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Royal Society of Chemistry Slams UK Exam Standards
cheesethegreat writes "The Royal Society of Chemistry has sharply criticized the 'catastrophically' falling standards for UK school exams in the sciences. The RSC had 1,300 highly achieving students take an exam made up of questions taken from the last 50 years. The students averaged an appalling 15% on 'hard' numerical questions set in the 1960s, but managing much higher marks on the more recent 'soft' non-numerical questions. This latest report has garnered mainstream media attention. The RSC has also created a petition on the UK Prime Minister's official website, calling for urgent intervention to halt the slide, which has garnered over 3,000 signatures. The issue of declining exam standards has been an ongoing concern in the UK, with allegations that exam results have been manipulated by the government to increase pass rates and meet its own targets."
Dear AC,
Please don't conceal your identity, we wish to crown you our Emperor.
yes, the Cambridge exams have become harder over the years! I have looked at the first ever Maths exam in our library records and the questions were basically, if you have a room x by y by z, how many tiles would you need to tile it. The fact that calculus didn't even exist when the first exam was set probably suggests something.
Nothing to see here.
There, it has come at last; Britain is now ruled by a "parliamentary idiocracy."
The following examples may help to clarify the difference between the new and old math.
1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of this price. What is his profit?
1970 (Traditional math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. What is his profit?
1975 (New Math): A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100 and each element is worth $1.
(a) make 100 dots representing the elements of the set M
(b) The set C representing costs of production contains 20 fewer points than set M. Represent the set C as a subset of the set M.
(c) What is the cardinality of the set P of profits?
1990 (Dumbed-down math): A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20. Underline the number 20.
1997 (Whole Math): By cutting down a forest full of beautiful trees, a logger makes $20.
(a) What do you think of this way of making money?
(b) How did the forest birds and squirrels feel?
(c) Draw a picture of the forest as you'd like it to look.
I left school the year before they merged GCE (General Certificate of Education) and CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education) into GCSE.
The CSE syllabus was taught to those who were less academically capable (as evidenced by their past results). In my opinion, GCE taught how to calculate an answer, whereas CSE taught how to recognise an answer from a group of candidates. But that wasn't "fair" so everybody had to learn at the lowest common level.
That is the problem.
I do have experience of both types as although I did GCEs at school, I also went to college to learn car mechanics where I had to take basic English (Communication Skills) and Maths (Numeracy) as part of the course. Having already got GCEs in both, I pissed the college courses with distinctions. The top grade in CSE was only ever a C in GCE. The laughable thing from this recent article is that you can pass with around a 20% score.
Translations for the old farts out there:
Accidemic - an accidental epidemic
Ashamaned - cursed into submission by a shaman
Revolation - volatile relations
Hope that helps...
I went to a selective school - called a "grammar school" - which took the top 20% of the population based on a mixed IQ/attainment test. I was then in the top set for maths and the three sciences - so that's the top 5%.
Waiiiiiittt -- What're those funny circle-line-circle symbols after the numbers?
"Hydrogen is composed of one Proton, one Neutron and one Electron. The proton and neutron are in the centre of the atom, while the electron orbits them. How do you think the electron feels about this?"
Distinctly charged. But, at times feels it could use a higher energy light source in order to raise its potential. And the constant moving about that central point now knowing exactly where it is and how fast it is supposed to move makes for uncertainty.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Here's my answer:
The Electron finds itself full of negativity, despite feeling an attraction toward the Proton; however, the Proton is distant and closely attached to the Neutron, and the Electron uncertain about itself, possibly on account of constant travel. Sometimes an outside influence, which feels like a flash of light, raises it to new spheres, so to speak, and at those times it is full of energy, but the feeling is short-lived and dissipates in a radiant burst of activity, and the usual negativity resumes.
Usage: km/h for speed (kilometers per hour); kph for very slow impulses (kilopond hours).
I'm sick of this "Kids in the 1950s were smarter than today" rubbish. I know that these old accidemics studied back then and want to feel smart but making kids feel dumb today is wrong and they should feel ashamaned.
Let me break it down for them and you:
- Kids in the 1950s did not study what we study today
- Kids today did not study what kids studied back in the 1950s
I know this is a shocking revolation but still true. If possible I would love to see what would happen if you sat a 1950s kid down in front of a 2008 exam, my guess is the results would be similar.
The only school subject which might be the same between the 1950s and today is Maths. But even then there is less focus on doing long calculations on the page and more using a calculator.
You can claim that doing them on the calculator is dumbing people down but I think voluntarily spending five minutes and likely introducing errors already makes you fairly dumb given an alternative.
"Kids today did not study what kids studied back in the 1950s"
Correct. Many of them studied spelling.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
Well it sounds like this is a deuterium that self-identifies as hydrogen. Has it already undergone the isotope reassignment surgery?
I hope that it isn't so conflicted that it starts experimenting with ionization.
Think of the electron!