NCEA Level 1 Geometric Reasoning Exam Comments

I made some comments on the geomettric reasoning Level 1 exam paper which appeared on stuff.co.nz last week. It was actually a good exam except for the amount of algebra skills required which would have stumped a good proportion of students. (Algebra, while an integral part of maths should not be so heavily feature in the geometry exam.) Even the Pythagoras question was in terms of a variable r for radius rather than some numeric measurements. I think a Pythagoras and trigonometry question that are straight forward and use numerical measurements should be a given. With unnecessarily tricky questions it means that even if a student doesn't pass this exam, it doesn't mean they can't do geometry. It just means the test confused them because they were used to different types of questions. (Clearly though the excellent questions can require insightful geometric reasoning!) If students can be exposed to the types of questions to be given in these exams then they can prepare the students. This really was set at one level above what it should have been.

There were also two questions that were identical apart but framed in terms of different notation so I guess one of those will have to be culled from the marking schedule otherwise if a student couldn't do one then they couldn't do the other.

The article is at this link: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/99118220/ncea-level-1-maths-exam-not-too-hard--mathemeticians