SW/ Watford exams

[target2016]

Whether the Math test was "easy" or not will be revealed next month

Indications are that it was "easier than expected"; although my inference is based on speaking to just four kids.

Can't wait till Oct!

[fiate2000]

DS2 too reported the math was easier than expected - he claimed to finish in 30 minutes. This is worrying as he tends to miss details and makes silly mistakes when he feels questions are easy.

DS1 reported the same two years ago (he scored >260). So nothing much changed in maths paper. Based on their feedback, it seems new CEM style VR is much tougher than the old VR. Certainly wider vocabulary is needed to get a high score in new style.

Let's see what October offers ..

BTW - shouldn't this thread be in the SW Herts forum?

[Daogroupie]

I don't think it is tougher, it is just different and required a different type of preparation to last year.

I do think that it will produce a different type of Y7 who will be more literary and less numerate. Their insistence on continuing with such an easy Maths paper is bizarre. DAO has upgraded their maths paper twice in recent years and it is now harder than it was in 2012. I expect them to upgrade it again if results carry on edging up. They have also upgraded their English paper by using much harder longer texts with more questions.

By having such an easy Maths paper SW Herts are testing student's technique rather than ability. However all those I know of who sat SW Herts Maths in the morning and Mill Hill second round maths in the afternoon told me that the Mill Hill Maths was even easier than the SW Herts Maths. And this was for the elite 240 who got through to the second round. DG

[noonynunu]

I don't think it is tougher, it is just different and required a different type of preparation to last year.

Fully agree.

I do think that it will produce a different type of Y7 who will be more literary and less numerate. Their insistence on continuing with such an easy Maths paper is bizarre.

Are GCSE & A level pass rates and levels within SW Herts Consortium schools generally higher for maths than English?

In line with the new and possibly harder Maths GCSE, it may be that the maths paper will get harder. The harder English GCSEs could also have been the driver for introducing the CEM VR. WBGS have brought GCSE options forward a year and added extra time to the timetable for Maths & English. Have or will the other schools do the same?

[ToadMum]

More literate, possibly - but why less numerate? Why would you expect a child who was good at English / VR to score badly on an 'easy' maths paper? If the maths paper really was at a level that didn't tax those who are really good at maths, surely the 'top' candidates are just as likely to be good at both. If the VR was more taxing than in previous years, at the top you may or may not have more literate children than was previously the case, although without more information you can't really say for definite, both because the previous years' papers may not have really taxed the most able (a high score only indicates that they were at least of a certain ability, not how much greater than that their ability might be) and because the standardisation process without a 'floor' means that the top x children will get the places, regardless of their real (rather than relative) level of ability.

[Daogroupie]

Able students tend to rush easy Maths papers and make more silly mistakes. Easy papers in my opinion are bad news as it instills false confidence.

There was a post on here a couple of years ago from a parent puzzled that her average maths students had done so much better in the SW Herts Maths paper than her top table male colleagues.

It was simply because she had approached the paper with caution and carefully worked her way through it and they had found the first question easy and then started to rush so made lots of mistakes. She got a place at her first choice school and they did not. DG