Structure of the Exam (2 Viewers)

[Sy123]

The STEP papers are papers made my Cambridge that are taken by students (worldwide?) in order to get into Cambridge Mathematics.
The format of the paper is:

13 Questions:

8 Pure Mathematics

3 Mechanics

2 Probability/Stats.

You have the opportunity to pick 6 out of these 13 questions, and you will be assessed on them, each question is out of 20 marks. What is notable is that each question is fairly unique and is more problem solving based.

Disregarding the actual topics in the STEP paper, do you believe that this is a better system than the current HSC system? Also if this was the system for the HSC, what questions would you allocate to which topics (that are in the 4U syllabus).

Discuss.

 

[Sy123]

Sample Question:

 

[iBibah]

The STEP papers are papers made my Cambridge that are taken by students (worldwide?) in order to get into Cambridge Mathematics.
The format of the paper is:

13 Questions:

8 Pure Mathematics

3 Mechanics

2 Probability/Stats.

You have the opportunity to pick 6 out of these 13 questions, and you will be assessed on them, each question is out of 20 marks. What is notable is that each question is fairly unique and is more problem solving based.

Disregarding the actual topics in the STEP paper, do you believe that this is a better system than the current HSC system? Also if this was the system for the HSC, what questions would you allocate to which topics (that are in the 4U syllabus).

Discuss.

Something I have thought about before is having a section whereby the student chooses which question to answer. So the whole state may have to complete Q1-7 (old format), but in Q8 they have options to choose from. This came from the fact that performance by top students is varied by the last question, but the last question can favour students in that it is their "strong topic", bringing in an element of luck to one's final performance. This may not be very practical but it gives students an oppurtunity to bring out the best of themselves.


And if it was

 

[Sy123]

Something I have thought about before is having a section whereby the student chooses which question to answer. So the whole state may have to complete Q1-7 (old format), but in Q8 they have options to choose from. This came from the fact that performance by top students is varied by the last question, but the last question can favour students in that it is their "strong topic", bringing in an element of luck to one's final performance. This may not be very practical but it gives students an oppurtunity to bring out the best of themselves.


And if it was

Yes I agree in that top students can be differentiated luck due to whether their strong topic appears in the last question. However keep in mind that Q8 is not always the hardest.
However I would argue that at the very top this isn't the case as much.

Were you continuing your last line?

 

[iBibah]

Yes I agree in that top students can be differentiated luck due to whether their strong topic appears in the last question. However keep in mind that Q8 is not always the hardest.
However I would argue that at the very top this isn't the case as much.

Were you continuing your last line?

Sorry just ignore the last part. Also do you reckon you could send me some STEP papers, mine's downloading rather slow :/

 

[Makematics]

hmmm interesting... i wouldnt like it much, because some students who would otherwise flunk out on Q8 may have a chance to get some marks. and also if that were the case the exam would more or less be a race to get to Q8 and try each part and hopefully be able to get one. Also if there were 13 questions and you could pick 6, some students would study their hearts out for a few specific topics and not learn other topics at all, which is not what the board of studies wants. an interesting idea to consider though.

 

[Sy123]

Sorry just ignore the last part. Also do you reckon you could send me some STEP papers, mine's downloading rather slow :/

Did you look at:

http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/our-services/subject-specific/step/preparing-for-step

File sizes are quite small.

Also with regards to the content in STEP papers (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but the Mechanics and some statistics is out of the syllabus for HSC as well as some in pure mathematics.
But if a HSC student sat the STEP paper they could theoretically do the paper in full (i.e. be able to answer at least 6 questions which conforms to the HSC syllabus).

 

[iBibah]

Did you look at:

http://www.admissionstestingservice.org/our-services/subject-specific/step/preparing-for-step

File sizes are quite small.

Also with regards to the content in STEP papers (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) but the Mechanics and some statistics is out of the syllabus for HSC as well as some in pure mathematics.
But if a HSC student sat the STEP paper they could theoretically do the paper in full (i.e. be able to answer at least 6 questions which conforms to the HSC syllabus).

Oh I never knew they were given out for free, I full got a torrent haha.
thanks.

 

[SpiralFlex]

Question 1. What is wrong with our current structure besides the luck component?

Side note: They select your best score in the 6 questions even if you have answered all of them.

 

[Sy123]

Question 1. What is wrong with our current structure besides the luck component?

Too many free marks, way too much hand-holding and spoon-feeding.

 

[SpiralFlex]

But that is the content? I thought we are talking about structure? (Confusion)

 

[Sy123]

But that is the content? I thought we are talking about structure? (Confusion)

Yeah that's true. But the difference here is that incomplete answers are given very little credit, whereas in the HSC one can just pick out all the easy marks from a hard question.

 

[Carrotsticks]

Too many free marks, way too much hand-holding and spoon-feeding.

As undesirable as that may be, it is (unfortunately) something required for the state.

The number of students able to complete large questions by themselves (with no lead-up) is very small in comparison to the entire Extension 2 cohort. Training up a student to be able to do something like this would require a very competent Mathematics teacher, which is something that NSW sorely lacks at the moment. I'm not saying that they do not exist, but there are far too few of them currently.

You also have the issue that some topics are substantially easier than others.

If there was such thing as Extension 3 Mathematics, then something like this would be more suitable. However, such a thing does not exist (unfortunately!) as it would be far too imbalanced and impractical.