There’s an article on the Beeb about the decline in standards for maths exams in the UK (that’s math for our colonial readers). The decline set in from 1990, which I could have told you already; I left high school in 89, and we generally agreed that the year before us was the last year to do ‘proper’ tough exams, we had it a fraction easier, and from there on it was downhill.
The bit that really caught my eye was the following statement, which I hereby nominate for Best. Sentence. Evah.
This has led to mathematics at university being compromised and able-students (sic) being neglected, and has cost the economy billions of pounds in lost mathematicians.
One Comment
Yes, we go to Math class to study Mathematics.
I can remember in third grade being expected to complete a time test of 100 problems addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division in 3 minutes.
My kids aren’t anywhere close to that (PDD), but from my asking of the teachers the other kids aren’t expected to do anything near that. Of course, we treated it as competition and someone might get their feelings hurt if they did that.