School voids maths exam
Long Bay College has come up with a solution to the level one maths exam which left many students flustered.
The school announced that the NCEA year 11 mathematics common assessment task (MCAT) exam would not be used for students to meet prerequisites for courses in 2017, despite it being usual practice.
The college principal, Russell Brooke, says many students were surprised by the paper in the exam.
‘‘This type of paper causes a loss of confidence amongst students,’’ Brooke says.
He says the level one exam should have been a welcome to NCEA to encourage students to demonstrate their skills, ‘‘be they at ‘achieved’, ‘merit’ or ‘excellence’ level’’.
NZQA has released the marking schedule for the assessment, and Brooke says it has been designed to allow most children to achieve if they managed to get a start on the questions. He says while it is a pragmatic approach by NCEA, the real question is why the tone of the paper changed in the first place.
The difficulty of the exam had parents criticising the education system, teachers threatening to boycott marking and students crying in the halls.
An NZQA spokeswoman says there are no plans to provide a reassessment and students responded as expected to the questions.
The exam was developed by ‘‘an expert team of six writers and critiquers who have a breadth of mathematics knowledge and assessment experience,’’ she says.
‘‘It creates an unnecessary stress.’’