We were alerted to this one by Simon the Likeable. It is a question from the QCAA 2025 Mathematical Methods Paper 2, together with the marking guide. (It may more properly be a PoSWW, but every time someone throws one of these stats questions at me, my brain tries to flee my body and so I can never properly judge.)
Tag: QCAA
Is South Australia Stupider than Queensland?
Readers may have noticed the occasional post here whacking VCAA and, more generally, Victorian mathematics education. Why? One reason is simply that Melbourne is my home town; it is where I grew up and to where I returned, thirty years ago. So, I simply know much more about Victoria’s maths ed idiocy. Also, I still have the memory of a time when things were not so idiotic here, when a lower-middle class public school kid could compete almost fairly with Polo Grammarians because he had good textbooks based upon a sane curriculum assessed in a sane manner and with it all delivered by properly educated and unencumbered teachers. I am not simply appalled by VCAA and its circus of fellow traveller idiots, I am actively furious at them for their ignorance and arrogance and incompetence, for their denying to today’s shitkicker kids the opportunity I and many others were given.
Continue reading “Is South Australia Stupider than Queensland?”
WitCH 148: Scoot
This is the last in our series of 2024 QLD Methods whacks (unless someone flags something else). This one is from the 2024 QLD Methods “Technology-active” Exam. The intended solution can be found in the marking guide (pp 33); the subject report appears to say nothing about the question. Continue reading “WitCH 148: Scoot”
WitCH 147: Ice in Their Vains
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). Continue reading “WitCH 147: Ice in Their Vains”
WitCH 146: Unsporting
Following on from yesterday’s PoSWW, here is a WitCH with plenty of words. It is again from the 2024 QLD Methods “Technology-free” Exam. The intended solution can be found in the marking guide (p 7), but I could not locate anything in the subject report on how students performed. Continue reading “WitCH 146: Unsporting”
PoSWW 49: De-Meaning
OK, VCAA, you can take a little rest. We’re going to pick on other states for a bit, beginning with Queensland. A colleague has alerted us to some nonsenses in the 2024 QLD Methods “Technology-free” Exam (MCQ and short answer), and here is the first nonsense, an MCQ. The subject report indicates that 63% of students gave the intended answer, B. Continue reading “PoSWW 49: De-Meaning”
QCAA, VCAA and the Tests of Integrity
We’ve sat on this one for a while, and had not intended to write on it. With recent pronouncements by VCAA, however, we feel we have no choice but to revisit and to update the QCAA story.
QCAA Shows Some More Class
Not total class, but a ton more class than we’ve ever witnessed from VCAA.
This is a lot of times to write about one multiple choice question, but it is important. A month or so ago we posted a PoSWW on a 2022 Queensland MCQ exam question, for which the accompanying exam report indicated the wrong answer. In a second post last week, we noted that QCAA had updated their exam report, to indicate the correct answer and including a footnote flagging that the correction had been made. QCAA has now gone further. Continue reading “QCAA Shows Some More Class”
The Cost of VCAA’s Dissembling
Last month we posted a PoSWW on a 2022 Queensland MCQ exam question, for which the accompanying exam report indicated the wrong answer. It is depressingly unclear why QCAA had not been previously alerted to the error, but a couple weeks after our PoSWW appeared, QCAA updated their exam report: in the amended report QCAA indicates the correct answer (p 27), and they also indicate in a footnote that the correction had been made.
For QCAA to have done this was professional and classy. It was also important. The uncorrected report invited, effectively demanded, a mathematical misconception (on inflection points); by correcting the report, QCAA ensured that their exam-report could no longer be relied upon as an authority for this misconception.
In Victoria, it’s different. Continue reading “The Cost of VCAA’s Dissembling”
PoSWW 36: Signs of Inflection
This one was brought to our attention by Simon the Likeable, and Likeable Daughter of Simon the Likeable. It is a multiple choice question from Queensland’s 2022 Methods Exam Paper 2 (tech-active) (p2), together with the subject report (p 27).