Project Maths: Too much English?

RianF2

So I had my Christmas test for Maths today and was expecting to do some tasks that involved calculating sums, instead I was hit with what was basically an English exam. Is there too much English in this course? It also seems to be too opinion based which is a pain in the arse if you get an examiner who doesn't agree with your point. What do you guys think? My rant is over for now :P

spurious

It's one of the big problems students (and teachers of students) with reading difficulties have with it - also students for whom English is not their first language. They may well understand the maths and the concepts, but don't have the English skills to interpret the question correctly or formulate an 'acceptable' answer.

user.name

spurious wrote: »

It's one of the big problems students (and teachers of students) with reading difficulties have with it - also students for whom English is not their first language. They may well understand the maths and the concepts, but don't have the English skills to interpret the question correctly or formulate an 'acceptable' answer.

Yes but also in the new maths course in topics like statistics especially you have to write defintions to different types of sampling plus answer why the result is how it is etc oh and who cant forget the lovely questions on shapes of distrubtions
its not hard .. Just really annoying :P

Blondini

Agreed.

I have a very weak 3rd year JCSP class and am very concerned about their prospects.

I have raised this point at inservice days but my concerns were fobbed-off.

aarond280

It's a disgrace what they have done to the course, it was once a maths test now its like an english test with some maths. Bullsh*t but sure what can ya do only do it, if ya want proper now, ya may go do applied maths :P

little sis...

definitely! I know a person who got 93% in paper 1 and only 32% in paper 2 because of all the english....

Apocladagr0

From a maths perspective, what good is being able to work on a whole bunch of figures without context?

Real life requires you to understand fully what is going on, and a lot of the questions they ask test this understanding really well - much better than a purely numerical & variable question would.

I'm absolutely disastrous at English but fairly good at maths, and I think that the new syllabus tests our understanding much more effectively than the old syllabus. I guarantee that there will never be an "opinion based" question in any maths test and the examiner will never be able to just agree/disagree with your point and decide what marks to give you. Its always based on something mathematical e.g. For a question about average salaries within a company:

"Which measure of central tendency do you think the company should use in the report? Explain your reasoning."

and you are given a choice between mean, median and mode while the set of salaries is
{25000, 30000, 40000, 44000, 370000}
You would simply be wrong to say to use the mean, despite it being your opinion no matter how well argued it is. They're usually just looking for a very specific phrase that shows you understand a particular concept - in this example by saying that the median is the one to pick, because there is no mode and the mean is heavily affected by the outlier of the manager/boss/CEO, 370000.

In fairness though I hate statistics, I don't consider it to be maths at all.:rolleyes:

Also what do I know about maths past secondary school? To me it just seems unrealistic that engineers/physicists/accountants etc would be presented with purely figures and variables. Their problems always have context, which is why I'm glad that this prepares us in the more relevant way.

It might seem harder, but everyone has to do it so we're not affected by the increased difficulty.

Its fairer in a way too. Remember back in first / second year (cant remember exactly) when we were taught algebra? All those people not having a clue what they were being asked but getting away with just factorising & simplifying for far too long based on "the look" of a question without having a clue why. Maths isn't just being about able to manipulate xyz but you actually have to understand why you're doing something.

In app. maths there are good number of wordy questions. Frequently over 95% of a question can be words. Only after answering those kinds of questions does one really appreciate how much better you need to understand a concept compared to answering a question where the numbers are all laid out nicely and spoonfed to us...

Brendan1234

Apocladagr0 wrote: »

In app. maths there are good number of wordy questions. Frequently over 95% of a question can be words. Only after answering those kinds of questions does one really appreciate how much better you need to understand a concept compared to answering a question where the numbers are all laid out nicely and spoonfed to us...

I do applied maths, and I agree that the way the applied maths questions are asked requires you to have a good understanding of the subject, but the answers that you are expected to give are still all numbers, aside from having to give the direction of a vector, which still only involves one word :P Also they don't ask you for an opinion on anything and it is very clear what kind of answer the examiner is looking for.
However, in the case of project maths I find that a lot of the time I don't know what they are looking for as an answer. I think it's in this year's SEC sample paper (paper 1, section and there's one question where the first part is labelled "initial exploration". I mean what do I have to write down to what extent do I have to go in order to get full marks there ? Sometimes this project maths is ridiculous :P

MathsManiac

Brendan1234 wrote: »

....
I think it's in this year's SEC sample paper (paper 1, section and there's one question where the first part is labelled "initial exploration". I mean what do I have to write down to what extent do I have to go in order to get full marks there ?
...

Well, you might consider doing what the question actually asks you to do: "Start by exploring some particular cases, and then attempt to answer the questions that follow, with justification." After this instruction, they then give you some space to start exploring some particular cases. I don't really see what the problem is. The exploration gives you a handle on what's going on, to give you a good chance of figuring out the questions. You try out a few cases, counting the edge pieces and interior pieces, and see if you see any patterns. Then get stuck into the questions.

Anyway, I'm surprised if you haven't been doing this kind of activity regularly in class for a good while. It's been a significant focus of teacher in-service.

As far as the exam is concerned, you should concentrate on doing what you are asked to do, and let the examiners worry about how to mark it fairly. They are all teachers, and are pretty experienced at what they do.

brownstone

RianF2 wrote: »

So I had my Christmas test for Maths today and was expecting to do some tasks that involved calculating sums, instead I was hit with what was basically an English exam. Is there too much English in this course? It also seems to be too opinion based which is a pain in the arse if you get an examiner who doesn't agree with your point. What do you guys think? My rant is over for now :P

I did the leaving last year so we were the first year of project maths. It was a disaster! I spent more time trying to understand the story behind the supposed question then I did answering. I regret keeping maths now, because I spent too much time on it but like if your good at it :P

jamesbondings

i disagree with most of the posts,

i went back to school to do the leaving cert after a 6 year break. i found everything easy enough except maths.
mocks in january failed paper 1 and did enough in paper two to secure an overall pass. i had maths written off in my mind as a fail, and after the real paper one it cemented this idea, however paper 2 i found to be handy, in saying that i didnt answer all the questions because i just didnt know the answers. its using your head and loads of attempt marks on offer.

ended up scraping a d out of it and was thoroughly delighted!

my advice is stay till the death of the allotted time, even if you answer all the questions and blag your hole off youwill get alot of attempt marks, and even the odd question right!

i hate maths ........(went on to do a business degree with economics)
nightmare

pajero12

little sis... wrote: »

definitely! I know a person who got 93% in paper 1 and only 32% in paper 2 because of all the english....

There wasn't that much "English" in that paper, That student most likely couldn't get their heads around the applications of maths in the paper!

little sis...

pajero12 wrote: »

There wasn't that much "English" in that paper, That student most likely couldn't get their heads around the applications of maths in the paper!

No it was because their first language wasn't english so it was hard for them to understand what was being asked and the long english explanations didn't help much either, whereas in paper 1 there was just straight forward questions that rarely change in appearance and were recognizable.

I guess the new project maths suits some people and not others.
I personally don't mind it that much and if I'm struggling, I'll know that a lot of other people probably are too, we're all in the same boat.

MegGustaa

You have to read and interpret wordy questions in every other subject - including Applied Maths - already, why does everyone have such a problem with it being included in Maths? I cringed every time I saw someone referring to the Project Maths papers as "practically English exams" during the 2012 LC; by that logic the Chemistry exam was an English exam, as was the Biology, and History, and French.

The relative dearth of exam papers/decent resources to practice and develop the relevant skills with, and the ambiguity of wording in certain questions are definitely problems. The concept of requiring students to interpret and understand questions rather than having to simply recognise a type of question and regurgitate a pre-learned method and formulae is not something I object to at all.

Gody

The people arguing for Project Maths merely confirm the case against it. One writes an essay - though saying they don't like English.

The other hates maths and passed thanks to all the 'effort marks' that go with Project maths.

This curriculum change is driven by ideology rather than love of maths

The one subject that some non-verbal people could excel in is now taken away .

Why? - because some well meaning people think we all should be able to do maths equally.

Gody

MegGustaa wrote: »

You have to read and interpret wordy questions in every other subject - including Applied Maths - already, why does everyone have such a problem with it being included in Maths? .

There, the words are only those necessary to state the problem.

Here the words are used to mask the problem. Horrendously turgid and patronizing paragraphs about Marteen's morgage plans and Pavel's pension planning, all put in there because if they stated the problem simply any fool could slot the numbers into the formulae - revealing, as other posters have said, that this is not maths at all.

This is about neutering maths. This is about ensuring that the one subject where verbal skills was not a paramount advantage is broken.

Why? Because some trendy new orthodoxy has it that all are equally talented at all things; that therefore we need to trip up those who excel and make them realize it's uncivilized to excel. It's just the same as they've done in art - more marks for the process and the steps than for a product. So a gifted artist who just produces a work of art will get less marks than someone like me who loyally offers up all of my atrocious preparation work.

This is stuffed up thinking my friends. People too long out of the real world come up with this kind of road to hell stuff.

Gody

With all due respect, the length and elegance of your post gives the lie to your suggestion that you don't like English. There are some students who really really don't like to have to sift through a camouflage of words (not necessary words), who really do find it hard.

thisguy145

I've just done my mocks and its ridiculous. There were questions where I had to give my opinion to why a bus had students on it? Like I thought maths was numbers not express my opinions.....