Here’s the next one from the 2017 Year 7 test, again the calculator part. It’s not nearly as bad as the first question, but it’s so goddam lazy it really had to be included.
UPDATE (09/03/24)
We’ve just noticed that this stupid shoe question also appears in the Year 7 demo test, with a notable alteration:
The use of “proportion” here is bad, and wrong, but at least they tried.
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Why? Real life contexts should have some reason behind them. I can’t see any here.
Maybe “Express the fraction of orders which are for purple shoes as a decimal number”? Otherwise, you could argue that “this” could refer as easily to 57 or to 1000 as to 0.057.
Thanks, J.D.. The “this” is inexcusably lazy. And, as peter noted, who the hell cares anyway?
Thanks, peter. The purposelessness of such questions is standard.
At this stage, the entire numeracy thing is simply a meaningless ritual. ACARA and their fellow clowns simply do not care if the scenario makes any plausible sense, if the question is testing any solid mathematics in any coherent manner, as long as Johnny is doing something with some physical or commercial or business thing. It is all completely insane.
0.this
Very funny, although perhaps this.0 is more accurate.
I guess it depends on how many significant figures they want.
Am 100% sure such questions have mushroomed in schools since.
0.057
Most students would know anyway.
Years ago, as a freshman substituting a “competent teacher” I found a question in the test to be administered:
Find the value of x in 5/x : 15/21
The topic was – ratios
So, diplomatically, “did you mean 5 : x = 15 : 21 ?”
The former was used and most student got the right answer of 7. No issue, freshman.
Or perhaps 5/x = 15/21.
The ‘competent teacher’ had probably done several examples in class, abusing the notation in each example, so of course most students would ‘understand’ what was meant and how to play the game. I wonder what the textbook questions looked like …?
Obviously they want 7415 with a random decimal point thrown in….
I’ve updated the post.
Thanks Marty – those two links made for interesting reading that should be compulsory for anyone setting or checking a public test or examination!