New maths GCSE exams declared too difficult by Ofqual

[noblegiraffe]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32831905

So Ofqual have finished their investigation into the new GCSE maths sample material and concluded what any maths teacher could have told you all along: they were too hard. So now the exam boards will have to change them and send out new sample assessment materials.

The BBC news report says that schools will be starting teaching this GCSE in September, but the truth is that most schools have already started teaching them to Y9 as the extra content means that we needed to start as soon as possible.

What a fuck up. There is no way that the new GCSEs could have effectively been introduced so quickly, I suspect this will not be the last fiasco.

Shame on the government for working to a political timescale and not to one for the actual educational benefit of children.

I teach top set Y11 who will be sitting maths and further maths GCSE after Easter. I'm not sure many would spot TAP is a right angle because the question asks you to calculate it, which is very confusing. If you miss that, then you're not going to get the rest of the question, so it's made more difficult by how it is worded. Calculating angle OAP isn't beyond the current GCSE.

The other question is beyond current GCSE. The article says it needs calculus, but it doesn't, it can be solved by completing the square. However, completing the square with a negative coefficient of x2 isn't current GCSE and they wouldn't be asked to use completing the square to do anything apart from find the minimum point of a graph, or solve a quadratic equation, which is why current students can't answer it. Calculus isn't on the new GCSE either, but kinematics is, so students prepared for the new GCSE might have practiced similar. Calculus is^ on the further maths GCSE but they aren't asked to use to it solve real life problems.

I wonder if that might change a bit with the new emphasis on not pushing more able up in primary, but stretching them sideways. Of course the first year that applies to is the current year 5, who aren't going to be sitting their GCSEs for some time. Which brings us back to whether it's been introduced to early.

Those sorts of problems can be taught, but it's asking a lot to do that and teach all the new content and fill in the gaps in assumed knowledge from ks3 in 2 years.

noble, I gave the question to my 11 year old DS who spotted it was a right angle but was put off by the fact that it didn't have a square iykwim. He had a good go of the first 2 parts but came unstuck on the 3rd because I hadn't taught him trig functions - have now though :).

I really disliked the wording of the first question as did my DD, the use of 'goal post' threw her off completely and she couldn't visualise it at all. luckily DS just ignored that bit.

The second question completely threw me because the height at t=0 is 8 meters???!!! What person is 8m tall? Once I got over that I solved the quadratic equation to get t=4 for when it hits the ground then I realised I didn't even need that!

You just do -t^2 + 2t =0 so t=2 (simple straight forward algebra) for when h=8 again. Then you know that at 1/2 of 2 you have maximum height i.e. at t=1. Substitute t = 1 to get h=9, ans = 9-8 = 1

Is that right?

Anyway, i don't think those questions are asking that much but they are very badly written. The flippin' basketball post turns out to be 80cm high fgs!!

My thought process went "that's a right angle, no, wait, it says calculate. What am I missing?" Then had to convince myself that it was, indeed, a right angle and that it was a badly worded question. Less confident students would have been thrown and tried to do something with the sine or cosine rule.

Ah yes, you're right, you can use symmetry, I've been busy training my students to associate vertices with completing the square :) I think most GCSE students when faced with a quadratic would set it to 0 and solve it, especially as the question says person B drops it (completely irrelevantly).

I did get thrown by the not square right angle until I realised that they obviously couldn't put a square because it would give the answer away. Work out or what is might be a better alternative to calculate though.

I have to admit I'm a bit worried about my yr 7 niece. She's gifted in maths but has a receptive and expressive language problem. I think it might be very difficult for her to get a grade that actually reflects her maths ability based on some of the sample papers.

Speaking as someone with both a maths degree and a DD in y11, I would say those both look quite hard.
Maybe OK as hardest questions on a paper, but as mid level questions on a C-A* equivalent then imo far too much.

I agree with someone (noble?) upthread who said if you want to distinguish between the top then let them do a Further maths GCSE.

We need a qualification to show those who are competent in basic everyday maths (C grade), and those who are a bit more confident (B) and those who are good (A/A*). Those questions are nothing like anyone needs in day to day life.

I agree you need to help students distinguish who will be able to cope with maths A level, and I suspect current scrape-an-A pupils would not do that.
So surely continuing with a statistics or further maths GCSE would be the way to go?

The questions were the top 2 perceived hardest on the paper Teen.

The thing is, the problems (i.e theses 2 above) are like nothing you would ever encounter in real life as in order to keep the maths (arithmetic) simple the figures are a nonsense.

We spent some time today thinking about a simple fraction question:
1/3 divided by 2/3.
Can anybody set that in a context?

That's the problem with trying to make maths fit 'real life' scenarios, the further you go with maths, the more contrived it becomes. The kids often ask 'when am I ever going to use this in real life?' and I answer 'never, but that's not the point'. Someone should tell that to the examiners.

There was a bloody ridiculous question on another of the sample assessment papers where a girl held a ruler up to her eyes and moved backwards until the ruler completely covered a tree, thus she was able to estimate the height of the tree. What a crock.

Back in the day I did an exam in third year (Y9) called RSA arithmetic. It was actually a pretty useful one to do, all about percentages and interest etc.

My DD (13) was asking why they needed to study quadratic equations and I struggled to appease her. I ended up saying that they are used in finance/engineering and probably loads of other disciplines but my main defence was that you learn about them so that you have knowledge of them i.e. you are an educated person in respect of them. A weak argument I know.

I do think we could bring more of the use of maths in finance into general maths teaching - linear equations for budgeting etc.

Even the Singapore textbooks seem to be stretching the bounds of plausability for real life contexts on dividing fractions by fractions. And that's when the fraction that's being divided is bigger than the one you are dividing by.

Nobody goes, 'I have 4/5L of orange juice. How many 3/10L glasses can I fill?' That's what ml are for. Or just pouring the bloody juice from the jug into the glasses until you run out.

The thing about 'real life' scenarios is whose real life? My real life uses a lot of different maths (vectors, geometry, matrices etc etc.....) - I couldn't have predicted when I was 16 which things I'd use and which I wouldn't. But actually in real life in the 21st century, what you probably need to be able to do, if you're doing anything beyond the basics but not an actual mathematician, is to write code to make computers do the calculations. That and have a really good grip on statistics.

Errol that's a good point about not being able to predict at 16 what maths you might end up using.

I know they say maths is all around you but I really do feel that there is a massive chunk of narrative missing in maths classrooms that means so few students are able to identify with the subject.

Even the applied maths at A level somehow seemed anchored to the text book and the scenarios of boats/trains/ladders etc seemed of no relevance whatsoever.

my main defence was that you learn about them so that you have knowledge of them i.e. you are an educated person in respect of them. A weak argument I know.

Why weak? What ordinary person uses most of history, or art in their day to day life? We need to be able to read and comprehend what we have read, in day to day life, but do we really need to analyse in the way is taught in English?

People often seem to expect maths to be more relevant in day to day life than other subjects.

People often seem to expect maths to be more relevant in day to day life than other subjects.

I think that's because of the lack of narrative as I mentioned before. Statistics has a bit more narrative and is easier to engage with that some of the pure maths topics.

Those two most difficult questions are from New Zealand papers and are NOT reformed GCSE samples. They were thrown into the Ofqual report via their benchmarking against other countries.

Re: the sample questions - I think you can calculate the 90 degree angle: the entire base triangle NPT is an equilateral triangle as all sides are equal and therefore all angles are 60 degrees. 1 angle is then split into 2 so this angle APT is 30 degrees and therefore TAP is 90 degrees (180-60-30).

But I think it all comes down to what Gcse maths is really for? Is it to test for a level of competency required in normal life and a normal non-STEM job e.g. invoicing, percentages, being able to do addition, subtraction, division etc. or is it as preparation for A level maths? In my view it should be for the former and there should be an additional level of maths for those who have the ability/wish/need to study it further .....which I know is what was proposed a while ago with the linked Gcses and also the purpose of the further maths Gcse.
Somebody applying to study, for example, English Literature at university has to have passed Gcse maths but they do not need the same level of maths as someone planning to study maths or sciences so why are the government trying to preclude these students from being able to study a non-STEM subject?
My DDs both did Gcse maths in year 10 and then spent year 11 doing a level 3 algebra qualification as preparation for AS level maths - they also did basic calculus and other bits and pieces which were not examined. This option worked well for them and it also allowed the students with less maths ability (in different sets) to continue with the normal Gcse maths in year 11 and get the pass (and above) that they needed.

hellsbells, that's how I looked at the question too. Common sense tells you it must be a right angle given that it is an equilateral triangle and point A is halfway along NT.

I am worried as DS(Y9) will be a guinea pig. Is there any chance that they will delay the change for a year to sort it out - there is no way they are going to be properly ready for September