Edexcel Maths Paper: Goes Trending on Twitter - Too hard - Polidicks

This actually ended up making the news in this country; I sat it earlier today really difficult paper that a lot of people had trouble with. [url]http://www.itv.com/news/2015-06-04/students-mock-their-gcse-edexcelmaths-exam-on-twitter/[/url] [QUOTE]Thousands of GCSE students took their Edexcel maths exam this morning and it seems to have been a bit of a challenge for many of them. The hashtag#Edexcelmaths has been a top trending item across the UK as students took to Twitter to express their frustration and to mock the examination body.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/06/04/gcse-students-traumatised-maths-exam-trending_n_7511082.html[/url] [QUOTE]It's not often you see something as erm, academic, as an exam board trending on Twitter, so when we saw the world and his wife tweeting about #EdexcelMaths we did a double take.[/QUOTE] [url]https://twitter.com/search?q=%23EdexcelMaths&src=tyah[/url] - Hashtag in question; had a good laugh with this. [IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGpodMeWQAAkTrh.jpg[/IMG] Highlights included: Karl raising £10 for charity after getting 100 fucking people to play his dice rolling game. Hannah has n sweets, 6 are orange and the rest are yellow. The chance of her getting two orange sweets is 1/3. [B]Prove N^2 - N - 90 = 0[/B] Leaked finished version of the paper went out but got deleted and someone made a fucking petition: [url]http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lower-the-grade-boundaries-for-edexcel-paper-1h[/url] EDIT: Nearly forgot this article from a few months ago: [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32831905[/url] Exam board it's talking about was the one doing this exam and the AQA test they mention as too easy turned out to be pretty easy on the actual day.

snip i obviously cannot pass this exam either

[QUOTE=NixNax123;47878660]n is obviously 10, you don't even have to read the problem come on[/QUOTE] Have to provide proof through the sweets. Solving N was the second part of the question.

[QUOTE=NixNax123;47878660]snip i obviously cannot pass this exam either[/QUOTE] The question is just a total fucking word salad though (assuming that is how it was written on the paper).

[QUOTE=Tobba;47878688]The question is just a total fucking word salad though (assuming that is how it was written on the paper).[/QUOTE] It leads you on into thinking "Oh just a simple probability ques- OH MY GOODNESS"

Been a big fiasco over the COMP1 AS Level exam as well. The exam board fucked with us by inventing their own version of chess, back pedalling on all of the suggested possible questions by actively not including any of the practised solutions in the [URL="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Computing/AQA/Problem_Solving,_Programming,_Data_Representation_and_Practical_Exercise"]wikibooks[/URL] and included a random question at the end about a weird form of chess FEN encoding. Ended up spawning a hitler rant video. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWLxu_uBaUk&feature=youtu.be[/media]

P(choose two oranges) = 6/n * 5/(n-1) = 1/3 => 30/(n^2 - n) = 1/3 90 = n^2 - n n^2 - n - 90 = 0 take that, 16 year olds

I took this exam today and to be honest I felt it was easier than the older ones that we did in class, then again last time I thought that I ended get an E grade on the paper.

I know someone that did it and they said it was horrible, but a hard paper usually means low grade boundaries anyway.

Now I know why I gave up math in 10th grade to concentrate on the pure sciences. :v:

[QUOTE=Turnips5;47878721]P(choose two oranges) = 6/n * 5/(n-1) = 1/3 => 30/(n^2 - n) = 1/3 90 = n^2 - n n^2 - n - 90 = 0 take that, 16 year olds[/QUOTE] Goddamnit its like high school math all over again Wait, it is

Man, that hashtag reminded me of my favourite thing about taking exams, the camaraderie in complaining about them afterwards. [editline]4th June 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Turnips5;47878721]P(choose two oranges) = 6/n * 5/(n-1) = 1/3 => 30/(n^2 - n) = 1/3 90 = n^2 - n n^2 - n - 90 = 0 take that, 16 year olds[/QUOTE] I'm glad people like you exist so I can pay you to do the dirty work.

I'm so glad that when I did my GCSE's it was apparently the easiest Maths exam there had ever been

I'm glad I don't have to deal with these kind of fascist math tests in high school anymore Now I'm doing them in college

[QUOTE=Turnips5;47878721]P(choose two oranges) = 6/n * 5/(n-1) = 1/3 => 30/(n^2 - n) = 1/3 90 = n^2 - n n^2 - n - 90 = 0 take that, 16 year olds[/QUOTE] Have a heart though; I spent 10 minutes wondering how this didn't work because I forgot that it's not 5/n x 6/n instead of 5/n x 6/n-1.

Huh, there was similar complaints about the Scottish Higher Maths paper too ([URL="http://glasgow.stv.tv/articles/1321227-school-pupils-set-up-campaign-over-sqa-higher-maths-toughness/"]article[/URL]).

[QUOTE=Bo98;47878899]Huh, there was similar complaints about the Scottish Higher Maths paper too ([URL="http://glasgow.stv.tv/articles/1321227-school-pupils-set-up-campaign-over-sqa-higher-maths-toughness/"]article[/URL]).[/QUOTE] Yeah this was in related for the 3rd article posted around the same time. Back when they were getting the mocks in.

I would love to see some of the actual problems. I am unsure whether it is just kids complaining or a legitimately hard test.

[QUOTE=Turnips5;47878721]P(choose two oranges) = 6/n * 5/(n-1) = 1/3 => 30/(n^2 - n) = 1/3 90 = n^2 - n n^2 - n - 90 = 0 take that, 16 year olds[/QUOTE] You know when people say "when are we going to use this in life" during class in school? this is type shit they're talking about. I dont care what the probably of grabbing a damn orange sweet is. If I wanted an orange sweet in a grab bag of colors I'd eat all of them anyway

[QUOTE=Ceil;47878972]I would love to see some of the actual problems. I am unsure whether it is just kids complaining or a legitimately hard test.[/QUOTE] Honestly it really wasnt, there were a few doosie of a questions like the one in the OP, but in general a lot of the questions weren't that hard bar a few that were pretty stupid.

Took this one today, it wasn't [i]too[/i] hard, although I never did get to the end of the paper. Everyone I spoke to about it thought it was piss easy. This country, man. I almost burst out laughing in the exam when I found out Karl raised £10 from [b]100 fucking people[/b]. Fucking £10.

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47878992]You know when people say "when are we going to use this in life" during class in school? this is type shit they're talking about. I dont care what the probably of grabbing a damn orange sweet is. If I wanted an orange sweet in a grab bag of colors I'd eat all of them anyway[/QUOTE] But the fact that it's a stupidly-posed question does not make the techniques useless. At my work there are 64 electric golf carts and one of the chargers wasn't working. Someone I work with wanted to know the chance that the same cart would end up at the broken charger two days in a row.

[QUOTE=Code3Response;47878992]You know when people say "when are we going to use this in life" during class in school? this is type shit they're talking about. I dont care what the probably of grabbing a damn orange sweet is. If I wanted an orange sweet in a grab bag of colors I'd eat all of them anyway[/QUOTE] these problems give you a chance to exercise critical thinking skills. it's never about sweets [QUOTE=ijyt;47878771]I'm glad people like you exist so I can pay you to do the dirty work.[/QUOTE] to be fair to the kids I am about to graduate with a masters degree in physics

That's the problem with those kind of questions It's never helped me learn math if the question doesn't make any practical sense to me. Its usually why I struggle with word problems sometimes

Some of these tweets about it are fucking hilarious though, I must say.

Students now have a way to complain to more people than classmates about their tests

[QUOTE=KillerLUA;47878720]Been a big fiasco over the COMP1 AS Level exam as well. The exam board fucked with us by inventing their own version of chess, back pedalling on all of the suggested possible questions by actively not including any of the practised solutions in the [URL="http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Computing/AQA/Problem_Solving,_Programming,_Data_Representation_and_Practical_Exercise"]wikibooks[/URL] and included a random question at the end about a weird form of chess FEN encoding. Ended up spawning a hitler rant video. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWLxu_uBaUk&feature=youtu.be[/media][/QUOTE] Last year they got higher or lower and we get a bloody medieval middle eastern version of chess coded in a really convoluted and over complex fashion simply to show off parts of the course. I don't about you but I bollocks'd up COMP1 so bad. Pretty sure I didn't get a single mark for that FEN crap either.

[QUOTE=Tobba;47878688]The question is just a total fucking word salad though (assuming that is how it was written on the paper).[/QUOTE] How's it a word salad? The wording that OP used is about as plain as it gets. After that it's simple probability.

I didn't understand that it was the question at first and then I was slightly put off by the discrepancy between the first and the second question. But... Come on, the solution or what the question is asking for becomes clear as day the moment you write it out as if you were trying to solve the odds of her picking two orange candies in row. And the fact that this was an exam makes my first problem of not understanding that it was a question pretty moot. I have to say though, none of this reflects whether this is an appropriate question for GCSEs. I really don't know about the pre-uni education in the UK and whether this question was suitable for the level of the students to make a call. I really think it is a good question in the sense that the solution becomes apparent if you just think about it a second to make sense of what the question is about (calculating odds) and then using the steps you (hopefully) have been taught on how to deal with calculating odds.

[QUOTE=Saxon;47879026]That's the problem with those kind of questions It's never helped me learn math if the question doesn't make any practical sense to me. Its usually why I struggle with word problems sometimes[/QUOTE] Why does it have to have a practical use? Plenty of things taught in schools aren't taught because they're useful, they're taught because they train your logical and critical thinking skills.