Yep, we’re just in time for the Super Bowl. (Go Seahawks, go Bad Bunny.)
This WitCH is an offshoot and instigator of our VCAA Grading Madnesses post. (And, please, you guys have to do some work.) It is more properly a PoSWW, but it may cause a little confusion or argument, so let’s go with “WitCH”.
The following question part, 4(f)(ii) (Jesus), is from 2025 Mathematical Methods Exam 2. In 4(f)(i), the tangent function/line to 
at 
is determined to be,
.
(The superfluous and idiotic brackets are VCAA’s.)
The students are then asked:
Then we have the assessment guide and report (W,I)):
Go for it.
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The y-intercept is a point on a 2D plane.
How can the y-intercept have a maximum value?
The report suggests the students were required to give an answer to a question that was not asked.
In a nutshell.
In summary,
1) VCAA’s examiners asked a question that made no sense.
2) Then, VCAA’s examiners penalised students who (for whatever reason) answered the non-sensical question in a manner entirely consistent with the nonsense, and with arguably the best answer.
Yep. I should have added that they seem to have got hammered for doing the best they could. 😢
Yes. Probably by accident. But not certainly by accident, and it doesn’t matter. VCAA screwed up, VCAA should have worn the responsibility and of course, being the assholes they are, they did not.
I’m note sure what you’re looking for here Marty. The question seems ok [and saying this, I feel nervous] – they even restricted to the to the open set for allowed values of
for the tangent line.
The report specifies exact, but they still pay 1 mark to people giving an approx answer – that it’s to 1dp might be to accommodate those who used a slider (and nothing else) to explore the tangent line 🤮
and 
were paid any marks – it’s pretty obvious one is positive and one is negative and thus max and min. It’s also not clear if the people who gave their answer in pairs 
would be paid any marks – even though it clearly indicates understanding.
The report is also pretty strange – just stating “Some had the minimum value as 1” doesn’t help to explain what error/misunderstanding was made. It’s not clear if the people who gave coordinates, I assume
I’ve attached the quick solutions I wrote up last year – I was not teaching methods, so didn’t spend much time on the exam. I did help a lot of students set up Lazy Math on the CAS during their exam prep, so did look at where that could be useful in answering the exam questions.
2025 VCAA MM Exam 2 Solutions – STY
Jesus, Simon.
It’s not the main point of the post, but you gotta realise that the intrinsically good question is entirely fucked by CAS. Of course. This is all just garbage. Fucking sliders? My God. This is all insanity. Fucking CAS has to fucking go.
But the point of the post is that VCAA’s question makes no fucking sense, and THEN they penalised students who answered correctly consistent with that nonsense.
Fuck them.
I think the intent of the question was clear – but the marking scheme implied by the report (it was not very explicit in the assessment guide around labelling min/max and allowing coords etc) was too harsh.
VCAA did say “values” and want a min/max of the y-intercept, which implies a number not a coordinate. But it it is clunky.
How would you reword it? Maybe have the tangent line
and ask for the max/min values of 
over the allowed set of 
? Or ask for the “ordinate” instead of “value”? Template the answer with “min y_int = ___” etc. Or just have more flexible marking scheme.
Regarding CAS and sliders – I was probably reading too much into the 1dp. Re CAS and Lazy Math – yeah, it’s crazy and has further broken the assessments. But I do the best I can for my students at the moment. Don’t really want to go further here on computational tools in mathematics & education
AAAAGHHH!
You cannot possibly argue BOTH that VCAA’s “intent was clear” AND be remotely comfortably with VCAA’s penalising students when their “intent” was very equivalently clear.
Yes, the grading was “harsh”, which it would have been anyway. Who gives a shit whether a kid writes the point or the coordinate? But that is just par for VCAA’s idiotic anal course. What VCAA has done here is way beyond harsh. It is hypocritical, nasty and basically insane.
No, I’m not saying that. The question was clear enough.
The marking scheme that we’re inferring from the report is cruel.
They are written by different people.
If I got marked down for giving my answer in coordinate form or not explicitly saying that 1+pi > 1 – 2pi I would be rightfully pissed.
Do we know that students were actually penalised for this?
Yes, to the coordinate thing. I have no idea about the distinguishing min and max thing, although I don’t know that I am bothered by that. (You can convince me otherwise.)
You’re saying ‘yes’ you know a student that was penalised for giving the y-intercept as coordinates – or an assessor that was made to penalise students? Then yes, I agree that’s not acceptable and definitely support your efforts to shine a light and fix it.
You also should have lead with that.
Someone who lost marks here and missed out on an academic scholarship by a 1-2 ATAR points might have standing…
I will probably lead with a worse one, from General Mathematics …
*do not agree
Simon, you said, “The question was clear enough.”
The fact I do not agree with this statement really does not matter.
What matters is your answer to this question: Could it have, with minimal effort, been perfectly clear?
Less likely to experience any marking silliness if it was.
Not to mention it would have been better for the kids off the bat.
And not to mention that the question, although perhaps “clear enough”, was wrong.
Anyone “can see” the tangent being the steapest at points mentioned.
But is this enough for the subject to be called “mathematical methods”? ‘Mathematical methods by eye’ perhaps.
Now we need to address the claim it is incorrect.
N.B. y-int should have a dual meaning: the value where the curve cuts y-axis OR such point
I’m happy with the dual meaning. I’m not happy with one meaning on the 6th of November and another meaning on the 7th.
I don’t think you could argue anyone competent misunderstood the intent of the question. The fact(?) that the chief examiner settled on a marking scheme that penalised people and lead to “marking silliness” is the main issue. And it’s easy to imagine a marking culture that would never think to penalise correctly supplied coordinates to this qquestion.
But on the issue of the question. How would you reword the question to improve it? [Things have improved in some questions in the VCAA exams, so maybe some question writers read the blog and we could help them out!]
I don’t think you could argue anyone competent misunderstood the intent of an answer that answered with points rather than coordinates.
What’s the difference between a point and a coordinate?
Edit, 10 seconds after I hit Reply: Just realised that a coordinate would be either of the two values in a set of coordinates, e.g. 3 or 2 in (3,2). So, probably disregard this comment.
No worries, Confused. Yes, the y-coordinate of the point (3,4) would be 4.
The underlying issue with the exam question is that, when discussing intercepts (which are points), there’s not a hell of a lot of difference between the point/intercept (0,4) and the coordinate 4. People confuse the two all the time.
The specific issue with the exam question is that VCAA asked (INVALIDLY) for the intercept/point BUT expected the answer to be the y-coordinate, and THEN penalised students who answered with the point.
This is, of course, indefensible (except by Simon).
“This is, of course, indefensible (except by Simon).”
Don’t misrepresent me Marty. In my very first comment I said “It’s not clear if the people who gave coordinates… were paid any marks”
It was at that point you could have confirmed you knew they hadn’t been and that the marking was dickishly strict. Then there would have been less beating around the bush.
The common language around points sucks. Points have / are represented by coordinates in coordinate system. The “ordinate” is the y-coordinate of the point while the never used “abscissa” is the x-coordinate. Just saying “coordinate” can mean either x or y and “coordinate pair/tuple” is the ordered pair that represents the point.
The question tried to be clear by using the *value* of the y-intercept – and I think that is good enough – provided the marking scheme does not punish different reasonable interpretations.
Category error.
Perhaps a wording something like this would have made for a better outcome.
Determine the minimum value and maximum value of
Thanks, Storyteller. I might nitpick, but your version is obviously a hell of a lot better than VCAA’s, which is wrong and not remotely “good enough”.
Curious as to what warranted such pedantry in the first place by? Thought VCAA was adopting a “we’re here to give marks not take them away” stance…..Should let real mathematicians write exams (or atleast vet more thoroughly if they think that’s relinquishing control) rather letting some teacher under the guise of “Chief Assessor” create a nutbag marking scheme.
Thanks, MO23.
Re, “we’re here to give marks not take them away”, this is what is known as a lie.
As to the origins of this pedantry, I am honestly not sure. I think it probably evolved naturally, as the curriculum became thinner and CAS-perverted, and as the writers and assessors (once the mathematicians were kicked out), and thus the exams, became shallower and stupider: “we have to distinguish the little monsters on *something*”.
Such misplaced pedantry is also anything but rare. There are *many* teachers who actually care about such distinctions, beyond the concern that VCAA cares. Secondary schools are rife with ritual.
I do not know much about the current writing/vetting of the exams. It has improved dramatically since the mathematicians came on board but, still, wonkiness occurs. Mostly, a little wonkiness is unavoidable and no big deal (although, for example the velocity MCQ and the right angle velocity question were bad oversights). For the question here, I am honestly not too fussed with VCAA asking for a “maximum intercept”. It is clunky, and wrong, but it’s no big deal. What *is* a big deal is VCAA’s hypocrisy. And VCAA’s dickishness (but that is standard).
As for the marking scheme and the assessing, my understanding is that this is a two-part debacle. First, I am not sure that the marking scheme has much mathematician oversight. Secondly, the marking scheme can only be a guide to the reality of the marking, and I believe that the marking has *zero* mathematician oversight.
(Truth be told, plenty of mathematicians, particularly pure mathematicians, can also be anal retentive assholes. But the assessing would *have* to improve with proper oversight.)
I have often noticed the confusion between “intercept as a point”, “the coordinates of the intercept”, and “the value of the intercept”.
Of course. And it’s no big deal. Unless some dickish curriculum authority gets it wrong and then penalises the students for getting it more right.
I took a course in Polish once; the teacher said that, in Polish, they use the same word for borrow and lend; the context makes the difference clear.
It feels like there should be a Russian joke there, but I can’t think of it.
I can help with Russian (or perhaps soviet) joke about a choice.
When comrade Mishkin complained about the lack of choice of dishes in factory canteen, inspectors were told it was not true, there was a choice, comrade could eat or not eat.
In English, one take out a loan , one can issue a loan… would that be the case of Polish language?
Also , i think in Polish they distinguish between equality and equation,i.e. you can not solve 1+2=3.
Such statement is equality.
Equation must have at least 1 unknown.
Probably also inequation vs inequality. Anyone here familiar with this?
Back to intercepts: if y-int (0, 7) is labelled on a graph as 7 , is this incorrect?
Famous “label axes intercepts with coordinates” comes to my mind.
Because you know, if a student writes just 7, he/she clearly must be incompetent.
The context changes the ending of the word. Lend is pożyczać and borrow is pożyczyć.
“Determine the maximum and minimum values of the y-coordinate of the y-intercept of y = t(x), …”
easily fixes the issue. The issue should have been picked up and fixed in the proof reading of the exam.
Given that students have to eat what’s on the plate, I 100% agree that the marking scheme should have been more flexible in what was an acceptable answer.
When it comes to VCAA, ‘Physician, heal thyself’ comes to mind.
Thanks, John. Your wording works, but the “the y-coordinate of the y-intercept” is heavy. I think it’s probably better to go Storyteller’s route and give the coordinate a name.
As to your two “should”s of VCAA, of course I agree. But there are other “should”s and i think this is compartmentalising the problem(s) way too much. The issues are systemic. Think Robodebt.