Students abandoning 2u maths (2 Viewers)

[Rafy]

http://www.smh.com.au/national/educ...mp-courses-in-2unit-maths-20131105-2wzdm.html


Students are abandoning the more complex 2-unit HSC maths course in favour of the simpler ''general'' course in an attempt to maximise their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), but then find themselves ill-equipped to cope at university, teachers have warned.

 

[Lina3]

A spokeswoman for the Board of Studies said the 2-unit paper did not seek to discriminate between those doing only that course and those doing extension mathematics. She also acknowledged the changes to the structure in the past two years but said this was not intended to make the paper harder.

Yup....if you say so.

I am glad they at lease acknowledge the HSC paper is the problem. If they want anything to change, that's where they need to start.

 

[nerdasdasd]

GG for the future of Australian education.

 

[twinklegal19]

Students are abandoning the more complex 2-unit HSC maths course in favour of the simpler ''general'' course in an attempt to maximise their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR)

Clearly they have never heard of scaling before

 

[Makematics]

lol this is shit, fkn smh

 

[obliviousninja]

Students are abandoning the more complex 2-unit HSC maths course in favour of the simpler ''general'' course in an attempt to maximise their Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR), but then find themselves ill-equipped to cope at university, teachers have warned.

Lol, more complex?

Clearly they have never heard of scaling before

+1

 

[nerdasdasd]

Good for us 2U students... better scaling. Soon enough, the scaling of 2U will be BOSS like 3U because it is "hard".

 

[enoilgam]

Personally I found 2 unit to be a big jump from Year 10, but I dont think it's difficult per se. The problem is that for an average person, it does take a fair bit of effort to get on top of the work and achieve a decent mark. A lot of people who start out in 2U bail out quick because it looks too difficult and they arent willing to put in the effort required.

 

[RealiseNothing]

This is why we can't have nice things.

 

[Crobat]

Just going to copy paste my comment on the article when it posted up on SMH Students.

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I think the key words in this article are "partly to blame" in that our generation is more humanities orientated than strictly business/commerce and that kind of stuff orientated so naturally, enrolment in maths would drop following the shifting interests.

But even so, the solution to making sure students do not struggle with the higher levels of maths in university is not going to be in making the lower foundation levels of maths exams easier. A student who has a good grasp of the principles of maths and basic problem solving skills will be able to approach the exam regardless of what questions there will be, because 1. the exam won't ask anything outside of the syllabus and 2. that grasp of the principles is paramount to success in maths. It's an incredibly strange case of warped logic to suggest that making high school maths easier will help students succeed in the harder university maths, and that's the kind of trap that people aren't acknowledging when they say the HSC is "too hard" now for all sorts of subjects. I can't see the logic in blaming the Board of Studies for trying to make exams harder and thus demand more diligence and dedication from students, which in every regard is for their own benefit as the workload of university is easily tenfold more demanding than that of high school. A lot of students struggle in their transition from high school to university because all of a sudden, you aren't spoon-fed information anymore and you have to learn to apply yourself, work/learn independently, and adapt. How is making high school easier going to help students learn to cope with university for one, and more importantly in the real working environments that are inherently more demanding and require personal commitment/efficiency? Students need to learn and embrace hard-work and efficacy early on, so that university isn't a struggle and so that they know how to handle themselves in the real world.

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Also I agree that the jump from Year 10 math to 2u is retardedly big, and that's kind of the problem with the high school syllabuses at the moment imo because I for one (probably of the many) basically gave up on maths after that until I got a tutor and just applied myself properly. But if students are struggling with the harder uni math, I honestly don't understand how having students admitted into uni with even less of an understanding of maths than currently is going to help them not struggle with uni maths in the future...

 

[nerdasdasd]

So true, and I heard that many people at my school in year 11 are dropping to general because of feedback from the year 12's of how difficult the paper was. Funny you mention how this situation was paramount right now as I did my Maths exam on Monday and OMG... It was the most retarded paper I've ever seen. Half of the stuff we learnt in class wasn't in the actual exam, wtf? But hey, we were given the topics to revise, however they weren't very specific. I guess it all comes down to how much work you're willing to put in Mathematics because yes, it's a big step up from Year 10.

P.S. How the hell can you be so articulate and write with such sophistication?

I know that effort is an important factor but what happened to the quote, "when the tough gets going, the going gets tough", does this even apply anymore?

So every time there is something hard, you go down to something easier and take the easy way out? I think not.

 

[Kiraken]

But what happened to the quote, "when the tough gets going, the going gets tough", does this even apply anymore?

So every time there is something hard, you go down to something easier and take the easy way out? I think not.

i thought it was "when the going gets tough the tough get going?"

 

[nerdasdasd]

i thought it was "when the going gets tough the tough get going?"

Yes that .. Haha.

 

[Crobat]

So true, and I heard that many people at my school in year 11 are dropping to general because of feedback from the year 12's of how difficult the paper was. Funny you mention how this situation was paramount right now as I did my Maths exam on Monday and OMG... It was the most retarded paper I've ever seen. Half of the stuff we learnt in class wasn't in the actual exam, wtf? But hey, we were given the topics to revise, however they weren't very specific. I guess it all comes down to how much work you're willing to put in Mathematics because yes, it's a big step up from Year 10.

P.S. How the hell can you be so articulate and write with such sophistication?

Definitely this. But then again, you wouldn't really want to be tested on everything you learnt in a year, especially not in a semester in uni. That exam would take like 6 hours
I think the key to revising for maths kind of lies in also learning to figure out what the question is actually asking (more than it is just sitting and revising the content again, though that is important too) which is why I think problem solving is also necessary. I think there's a point when revising maths isn't effective any more since you've learnt the content to the extent where the process is kind of second nature... that is once you've figured out WHEN to apply the knowledge.

And I'm really not that sophisticated... I think it's all just smoke and mirrors when it comes to my writing tbh
Pretty sure most people would be able to vouch for this

 

[Crobat]

I think that's the problem for me, whenever I find these type of questions where you have to use your problem solving skills... I crumble. I don't know why but I just found the paper a bitch to me and I barely finished it anyway. I just don't know how I'm gonna cope in Mathematics next year considering I'm doing 5.2 right now...

Best not to write yourself out before you even start. Problem solving isn't really that hard. In fact, it's probably a lot easier in maths because there are rules and laws that correspond to the shape they give you and the scenario so you can sort of use logic from there to figure it out.

 

[Kiraken]

I know this is going to sound a bit dickheaded but in all honesty i think most of the students opting for genral instead of 2u are in fact capable of doing decently in 2u if they apply themselves. This raises the question, why aren't they applying themselves? There are several possibilities such as:

1. Perhaps a reduced work ethic and laziness, taking the "easy route" of general mathematics. This might be augmented by a genuine lack of understanding of how scaling etc. works (due to a lack of explanation by teachers for example), leading them to believe a marginally better mark in general is going to lead to a higher ATAR.
2. It could also be an issue with how the course is run at a particular school, are more accessible topics introduced first to ease a student into the course? Does starting with a more difficult topic serve to discourage the student from continuing with a course that at first glance seems too hard?
3. It can also be due to, as the article suggests, a much harder 2u exam this year. This could have led to older students dissuading younger students from doing the course. Iirc the format of the HSC mathematics exams has changed a bit in recent years so perhaps it might take one or two years to adjust the difficulty of the exam? In which case these students should have considered that by the time they do their HSC it is likely to be a fairer exam.

 

[anomalousdecay]

"He said the 2-unit exam had become excessively difficult, with many questions pitched beyond the abilities of students studying that course and designed to differentiate them from those studying the ''extension mathematics'' courses.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/warning-as-pupils-dump-courses-in-2unit-maths-20131105-2wzdm.html#ixzz2jqcyBeKS"

This guy has never heard of alignment. You can still get good marks without actually answering every single question. You don't have to answer every single question. And a 2-unit student can do every one of those questions if they try harder.

They may as well be attacking other subjects like English. Its like saying that just because only 2% of 2-unit advanced students get b6 and 8% of b6 do ext.english.

Any way as a 2-unit student who does well, you should be happy. To be able to say that you were in the top 2% of your specific english cohort is much more enlightening than saying you were in the top 8% of your specific english cohort.

So in 2-unit, you can still do the questions.

SMH articles are sometimes bull****.

 

[anomalousdecay]

Personally I found 2 unit to be a big jump from Year 10, but I dont think it's difficult per se. The problem is that for an average person, it does take a fair bit of effort to get on top of the work and achieve a decent mark. A lot of people who start out in 2U bail out quick because it looks too difficult and they arent willing to put in the effort required.

Same here. But here's the thing, the years 9 and 10 maths syllabus was basically the whole general course.

 

[Crobat]

"He said the 2-unit exam had become excessively difficult, with many questions pitched beyond the abilities of students studying that course and designed to differentiate them from those studying the ''extension mathematics'' courses.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/warning-as-pupils-dump-courses-in-2unit-maths-20131105-2wzdm.html#ixzz2jqcyBeKS"

This guy has never heard of alignment. You can still get good marks without actually answering every single question. You don't have to answer every single question. And a 2-unit student can do every one of those questions if they try harder.

They may as well be attacking other subjects like English. Its like saying that just because only 2% of 2-unit advanced students get b6 and 8% of b6 do ext.english.

Any way as a 2-unit student who does well, you should be happy. To be able to say that you were in the top 2% of your specific english cohort is much more enlightening than saying you were in the top 8% of your specific english cohort.

So in 2-unit, you can still do the questions.

SMH articles are sometimes bull****.

Hahaha last year they did attack English, and last year's English exam, particularly Belonging, had been the easiest of them all at that stage!

And yeah... some of them are actual horseshit.

 

[polony]

Before giving up on maths at school, please think long term:

- A lot of courses at uni require some maths to get in, but require more maths to do the course. These courses often have much higher fail rates for students who did not do hard maths at school. A lot of units at uni have average marks of fail, despite lots of students withdrawing before failing.

- If your uni course ends up with research requirements, this can require you to learn a lot of maths. At this level, you would be working closely with experienced academics who can smell bulldust if you do not know what you are talking about. In some industries, you need post graduate studies that include research that is written in statistics (maths) for you to be employable beyond the level of a lab tech.

- A lot of extremely well paying specialisations in various jobs, ranging from geology to finance, require a lot of maths. This makes you potentially very valuable if you are numerate.

- A lot of jobs, such as anything using Excel ranging from accounting to management in some organisations, are easier if you are numerate. This can help you perform far better than less numerate peers and help you remain employed during the next recession. Some employers do not reduce their graduate recruitment in years that are bad for their industry, but just over-recruit graduates then cull. Being unusually numerate would help you avoid being culled.

- On the positive side of things, there is a massive range in how people perform in various careers. Climbing the greasy pole of success faster than your peers, or going past the second rung of the ladder in some industries, requires having a lot more ability than average. Being very numerate helps you have this ability. Its rude and life is often not fair, but there are industries where some people with ten years experience are partners earning over $300,000AUD per annum, while other people with ten years experience still earn under $100,000AUD per annum. Do you want life to be unfair in your favour?

- For a lot of people, learning maths is much harder when you are older. If you think you are busy now, imagine what it would be like if your life also involves a family, a mortgage, a job where you are personally responsible for some things and consequently sometimes work very long hours, and ultimatums from your spouse requiring you to see your family during daylight.

- Polite people don't mention maths in public, but maths is very useful for understanding lots of things that are not work related, but potentially very valuable. For example, banks use maths when deciding whether to give you a loan. More lucratively, maths helps you understand financial markets and other investment markets, helping you achieve a much higher rate of return in comparison to risk, when investing. If a few more people were numerate enough to raise questions when financial rocket surgeons tried selling them complicated stuff with really nasty details hidden in gibberish, the global financial crisis would have hurt them less.

about me: Chartered Accountant with a maths degree.