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#1
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Any good at maths?
On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote:
On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... Apparently British children now score way down the international league table... I bet DIYers do better ;-) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...our-maths.html I came across the same thing about PISA maths tests for 15 year olds on the BBC news website a few hours ago and had a go at them. It astonishes me that any 15 year old couldn't get 100% on such a simple set of questions but then I have little knowledge of current education standards. Like you I have little direct knowledge of current education standards - all I have to go on are the annual examination results which, we have been told for at least the last 20 years show that education standards have been improving year by year....... I do have direct experience of current education standards having been a school governor and having children at school. My experience is limited to good state schools. The kind of easy maths/english tests that get posted on the media do not look familiar to me. My kids have often brought home challenging maths/science problems which can sometimes baffle well-educated adults. I can say that my kids benefit from a better education that I did. GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I think that is one of the problems. However any exam that such high proportions get an A or A* is useless as it can't differentiate. The intelligence of pupils as a group will be pretty much identical from year to year and what we need to identify is which are the brighter/more motivated ones in that year. That doesn't call for fixed mark boundaries and associated efforts to "ensure" that the exam is equally challenging each year. It calls for marking as a number and then moving the mark boundaries so that the top 5% of scores are rewarded with a A, the next 7% a B, 10% a C, etc. (figures plucked at random). After all, in applications for work or for higher education, they will be competing against each other, not against an exam. If the exam is easier one year, the marks will be higher, but the same percentage of pupils will score and A, a B, etc. As an extreme example, the top mark one year could be 100% and the next 75%, but still 5% of pupils would get an A, etc. I'm sure this was how it was done years ago, but it was dropped when some years produced very narrow grade bands and that was considered "unfair" in some way. That would retain the easily understood grade system, allowing employers to compare applicants in the same way, but discriminate clearly between abilities/effort. SteveW |
#2
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Any good at maths?
SteveW wrote in
: On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote: On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I haven't seen the tests referred to, but the GCSE higher tier is nowhere the standard of the 1950s O Level, which required knowledge of how to prove Pythagoras's theorem and do some differentiation. GCSE higher tier today is not much more advanced than the 11-plus. Harry |
#3
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Any good at maths?
On 04/12/2013 15:09, SteveW wrote:
On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote: On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... Apparently British children now score way down the international league table... I bet DIYers do better ;-) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...our-maths.html I came across the same thing about PISA maths tests for 15 year olds on the BBC news website a few hours ago and had a go at them. It astonishes me that any 15 year old couldn't get 100% on such a simple set of questions but then I have little knowledge of current education standards. Like you I have little direct knowledge of current education standards - all I have to go on are the annual examination results which, we have been told for at least the last 20 years show that education standards have been improving year by year....... I do have direct experience of current education standards having been a school governor and having children at school. My experience is limited to good state schools. The kind of easy maths/english tests that get posted on the media do not look familiar to me. My kids have often brought home challenging maths/science problems which can sometimes baffle well-educated adults. I can say that my kids benefit from a better education that I did. GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I think that is one of the problems. However any exam that such high proportions get an A or A* is useless as it can't differentiate. The intelligence of pupils as a group will be pretty much identical from year to year and what we need to identify is which are the brighter/more motivated ones in that year. That doesn't call for fixed mark boundaries and associated efforts to "ensure" that the exam is equally challenging each year. It calls for marking as a number and then moving the mark boundaries so that the top 5% of scores are rewarded with a A, the next 7% a B, 10% a C, etc. (figures plucked at random). After all, in applications for work or for higher education, they will be competing against each other, not against an exam. +1 I am pretty sure that's how they used to be marked when I was doing O levels... (early to mid 80s) -- Cheers, John. /================================================== ===============\ | Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \================================================= ================/ |
#4
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Any good at maths?
Tim Streater wrote:
In article , Harry Davis wrote: SteveW wrote in : On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote: On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I haven't seen the tests referred to, but the GCSE higher tier is nowhere the standard of the 1950s O Level, which required knowledge of how to prove Pythagoras's theorem and do some differentiation. GCSE higher tier today is not much more advanced than the 11-plus. Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it. That agrees with my recollection (I did both those O-levels in 1963) but it's worth bearing in mind that at that time the syllabuses/syllabi differed markedly from one exam board to the other. -- Mike Barnes |
#5
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Any good at maths?
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 15:09:52 +0000, SteveW
wrote: On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote: On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... Apparently British children now score way down the international league table... I bet DIYers do better ;-) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education...our-maths.html I came across the same thing about PISA maths tests for 15 year olds on the BBC news website a few hours ago and had a go at them. It astonishes me that any 15 year old couldn't get 100% on such a simple set of questions but then I have little knowledge of current education standards. Like you I have little direct knowledge of current education standards - all I have to go on are the annual examination results which, we have been told for at least the last 20 years show that education standards have been improving year by year....... I do have direct experience of current education standards having been a school governor and having children at school. My experience is limited to good state schools. The kind of easy maths/english tests that get posted on the media do not look familiar to me. My kids have often brought home challenging maths/science problems which can sometimes baffle well-educated adults. I can say that my kids benefit from a better education that I did. GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I think that is one of the problems. However any exam that such high proportions get an A or A* is useless as it can't differentiate. The intelligence of pupils as a group will be pretty much identical from year to year Maybe over the whole country. However individual schools notice significant differences in ability from year to year. and what we need to identify is which are the brighter/more motivated ones in that year. That doesn't call for fixed mark boundaries and associated efforts to "ensure" that the exam is equally challenging each year. It calls for marking as a number and then moving the mark boundaries so that the top 5% of scores are rewarded with a A, the next 7% a B, 10% a C, etc. (figures plucked at random). After all, in applications for work or for higher education, they will be competing against each other, not against an exam. IIRC some are still done like this. If the exam is easier one year, the marks will be higher, but the same percentage of pupils will score and A, a B, etc. As an extreme example, the top mark one year could be 100% and the next 75%, but still 5% of pupils would get an A, etc. I'm sure this was how it was done years ago, but it was dropped when some years produced very narrow grade bands and that was considered "unfair" in some way. That would retain the easily understood grade system, allowing employers to compare applicants in the same way, but discriminate clearly between abilities/effort. Unlike now where they suddenly make it more difficult without telling anyone in advance. -- (\__/) M. (='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around (")_(") is he still wrong? |
#6
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Any good at maths?
Tim Streater wrote in
: In article , Harry Davis wrote: SteveW wrote in : On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote: On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I haven't seen the tests referred to, but the GCSE higher tier is nowhere the standard of the 1950s O Level, which required knowledge of how to prove Pythagoras's theorem and do some differentiation. GCSE higher tier today is not much more advanced than the 11-plus. Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it. My uncle did calculus for his maths O Level in 1957. It was only very elementary, just powers of x if I recall correctly. I don't know which board he did. Apparently the JMB maths O Level had syllabuses A for grammar schools and B for secondary moderns. Presumably the latter was followed only by a small percentage of pupils at secondary moderns, this being before CSEs, when most would have left without any academic qualifications. Here is a B paper from 1968 with questions requiring both differentiation and integration: http://www.burtongrammar.co.uk/categ...ol-exams/1968- maths-o I think O Levels may have changed significantly even in the early period, because when they were first introduced in 1951 they were meant just for the 'top 20%', and then later a figure of 40% was used. Did you get percentages or had grades come in by 1961? Harry |
#7
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Any good at maths?
In message , Harry Davis
writes Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it. My uncle did calculus for his maths O Level in 1957. It was only very elementary, just powers of x if I recall correctly. I don't know which board he did. Apparently the JMB maths O Level had syllabuses A for grammar schools and B for secondary moderns. Presumably the latter was followed only by a small percentage of pupils at secondary moderns, this being before CSEs, when most would have left without any academic qualifications. There was no calculus in the 1959 Cambridge O level maths. (Mind it was reckoned to be easier than the Oxford version). I vaguely recall sitting the *B* paper which the site below says did not include calculus. Here is a B paper from 1968 with questions requiring both differentiation and integration: http://www.burtongrammar.co.uk/categ...ol-exams/1968- maths-o I think O Levels may have changed significantly even in the early period, because when they were first introduced in 1951 they were meant just for the 'top 20%', and then later a figure of 40% was used. Did you get percentages or had grades come in by 1961? I got a C in 1959 -- Tim Lamb |
#8
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Any good at maths?
On Wednesday 04 December 2013 17:37 Harry Davis wrote in uk.d-i-y:
http://www.burtongrammar.co.uk/category/life-and-times/school-exams/1968- maths-o Hugely interesting - ta ^^^ CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! Some refreshingly practical questions too... -- Tim Watts Personal Blog: http://squiddy.blog.dionic.net/ http://www.sensorly.com/ Crowd mapping of 2G/3G/4G mobile signal coverage |
#9
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Any good at maths?
In article , Tim Streater
wrote: In article , Harry Davis wrote: Tim Streater wrote in : In article , Harry Davis wrote: SteveW wrote in : On 04/12/2013 11:45, Mark wrote: On Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:38:06 +0000, news wrote: On 03/12/2013 14:45, Dave Baker wrote: "John Rumm" wrote in message ... GCSE exams are divided into two tiers. I've only seen the higher tier (more like O level standard) questions. Maybe the aforementioned tests are like the lower tier (c.f. CSE). I haven't seen the tests referred to, but the GCSE higher tier is nowhere the standard of the 1950s O Level, which required knowledge of how to prove Pythagoras's theorem and do some differentiation. GCSE higher tier today is not much more advanced than the 11-plus. Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it. My uncle did calculus for his maths O Level in 1957. It was only very elementary, just powers of x if I recall correctly. I don't know which board he did. Apparently the JMB maths O Level had syllabuses A for grammar schools and B for secondary moderns. Presumably the latter was followed only by a small percentage of pupils at secondary moderns, this being before CSEs, when most would have left without any academic qualifications. Here is a B paper from 1968 with questions requiring both differentiation and integration: http://www.burtongrammar.co.uk/categ...ol-exams/1968- maths-o I think O Levels may have changed significantly even in the early period, because when they were first introduced in 1951 they were meant just for the 'top 20%', and then later a figure of 40% was used. Did you get percentages or had grades come in by 1961? I had %-ages for O-levels (1961/2), with 45% being a pass, but no-one was ever awarded more than 90%. We had grades A to F (IIRC) for A-levels (1963/4), and there were Special papers (S-level) you could take which were harder and you either got a 1 or a 2 or nothing. In one of my S level (1958) maths papers I got 101%. In reality it was 252/256 but to make life easier they percentaged out of 250. It would be a Maths paper ( a classmate got 254/256) -- From KT24 Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18 |
#10
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Any good at maths?
Tim Lamb wrote in
: In message , Harry Davis writes Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it. My uncle did calculus for his maths O Level in 1957. It was only very elementary, just powers of x if I recall correctly. I don't know which board he did. Apparently the JMB maths O Level had syllabuses A for grammar schools and B for secondary moderns. Presumably the latter was followed only by a small percentage of pupils at secondary moderns, this being before CSEs, when most would have left without any academic qualifications. There was no calculus in the 1959 Cambridge O level maths. (Mind it was reckoned to be easier than the Oxford version). I vaguely recall sitting the *B* paper which the site below says did not include calculus. The author of that site is wrong. The 1968 exam papers reproduced on that page, which are both B papers, do require calculus. In Paper I, question A3 (b) asks candidates to integrate 3x^2 +(x^5)/5. In Paper II, question B11 also requires calculus. Harry |
#11
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Any good at maths?
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:16:35 +0000, Tim Watts
wrote: On Wednesday 04 December 2013 17:37 Harry Davis wrote in uk.d-i-y: CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. -- Reentrant |
#12
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Any good at maths?
On 04/12/2013 22:47, Reentrant wrote:
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:16:35 +0000, Tim Watts wrote: On Wednesday 04 December 2013 17:37 Harry Davis wrote in uk.d-i-y: CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. The answer's a crown, of course. Rare as hens' teeth, they were when I was growing up. Massive things, and having one in your pocket made you feel rich. -- Tciao for Now! John. |
#13
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Any good at maths?
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 23:11:55 +0000, John Williamson
wrote: On 04/12/2013 22:47, Reentrant wrote: On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:16:35 +0000, Tim Watts wrote: On Wednesday 04 December 2013 17:37 Harry Davis wrote in uk.d-i-y: CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. The answer's a crown, of course. Rare as hens' teeth, they were when I was growing up. Massive things, and having one in your pocket made you feel rich. The answer is five. Read the question! -- |
#14
Posted to uk.d-i-y
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Any good at maths?
In article , John Williamson
wrote: On 04/12/2013 22:47, Reentrant wrote: On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:16:35 +0000, Tim Watts wrote: On Wednesday 04 December 2013 17:37 Harry Davis wrote in uk.d-i-y: CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. The answer's a crown, of course. Rare as hens' teeth, they were when I was growing up. Massive things, and having one in your pocket made you feel rich. I've got 2! Festival of Britain & Coronation ones. -- From KT24 Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18 |
#15
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Any good at maths?
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 22:47:01 +0000, Reentrant wrote:
CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. You seem to be forgetting one small detail. £sd went the way of the dodo over twenty years before any of those contestants were even born... Their parents would probably struggle to remember whatever the **** a florin and a crown were. |
#16
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Any good at maths?
On Thu, 5 Dec 2013 08:49:31 +0000 (UTC), Adrian
wrote: On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 22:47:01 +0000, Reentrant wrote: CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. You seem to be forgetting one small detail. £sd went the way of the dodo over twenty years before any of those contestants were even born... Their parents would probably struggle to remember whatever the **** a florin and a crown were. Yet somehow they manage to answer plenty of other historical questions. -- Reentrant |
#17
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Any good at maths?
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 16:15:27 +0000 Tim Streater wrote :
Hmmm, when I did O level maths in 1961, we didn't do any calculus. However, I did my O-level maths a year early, and then did the Additional Maths O-level a year later. That had a lot of calculus in it. I was in my grammar school's A stream and we did O-level maths in the January of the fourth year and Additional Maths with other subjects the following June [then skipped the fifth form and went straight into the sixth]. I hated the school (and it me) but Mr Steffens was one awesomely good maths teacher. -- Tony Bryer, Greentram: 'Software to build on', Melbourne, Australia www.greentram.com |
#18
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Any good at maths?
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 21:15:26 +0000 Tim Streater wrote :
I had %-ages for O-levels (1961/2), with 45% being a pass, but no-one was ever awarded more than 90%. When I did structural engineering as part of my building surveying degree, the lecturer told that the exam would require answering five questions from seven and there would be four and a half numeric questions and two and a half essay ones [i.e. one half and half]. "We do this to stop the clever buggers among you getting 100% and so those of you who can't add up 2+2 can still pass on the essay questions if you do a good job" -- Tony Bryer, Greentram: 'Software to build on', Melbourne, Australia www.greentram.com |
#19
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Any good at maths?
On 05/12/2013 08:49, Adrian wrote:
On Wed, 04 Dec 2013 22:47:01 +0000, Reentrant wrote: CWT, £sd - modern kids would have an aneurism! A question on this week's University Challenge was "how many shillings are half a crown plus sixpence plus a florin?". Neither team got it right. You seem to be forgetting one small detail. £sd went the way of the dodo over twenty years before any of those contestants were even born... Their parents would probably struggle to remember whatever the **** a florin and a crown were. Farthings and groats were gone long before I was born - but I knew what they were by the time I was of university age. -- Rod |
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