When a matric math problem is more than just a problem

A bit over a week ago, Grade 12 pupils got stuck on a question in one of the math exams. It has now been confirmed that question 5.1 in Math Paper 2 contained a mistake and was therefore unsolvable. According to the clever people out there, the answer to the question makes Sin X negative, but the paper wanted X to be in the 1’st quadrant, where every trig ration is positive. 

Eh… WHAT?

For the record: my father was a lecturer in applied mathematics and my mother has a master’s degree in mathematics. Still, the old matric math remained Greek to me (apparently today’s math is a lot more difficult)…

My mother once tried to explain a trigonometry problem to me. “Look,” she exclaimed excitedly. “Look, how it all just falls open!” To me, it remained as clear as mud.

So, I’m thankful to a retired math tutor who explained on Instagram that question 5.1 “…was like asking: pick a number between 1 and 4, but the number must be greater than 5.”

Ja-nee, even I know that won’t work.

Students and their parents were understandably furious. Scholars (and especially their parents) are stressed enough without having to deal with errors in exam papers.

The Department of Basic Education immediately said that they would investigate the matter and the spokesperson, Elijah Mhlanga, confirmed that students would not be disadvantaged. He explained to Cape Talk radio that in the case of an error in the paper, the examiners would be asked to ignore the question and it would therefore not be part of the final mark.

However, students pointed out that they spent too much time trying to figure out this unsolvable problem and that it affected their performance in the paper overall.  

Mhlanga was aware of this and said officials would look at the overall performance of the pupils. “If it is established that the question impacted their exam, the department will ask quality assurance council Umalusi for an upward adjustment of 1% or 2%”, he explained. So, it seems the issue should not have too much of a negative impact on the individual results.

Of course, I agree with those who question why errors are not spotted since the papers are presumably checked by a few people. A few years ago I was really irritated when I saw an Afrikaans paper, where the question did not contain the double negative. I suspect the question was originally written in English and then badly translated. Even though it did not make the question incomprehensible, it was still sloppy and even a cursory read by an Afrikaans person should have identified the mistake.

However, what concerned me most last week was the (predictable) manner with which many lashed out at the government and Department of Education suggesting that it was “typical” of their incompetency and carelessness.

This from the same math tutor: “To the Educational Authorities: Please get your shit together. Or is this just another example of how we do things in South Africa???”

So I wondered if serious mistakes in exam papers were indeed unique to South Africa. Turns out, not so much.

For example: earlier this year in Ireland pupils were left puzzled after a mathematical formula was incorrectly translated into Irish (pupils can write exams in either English or Irish). As was the case here, many students complained bitterly that they spent too much time on the question, since they did not realise there was an error.

In 2013 there was also a serious mistake in one of the math papers, and adjustments had to be made to the results.

That, however, was nothing compared to the United Kingdom where in 2011 exam papers contained a whopping twelve (yes 12!) errors. The government apologised and made adjustments to the results. They also pointed out that there were only twelve mistakes out of a total of 60 000 questions.

I’m not sure how many questions there are in total in the Grade 12 exam here, but according to Umalusi, there were 162 papers - so presumable also a couple of thousand.

So no, it is not typical of how things are done in South Africa. Neither is it a sign of incompetency and carelessness. It is merely an indication of the fact that human beings compile and check these papers and that humans make mistakes.

I wish all the Grade 12 students all the best with their final papers. I realise that this is a very stressful time and that the final results are important for admissions to colleges, institutes and universities next year. However, please remember after January 2023 it is highly unlikely that anyone will ever ask you again what you achieved on this exam. So, keep cool and keep things in perspective.

Originally written for News24