One FEL Swoop: The Foundation Error List

This is the (new) newly established home for Foundation Mathematics exam errors. The guidelines are given on the Methods error post, and there is also a Specialist error post, and a (now renamed) General error post (with unchanged link).  As with General Maths, I will not look much at the Foundation exams, only posting errors as they are brought to my attention.

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2023 Exam (No exam yet, discussed here)

MCQ13 The key to the graph is confusing, and wrong. Some indication that “payment” and “interest” are cumulative had to be included.

Q1(c) There are two methods of working out the percentage increase, which give different answers. One method is unlikely to have been considered by students, but this still should not occur.

Q2(e) The question makes zero sense, since it assumes that a person cannot play both a ball sport and a non-ball sport. The question also fails to specify the percentage is of females participating in a sport.

Q6 An awfully written question, throughout confusing usage with market share. There is probably only one plausible way to answer the questions, but this is teaching Not Maths.

Q6(a) The 2022 percentages in the graph do not total to 100%. This in itself is ok, but it leads to two potential answers to (a); one answer is unlikely to be given, but this still should not occur. The graph should have been appropriately labelled.

Q11 The outer rectangle on the diagram doesn’t mean anything and was probably actively confusing.

Witch 113: Smoothing Over the Cracks

This one is a combo WitCH. The main concern is a multiple choice question from last week’s Methods Exam 2. The question may not be an “error” in the newspaper sense, but it is bad. To appreciate some (but far from all) of its badness, however, we need to see VCAA’s solution. We won’t likely see that solution, however however, for months, if ever; transparency is not VCAA’s strong suit (Section 7).

To deal with this, we’ve teamed up last week’s MCQ with a similar MCQ from the 2021 Exam 2, together with VCAA’s solution to that earlier question from the exam report. Last week’s question appears first. Continue reading “Witch 113: Smoothing Over the Cracks”

Witch 108: A Mean Trig

This one, which has been discussed a bit here, comes from the 2023 NHT Methods Exam 2. It is a little strange. There are aspects of the question we like, or at least there are some interesting ideas underlying the question. Nonetheless there is no shortage of crap, and so here we are.

Continue reading “Witch 108: A Mean Trig”

The Two Missing Words on Robodebt

Yeah, “I’m sorry” would have been kinda nice. But those aren’t the missing words.

It was always too much to expect even a façade of contrition from Morrison or Tudge or Miller or Benson, or at least a dozen other down-punching sociopathic thugs. So, although the words of regret are blaring in their absence, the words were not to be expected, they’re not missing as such. The missing words are:

Well, duh. Continue reading “The Two Missing Words on Robodebt”

WitCH 105: Flippin’ Ridiculous

It’s hard to be believe we haven’t already done this one, since it’s been irritating us for years. But in any case it really irritated us again yesterday during a tute, and so here we are.

The following introduction and example, chosen largely but not entirely at random, is from Cambridge’s Specialist Mathematics 3 & 4. Continue reading “WitCH 105: Flippin’ Ridiculous”

WitCH 102: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Map

Some years back, I enrolled in the teaching Masters at the University of Melbourne. I lasted three days.

I can’t remember much specific of the nonsense I was presented, but I do remember clearly a tutorial-workshop in which we students were asked to construct a mind map of something or other. My fellow students went happily to work but I had never heard of such a thing. So I asked, and the kindly tutors explained what a mind map was. My reaction, possibly vocalised, was “What’s the point?” Continue reading “WitCH 102: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Map”

Witch 101: Engagement Party

This one of those lazy WitCHes, where we really should do the work and critique the thing but we just can’t muster the energy to do it. The WitCH is a video, a recent NSW Education conversation-lecture for K-6 teachers: Student Engagement in Mathematics. The star of the show is Catherine Attard, Professor of Mathematics Education at Western Sydney University.* Continue reading “Witch 101: Engagement Party”