It’s back to the 2024 QLD Methods “Technology-free” Exam. The intended solution can be found in the marking guide (pp 16-18), and an “authentic student sample” is included in the subject report (pp 30-31).
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It’s back to the 2024 QLD Methods “Technology-free” Exam. The intended solution can be found in the marking guide (pp 16-18), and an “authentic student sample” is included in the subject report (pp 30-31).
I am wondering how a typical student prepares for such a question. On its face, it seems like a “practical application” of mathematics, but in practice i wonder if it is a kind of cookbook question that a canny teacher can practise her students on and make sure her students push the right buttons.
An examination is not an easy thing to set. While you want to get genuine information about your students, if you put anything too probing to be negotiated in a limited amount of time, you run the risk of wiping out students who probably should pass.
This sort of situation is better suited to a discussion in class perhaps followed by a student analysis based on this discussion.
I would be interested to hear how such a question on an exam looks from a teacher in the classroom perspective.
Disclaimer: I am not and never have been a teacher of the QCE, have never properly read the curriculum guide and do not pay much attention to the exam papers so will be making some assumptions here…
Issues I can see (in order from most to least serious):
1. The question is a bloody essay. 6 marks probably means 9 to 12 minutes of working time. Take away the time you need to actually read the damned question, make some assumptions (see point 2) and then actually work through the problem, potentially re-assessing said assumptions… this is just not a good question. There are some challenging words for non-English-1st-language readers too.
2. OK, maybe a sine function model is appropriate, but what this means exactly is not obvious. Does “sine function” simply mean
or does it mean 
? Why would the end of a glacier move in simple harmonic motion anyway..? This is a HUGE assumption that needs to be made and even then… why sine and not a cosine function? All of this unnecessary thinking is burning up more time that it need not if the question was better written.
3. What, exactly, does “reasonableness” mean? Maybe this is defined somewhere and perhaps it simply means “true” in this context. So if the claim is
and our calculations give 
then maybe, MAYBE, you can conclude the claim is not reasonable. HOWEVER… this could be because we chose the wrong function to model the behaviour (refer point 2).
4. Using an exact value for acceleration may be necessary given this is a non-technology paper but geez… if this is meant to be a "real world" application, using such a ridiculous acceleration value makes it all seem quite farcical.
5. “Within 270m” is not an exact measurement. It is a domain. It could mean 270m, it could also mean anything between 0 and 270. For a question that is so precise in the acceleration, this measurement seems annoyingly vague!
Thanks, RF. One need not assume anything about the QCE to conclude, as you did, that the question is utter garbage. Nice summary.
Regarding Point 3,
The syllabus outlines six objectives and thus six criteria on which students are assessed. One of these is “Evaluate the reasonableness of solutions.” Hence why on all these exams there’s a question asking students to evaluate the reasonableness of something.
The syllabus explanation follows (from the 2019 syllabus that would’ve applied to this exam, though the current 2025 version is not meaningfully different).
“When students evaluate the reasonableness of solutions, they interpret their mathematical results in the context of the situation. They reflect on whether the problem has been solved by using estimation skills and checking calculations using their knowledge of relevant facts, rules, definitions and procedures. They make an appraisal by assessing strengths, implications and limitations of solutions and/or models with and without technology, and use this to consider if alternative methods or refinements are required.”
And that, to me, is the big problem (well, one of them). How they define it and what they actually seem to want students to do are not at all the same. It’s very clear that they don’t actually expect students to do any of the above and instead simply verify whether or not something is, as you say, “true”. (Of course make sure you say it’s (un)reasonable in your answer.)