Pronouns in maths exams

In some cases an exam board will disregard the answers to a particular question if it shown to be confusing/wrong - either as a result of complaints or their own quality checks

i know for a fact that this happens from time to time

it’s different to use of ethnicity diverse names which don’t change the accuracy of the text.

1a. Muhammad has three plums and two apples. How many items of fruit does he have?
1b. Peter has four grapes and one orange. How many items of fruit do they have?

Is question b asking how much fruit Peter has (they singular) or how much fruit Peter and Muhammad have together (they plural) ? Using they here creates confusion in a way using Muhammad rather than Paul does not.

(I’m aware that GCSE maths questions are more complex but you get the gist)

@NecessaryScene - yes exactly this.

My DD does not have additional needs but is not overly confident in maths. She has made mistakes in the past interpreting some of the lengthy verbal problems and we have always stressed to her the importance of reading the question properly. She said that the use of "they" made her question her understanding of the question which meant she spent longer reading and rereading it to check that she hadn't misunderstood. More pressure and more stress on these young people to fulfil a fascist ideology that is taking hold by stealth.

Yes - does they refer to Petra, or the unnamed others who will get the rest of the inheritance?

Perhaps you should talk to some teens - the vast majority of them default to sex based pronouns. You might like to imagine they all use third person pronouns but they don't.

I do recall an A level maths texbook which had an example which was wrong. I spent hours puzzling over where I had gone wrong. Much later with more knowledge I realised it was an error in the text.

This happened with my brother with a driving theory text book. Had lodged in his brain because he thought it was counter-intuitive. Came up in the test and he put what he'd read in the book. It was wrong and they'd corrected it in the next edition!

When I worked briefly in a Primary school I recall a maths teacher telling the children that when you multiply by ten you "add a zero" to the number.

I do recall an A level maths texbook which had an example which was wrong. I spent hours puzzling over where I had gone wrong. Much later with more knowledge I realised it was an error in the text.

Part of the problem is that in formal settings - such as a maths exam! - there is a very high presumption of correctness and standard language. That the question means exactly what it says.

Trying to find the missing piece of information that would make the thing make sense is going to be the first port of call before "maybe this was worded sloppily, or is using colloquial language, or a non-standard dialect".

A sudden "their" would absolutely have me searching around for a referent or referents other than a single named individual, and wondering if a sentence had gone missing due to an editing error.

Even if I concluded that it meant the named person, I would feel compelled to add a note saying that was the assumption I was making.

You can't take the same sort of liberties in a formal setting for a general audience as you can get away with talking with your friends in your "LGBTQ+" subculture.

I'm not sure, but a few years back a GCSE Eng Lit question muddled up Montagues and Capulets...

That's the sort of thing I mean! (obviously suggestionsplease knows this never happens as they are written to be clear and as long as one person thinks it's fine then it must be clear to everyone else). If I spotted that on a question I'd go over and over and over it trying to second-guess whether I'm being asked a real curveball or whether there was a mistake. Probably would get that panicky gut-punch feeling that something I thought correct was there in black and white saying the opposite.

Having a SEN child myself I have seen firsthand how she can muddle and misinterpret questions that to me seem straightforward. She is often right, her answer could be the answer according to how she reads the question. The teachers however will stick to the prescribed corrections and she will lose marks.

She will be one of those who will go look for another person when 'they' is used out of fear of misreading a question yet again. But according to suggestions she should just try harder, amiright?

It is not the right way forward to change the exam paper altogether to ensure all pupils have a good chance at understanding the questions but it is the right way forward to change the exam paper to indoctrinate children on gender ideology....

Like someone else said, children as collateral damage

But even then, the students had to decide whether to answer the question as written, or answer the question they thought the exam board had meant to set.

I'm not sure, but a few years back a GCSE Eng Lit question muddled up Montagues and Capulets...

Which would really throw all students whose knowledge was insecure - so probably not your A* and A candidates but all the rest.

I do recall an A level maths texbook which had an example which was wrong. I spent hours puzzling over where I had gone wrong. Much later with more knowledge I realised it was an error in the text.

Children may be entitled to extra time or a reader. How much you can rephrase or substitute words depends on the test, they all have very clear rules scribes and readers have to follow.
Bear in mind not all children with Sen will have a reader or scribe and that extra time is calculated based on processing normal language and not gender woo.

yet you don't seem to accept these are problematic?

Of course not. We're in the presence of a true believer. The ideology cannot fail, it can only be failed.

It's always very instructive, watching someone like this in discussion.

Even if the beliefs being propounded weren't nonsensical and directly harmful - even if this wasn't a huge mess of sex stereotyping, medical consequences, and inducing mental health issues - the behaviour of those propounding them, the way they will dismiss any concerns and wilfully ignore any potential downside to their plans, is itself going to cause a whole other sort of harm, just from other people getting crushed in the religious fervour, due to their rights and needs being forgotten.

But if this fictional Petra with the inheritance was really Peter who identified as a female, then the correct pronoun would be she anyway. Not they!

I am only half joking here.

Because they went straight into ‘mumsnet FWR? 🤔 obviously anyone complaining is coming at it from a transphobic point of view’

instead of ‘in my (obviously) vast experience of education there may well be a group of children that may be adversely affected’

its quite hard to row back from that

I'm not sure, but a few years back a GCSE Eng Lit question muddled up Montagues and Capulets...

To anyone that works in this area - what is a student supposed to do if they suspect a question in an exam is worded incorrectly, ambiguously or has an error? Just do the best they can and take the time to explain their thought processes in writing on the answer sheet?

I am well aware of language difficulties students might face and I am also aware that qualifications have competences that must be met.

But you've essentially called them liars in this thread. You are maintaining that there is zero possibility that anyone would be thrown by wording that doesn't make it clear what the question is asking for.

In your own example questions you included odd phrases that genuinely would have made me spend more time questioning what I was being asked or if the question had typos - yet you don't seem to accept these are problematic?

So my DD who can understand clearly written English should be penalised in a maths exam because someone wants to use gender waffle pronouns obfuscating who is being discussed? Don't be ridiculous.

It is not the right way forward to change the exam paper
Except that's literally what was brought in with the character introductions when Sats was introduced as the need was recognised.
And you are the one advocating for papers to change as using plural pronouns as singular is not standard practice or even necessary.
You can bleat on about competency all you like but understanding of gender ideology doesn't measure comprehension at all.

I am well aware of language difficulties students might face and I am also aware that qualifications have competences that must be met.

So within some maths qualifications there might be several different areas that are tested, and a student might excel at pure maths that does not require contextualization. If they have barriers with language they will not experience so many difficulties here.

However the maths qualification might also cover areas of applied maths, for example questions on probability and statistics that require extensive text description of scenarios, and of course that is likely to be harder for students that experiences barriers with language to do well in these.

However, if it is a competence that is being assessed in the qualification the student cannot opt out of these questions. Well they can, but they will lose marks. Maths qualifications may have a remit of preparing for real world scenarios, and they often do situate problems in social contexts.

If there are massive language difficulties teacher or parents might make the decision that a different type of maths qualification is appropriate for them, one where they can more readily demonstrate their competence in their areas of strengths.

However for most students this is an area that can be addressed with appropriate preparation and reasonable adjustments in the timed examinations themselves.

If a teacher or apparent anticipates that a student might face difficulties with pronouns for whatever reason the right way forward is to spend more time preparing for questions so that they are in a strong position to tackle them on the day.

It is not the right way forward to change the exam paper altogether just in the same way it would not be the right way forward to change the character names used because there will be some students that might struggle with names that they are not familiar with. Adequate preparation should address any potential issues.

And as I've pointed out, it is also commonplace for them to be written about in a way that makes it unclear as to whom is being discussed. In newspapers, reports, by professionals.

Just because you're sloppy enough with language that you haven't spotted it doesn't mean others haven't.

It's pretty ableist - "well I understand it just fine, how on Earth could anyone NOT?"

And stop trying to equate 'foreign' names with words that genuinely have several meanings - it's embarrassing that you reach for racism and ageism when you don't have an argument about what's actually being discussed. If it's clear it's a name, then it doesn't raise any questions about how many people are being discussed. Everyone knows that but you seem to pretend not to.

If the name was "X" or "pi" then maybe that would cause confusion in trigonometry questions. So presumably they don't use words that are ambiguous for names.

"education" system.
department of "education".
I send my children to school so they get an "education".

Wording in Maths questions is so important. People - children and adults - struggle with it without additional unnecessary complications. Of course this is madness, as is the whole genderist delusion.

Yes, I wonder what amazing qualifications you need to essentially tell Sen children buck up your ideas or you are not good enough.