay the total, then write out the itemised receipt and add it as a cross-check but mainly to show the surprised customer that I hadn't made a mistake. And I'm not good at maths (arithmetic) at all - you get good at by practice. Started slow - half a dozen items, then worked up to be able to do it with many dozens of items on a tray. Had to do something to relieve the boredom of retail work.

OTOH I have a niece with a mental disability who has no numeracy skills at all, something's seriously wrong with her shape/number recognition system, if she looks at a rectangle and a triangle, she can't really see the difference. Yet she can read and write. Her husband also has a mental disability, he's completely illiterate, but he's good with numbers. She can write out and read a shopping list, he can pay at the checkout - and make sure he gets the right change. Perfect (and happily married) despite a combined mental age probably only just in double digits.

blackjack17

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#1636628 20-Sep-2016 16:06

DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

There are smart people out there and not so smart people out there. There always has been and always will be.

I am not sure what your point is here or the relevance of this anecdote to an exam that was set at a level that was higher that the standard specifies.

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yitz

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#1636832 20-Sep-2016 20:30

^ oh dear lol

paulchinnz

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#1636838 20-Sep-2016 20:44

Let Ranee's $ = R and Hone's $ = H

1) R-20=H+20 i.e. R=H+40

2) R+22=2(H-22) i.e. R=2H-66

So H+40=2H-66

i.e. H=106

and R=146

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paulchinnz

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#1636853 20-Sep-2016 20:49

mattwnz:

timmmay:

Scores are graded on a curve, so if you get 20% and the average is 10%, you probably get a high mark. Seems like the kids have been wrapped in cotton wool and needed a dose of reality.

Back in the 90's, that sort of grading was only done for sixth form, as it was mostly all internally assessed. School C and Bursary were graded on the actual exam result, as it was a national exam that everyone in the country sat at the same time, and not scaled. I think they should bring back this type of thing, because it is far closer to how it works at university, where you have end of semester exams. Although some people are really smart, but perform very poorly at exams. I do wonder if school kids get a huge reality check these days when they go to uni.

Did Bursary in 90s and there was scaling - lost a few % on stats (easier paper that year?) and gained a bunch on biology (pretty hard). Scaling is appealing especially when applied to large numbers of students - year-to-year, seems to me more likely the difficulty of the paper's changed than the students' abilities.

frankv

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#1636983 21-Sep-2016 07:21

paulchinnz:

Scaling is appealing especially when applied to large numbers of students - year-to-year, seems to me more likely the difficulty of the paper's changed than the students' abilities.

The whole point of scaling in this sense is to be able to compare year-to-year. The assumption is that the quality of students is the same from year to year, and that the distribution of knowledge/skills/intelligence/whatever-you're-trying-to-measure matches the normal curve, therefore any change in outcome is due to variations in difficulty of the test. It's useful for finding the relative positions of individuals in the population.

The philosophy behind NCEA is quite different... it is about measuring the skills and abilities of individual students... can each individual student meet the standard or not. Apart from the Merit vs Achieved distinction, there is no intention to compare one student with another. Any change in outcome from year to year is assumed to be due to variations in ability of the students.

dickytim

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#1637062 21-Sep-2016 09:42

DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

I have similar issues when paying in cash.

Cashier: That's $9.80

Me: Hands $10.00

Cashier: grabs calculator

Me: FFS its 20c

I was reading an article from some university lecturers stating the test was where the standard was meant to be and on par with previous years, so my question is, how is the education system letting these kids down so badly.

Regardless of if you have used algebra since school it does teach general problem solving. If the kids aren't learning numeracy, they aren't learning problem solving, or simple English, what are they learning?

Oh and you need to understand simple algebra for a lot of excel functions.

Batman

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#1638281 21-Sep-2016 15:48

dickytim:
DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

I have similar issues when paying in cash.

Cashier: That's $9.80

Me: Hands $10.00

Cashier: grabs calculator

Me: FFS its 20c

I was reading an article from some university lecturers stating the test was where the standard was meant to be and on par with previous years, so my question is, how is the education system letting these kids down so badly.

Regardless of if you have used algebra since school it does teach general problem solving. If the kids aren't learning numeracy, they aren't learning problem solving, or simple English, what are they learning?

Oh and you need to understand simple algebra for a lot of excel functions.

If these two stories are true, this is scary.
1. That means these are not isolated incidents, rather, endemic.
2. FFS what do kids learn at schools, or, what do they get taught other than sex ed? (Saying that due to number of teenage pregnancies ... But maybe even that they didn't get taught properly?)

blackjack17

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#1638300 21-Sep-2016 16:20

joker97:
dickytim:

DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

I have similar issues when paying in cash.

Cashier: That's $9.80

Me: Hands $10.00

Cashier: grabs calculator

Me: FFS its 20c

I was reading an article from some university lecturers stating the test was where the standard was meant to be and on par with previous years, so my question is, how is the education system letting these kids down so badly.

Regardless of if you have used algebra since school it does teach general problem solving. If the kids aren't learning numeracy, they aren't learning problem solving, or simple English, what are they learning?

Oh and you need to understand simple algebra for a lot of excel functions.

If these two stories are true, this is scary.
1. That means these are not isolated incidents, rather, endemic.
2. FFS what do kids learn at schools, or, what do they get taught other than sex ed? (Saying that due to number of teenage pregnancies ... But maybe even that they didn't get taught properly?)

I hope you are being sarcastic because two anecdotal stories about young people in retail being bad/lazy in maths means nothing.

At the school I work at we have half a dozen year 9 girls and over 20 year 10 girls doing year 11 maths so that means ... nothing.

Some of the comments I am seeing here are really annoying. I know a number of students who studied very hard for that exam, did very well in their mocks and walked out stunned.

Sure you need to be prepared for the unexpected but if you have been training for a road race and at the last minute they change it to a cross country, it is hardly fair, especially in a standards based assessment.

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Kiwifruta

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#1638305 21-Sep-2016 16:28

blackjack17:
joker97:
dickytim:

DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

I have similar issues when paying in cash.

Cashier: That's $9.80

Me: Hands $10.00

Cashier: grabs calculator

Me: FFS its 20c

I was reading an article from some university lecturers stating the test was where the standard was meant to be and on par with previous years, so my question is, how is the education system letting these kids down so badly.

Regardless of if you have used algebra since school it does teach general problem solving. If the kids aren't learning numeracy, they aren't learning problem solving, or simple English, what are they learning?

Oh and you need to understand simple algebra for a lot of excel functions.

If these two stories are true, this is scary.
1. That means these are not isolated incidents, rather, endemic.
2. FFS what do kids learn at schools, or, what do they get taught other than sex ed? (Saying that due to number of teenage pregnancies ... But maybe even that they didn't get taught properly?)

I hope you are being sarcastic because two anecdotal stories about young people in retail being bad/lazy in maths means nothing.

At the school I work at we have half a dozen year 9 girls and over 20 year 10 girls doing year 11 maths so that means ... nothing.

Some of the comments I am seeing here are really annoying. I know a number of students who studied very hard for that exam, did very well in their mocks and walked out stunned.

Sure you need to be prepared for the unexpected but if you have been training for a road race and at the last minute they change it to a cross country, it is hardly fair, especially in a standards based assessment.

So did the exam not match the curriculum?

Batman

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#1638310 21-Sep-2016 16:41

blackjack17:
joker97:
dickytim:

DarthKermit:

Couple of years ago we ordered a $18.00 pack at a takeaway place. We said to the girl behind the till, "can we pay half of that each."

I kid you all not, she asked us "what's half of 18?"

She was white and in her late teens I think.

I have similar issues when paying in cash.

Cashier: That's $9.80

Me: Hands $10.00

Cashier: grabs calculator

Me: FFS its 20c

I was reading an article from some university lecturers stating the test was where the standard was meant to be and on par with previous years, so my question is, how is the education system letting these kids down so badly.

Regardless of if you have used algebra since school it does teach general problem solving. If the kids aren't learning numeracy, they aren't learning problem solving, or simple English, what are they learning?

Oh and you need to understand simple algebra for a lot of excel functions.

If these two stories are true, this is scary.
1. That means these are not isolated incidents, rather, endemic.
2. FFS what do kids learn at schools, or, what do they get taught other than sex ed? (Saying that due to number of teenage pregnancies ... But maybe even that they didn't get taught properly?)

I hope you are being sarcastic because two anecdotal stories about young people in retail being bad/lazy in maths means nothing.

At the school I work at we have half a dozen year 9 girls and over 20 year 10 girls doing year 11 maths so that means ... nothing.

Some of the comments I am seeing here are really annoying. I know a number of students who studied very hard for that exam, did very well in their mocks and walked out stunned.

Sure you need to be prepared for the unexpected but if you have been training for a road race and at the last minute they change it to a cross country, it is hardly fair, especially in a standards based assessment.

I'm not sure why you think I should be sarcastic.
High school kids aren't meant to halve 18 nor subtract 20c from any number?
If only good high school kids can do +-x/ then i can understand why the algebra was undoable.

thinus

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#1638334 21-Sep-2016 18:03

I didn't find the questions difficult, most can be answered with a few simple techniques:

1. Rewriting equations of the form ax^2 - bx - c as (x - d)(x + e) ... I can see where you need to "think outside the box" when they say the equation shows a projectile path and they ask questions about distances instead of just solve x

2. Doing the opposite of (1)

Don't see what the fuss is about.

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