Emails fly over NCEA exam mistakes

ROSS GIBLIN/FAIRFAX NZ 

DIDN’T ADD UP: Tina Chen-Xu, 17, says she was confused by some of the questions in the year 12 maths exam.

Teachers say the NCEA maths exams that thousands of students have just completed were riddled with mistakes and contradictions.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life before,” said Rory Barrett, a maths teacher at Auckland’s Macleans College and former head of maths at one of the country’s top schools, Auckland Grammar.

He said he had trawled through each maths exam across NCEA levels 1, 2 and 3 and said there were contradictions and mistakes in at least five papers. He has made an official complaint with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), which adds to the pile it has received in the past two weeks.

French teachers complained last week about a level 1 exam that had bizarre references and was at least two years above the year 11 standard.

Barrett said he had exchanged hundreds of emails with other maths teachers in the past three days and the Auckland Mathematical Association held a meeting last night to discuss the issue.

Read more here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/6065246/Emails-fly-over-NCEA-exam-mistakes

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