Thousands of year 12 students across Western Australia have just received their long-awaited ATAR results.
The final exams are known to be challenging, with questions designed to analyse how well students understand what they studied.
Dr Brendan Florio.Credit: Holly Thompson
But some questions are harder than others and may take up a significant portion of the three hours allocated, especially when compared to the number of marks on offer.
One question from the mathematics specialist exam, broken down into three sub-questions worth nine marks total, had a marking key over two pages long.
Murdoch University mathematics lecturer Dr Brendan Florio took a look at the question.
“Time wise, Part A should be quick. It was a fairly standard calculation,” Florio said. Students averaged 95 per cent of possible marks for this section.
“Part B is a little trickier, but Part C is a discriminator question – it really separates out the top students from the rest.
“I would say if students spot a question like that, if they’re not confident, if they can’t get the marks quickly, then move on and come back and at the end if they have time.”
In Part B students averaged over 43 per cent of possible marks while in Part C, they averaged just over 35 per cent.
Florio said the time students would have to spend to get the four marks allocated was “probably better spent elsewhere”.
He admitted the first time he had worked through the problem, which involves calculus and geometry, he had gotten it wrong.
“I was looking at it and thinking ‘that answer doesn’t make sense’. The question was grounded in reality, and my answer wasn’t reasonable,” he said.
“Making mistakes is normal, but being able to do a sanity check at the end and go back and check your own work is something that all students should be doing.”
Florio said another trick was that the question was mathematically abstract, meaning it transformed a real situation, described in words, into a “bunch of numbers”.
“It’s one of the things that makes maths really powerful, but it’s also what makes it difficult because you have to think in a very different way.
“The situation they described doesn’t make sense according to the laws of physics, but from a mathematical abstraction point of view, it does.”
Florio also taught year 12 physics and took a look at several questions from that exam.
He said they were both challenging, and was impressed by the average mark students had achieved.
The questions used real scenarios, which was one way to increase engagement in school, Florio said.
Florio said even if a student struggled with maths or physics in high school, he would encourage them to give it a go at university.
“I don’t believe in this whole ‘I’m a maths person, I’m not a maths person’ thing, but some students do need more time to familiarise themselves,” he said.
“A student who struggles in year 12 might start to get a handle of it by the time they’re a first or second year.”
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.